A law from the 1990s requires all candidates to list on their signature petitions any name changes within five years.... Not only is there nowhere to put it on the petition, but it isn’t included in the secretary of state’s 2024 candidate guide. It hasn't been on any candidate guides in recent years. News 5 reached out to the office with numerous clarifying questions, like why the name change isn't included in the 33-page guide, but did not hear back.
There's a problem with the petition and and the candidate guide and perhaps also with the law requiring disclosure of recent name changes.
But I'd also like to discuss the harshness of the statement that one's past self is "a dead person who is gone and buried." I had thought "dead naming" was considered bad because someone in the present is denying the transgender person the courtesy of using the name they have chosen to be addressed by in the present. Is typical for a transgender person to see their past self as dead — dead and buried? That seems so hostile and hateful toward oneself.
And yet, it corresponds with the idea in Christianity of being reborn. St. Paul wrote: "We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life...."
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78 comments:
Knots. Tied up in woke knots. What do these people do about tax returns for example -- is there an IRS form covering name changes, I wonder.
There's a problem with the petition and the candidate guide, but definitely not with the law. If someone wants to represent the people, their history must be examinable.
Do they also give up social security/retirement credits accrued under the dead name? How about degrees earned?
If someone commits murder, but then transitions is that supposed to be a get out of jail card?
Do voters not have the right to know if there was a criminal history prior to the transition?
I’m tired of playing let’s pretend.
But in the trans community …
Well, that’s the problem right there. Vanessa Joy is not running for an office just within the trans community. She is running for office within the greater community and so it behooves Vanessa to show that she can and will abide by the laws and regulations — and all the laws and regulations — of that greater community.
That seems so hostile and hateful toward oneself.
I think our host is trolling us.
Or, just possibly, being more charitable towards the understanding of gender dysphoria as a reflection of an underlying reality, rather than a mental disorder, than I can possibly be.
I have lots of sympathy for the sufferers of this malady, and very little for those who "treat" it by affirmation.
Here’s a good one, do they need to get re-vaccinated after they transition?
c
I filled out plenty of forms that required me to provide any other names I may have used in previous legal filings. I think there is a real problem if a person can simply change their name and then file to run as a politician while failing to disclose previous public business under another name. Certainly, instructions should be clear, and those that wrote and enforce poor instructions should be fired for incompetence. However, I don't think the law is bad.
I think the religious connotation is off. Trying to insist that someone else's idea of religion is what other people practice or supposedly believe is fraught with bad assumptions. It was perhaps better noting that such a thought seems like a harmful thought to one's past self.
Althouse writes, "...dead and buried? That seems so hostile and hateful toward oneself."
Early Christianity has several examples of ascetic communities that demanded castration as a rite of admission. However, the Church eventually condemned that practice as an example of the mortal sin of despair.
"And yet, it corresponds with the idea in Christianity of being reborn. St. Paul wrote: "We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?"
I'm not seeing the correspondence. It's ironic that you cite Paul, formerly Saul of Tarsus; he and a few others (Matthew/Levi, Barnabas/Joseph, Mark/John) had name changes but never made anything about their previous names, at least not as recorded.
The impetus of the trans movement seems to be about two things: disrupting norms, and discouraging reproduction. Both fit in nicely with radical left ideology. It's a bit of a jump to see it as analogous to rebirth.
Wait, this person isn't old enough to serve in the Ohio House. Evidently, "new" Vanessa is only five years old.
Seriously, isn't it a bit over the top for a transgender to deny that there's any continuity between the person they used to be and the person they're claiming to be now?
Asking people to accept that you are a different sex than you were five years ago is one thing. Asking them to accept that you are literally a different human who didn't exist five years ago is pretty extreme and unrealistic.
@Althouse: And yet, it corresponds with the idea in Christianity of being reborn. St. Paul wrote: "We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?
The woke and transgendered ideology has (inadvertently or strategically?) recreated 1980s fundamentalist Christianity in word and deed. The fundamentalists were heavy into baptism, being "born again" to cast aside old ways, gathering and singing songs in unison, "re-virginity" for those who were no longer virgins, conducting anti-gay conversion therapy to "fix" homosexuality, and relying on visible signage (e.g., fishes or crosses on bumper stickers or emblems) to prove their faith and change the world.
The problem with woke and transgenderism today is that practitioners do not have internal awareness of it being a simple religion, and current Dem administrations buy their votes through bullying state-religion tactics to enforce quasi-religious rules and are plainly out of bounds.
My pronouns are Sir, Master, and Xenophagomucosoxivousnette. My Dead Name is Vladimir Napoleon Mao. Use them correctly or I'll bring in my herd of boys from Brazil to set you straight.
"Joy"
snicker
Voters should have the right to know that they'll be forced to play pretend if they vote for the guy.
This is so incredibly selfish. Which is pretty much on brand.
So if a man - we'll call him "Bruce" for this example - decides to transition into a woman in late middle age, after a long life as a man, including fathering several children, what happens to his time as a father? What happens to all those memories, good and bad, that his kids have? They experienced a whole childhood growing up with a loving, if occasionally oblivious or frustrating, father named Bruce.
But now those kids - maybe adults now, maybe just teens - are told that all those childhood memories are really a giant lie - because there was never a Bruce and they never had a male parent. That their former father has psychically buried his male corpse and been resurrected as an unconvincing woman who is frighteningly good at golf, for a woman.
WTF? How does that even work?
Vanessa Joy said...
"I would have had to have my dead name on my petitions. But in the trans community, our dead names are dead; there's a reason it's dead — that is a dead person who is gone and buried." (emphasis added)
That's why the Democrats are so pro-Trans. They see an opportunity to pick up an extra vote.
Quaestor said...
"Early Christianity has several examples of ascetic communities that demanded castration as a rite of admission. However, the Church eventually condemned that practice as an example of the mortal sin of despair."
I take it those communities died out?
I think the requirement to supply one's former name(s) for the ballot is both legally sound and eminently practical. Voters can't know too much about someone seeking authority over their lives.
Voter: Before you were Ms. Attribution, weren't you known as Charles Paisley the baby crusher, a notorious associate of Doug and Dinsdale Pirahna?
Candidate: Police! Arrest that dead-naming cis swine.
Well... When you're dead, you're dead.
Perhaps I can write a will giving all to my new trans name, say I am a girl, and then inherit from my dead self. Then I can reset my stock basis to market and pay no tax on my capital gains! Good deal.
I like how the story ignores who filed to have "her" disqualified. I bet if you dig into the matter, another Democrat candidate for the same office is the one who is behind the disqualification.
I expect no less than cult-like behavior from a cult.
Sounds like the Great Gatsby
Becoming dead to sin is not the same as repudiating the individual God created you to be. Atheists strikes again. Ignorantly.
"That seems so hostile and hateful toward oneself."
Inching toward trans truth: it is the socially sanctioned expression of self-hatred.
"And yet, it corresponds with the idea in Christianity of being reborn."
Vaguely. But does the reborn sinner "hate" the former self? If I'm not mistaken, there's some teaching about love in there somewhere.
"And yet, it corresponds with the idea in Christianity of being reborn."
More like converting to Islam.
You’re right, gender ideology has echoes of Christianity’s call to be reborn. That’s because gender ideology is an anti gospel. It is a deception of the devil, who traffics in half truths.
“Hostile and hateful towards oneself “ is the root of Depression . No wonder these brain washed kids finally commit so much suicide. BUT it makes the Medical-industrial complex billions of dollars , so what the hell. Make it mandatory and cancel their parents’ authority like California does while pretending they care.
Althouse writes, "...dead and buried? That seems so hostile and hateful toward oneself."
It's psychologically unhealthy to hate your younger self that much. Seriously. Your younger self is still you, so to hate your younger self, you are still hating yourself.
Maybe that's why we've now had two mass shootings by trans people.
People, doctors included, are feeding into their mental illness rather than treating it.
No matter how much someone has changed, they should never be encouraged to hate their younger selves that much.
Warning: avoid Paul’s theology of substitutionary atonement or you might wake up believing it. Then you will be branded a hateful Calvinist.
Simulated or groomed gender in the transgender spectrum. Homosexual?
"In the trans community". Right. A "community" consisting of a bunch of deranged perverts, hoping somehow to prey upon the sane people they live among. Isn't that special.
>Ann Althouse said...
Is typical for a transgender person to see their past self as dead — dead and buried? That seems so hostile and hateful toward oneself.<
Is there something that has led you to believe that they don't hate themselves? What might that be?
Spontaneous conception is a dogmatic faith of moderately progressive liberal sects. However, trans/sims are conceived as male or female sex, then for reason of misandry or misogyny transform their gender or sex-correlated attributes to simulate abortion of their burden. Tran/socials change their clothing. Trans/homos change their sexual orientation.
Ignorance of the law is no excuse.
@Althouse, considering what happened last March when Audrey Hale showed up at The Convent School in Nashville, Tenn., and again yesterday when Dylan Butler came to Perry High School in Perry, Iowa, it seems that when someone who is trans says “dead” they mean dead.
Hmmm?
The relationship between Vanessa Joy's words and St Paul is not one analogy but parody. When I baptize an adult, they will often--but only sometimes--take a new name. But there is nothing in the Christian tradition that implies that the person they were before baptism is now dead. Nor is the use of a person's previous name considered offensive. In fact, many of us with a legal name anda baptismal name will use both depending on circumstances.
Having died with Christ to rise with Him doesn't mean I am ashamed of my pre-baptismal identity. Rather having been forgiven by the God Who loves me, means I shouldn't hate myself or hate my past.
It is perfectly reasonable that anyone disclose any prior names, legal or otherwise, when dealing with important matters. The fact that the person is transgender is not relevant. The point is to be able to investigate the person's background. I do agree that if you are going to require this information, it should be on the form and manual so the user knows the requirement. That said, I do suspect that this particular candidate was not particularly serious as any serious candidate would have known this or had people who would have known this.
As to the absurd proposition that the old name is "dead and gone," I think any debt collectors would like to differ. And the penal system. And numerous other systems. Or did this person have their memories wiped as part of the "gender affirming" care? This person is very unserious.
This seems like a vindictive way to remove someone who isn't going to win in a deeply red district. Can't she just run in a future election and follow the law? Or is there an Ohio law barring women with big man-hands from running for office?
The taboo against "dead naming" is another piece of self-serving tranny claptrap that should be ignored, and "dead names" should be used anywhere they would normally be used, such as reporting crime stories.
The mentally ill shouldn't be able to rewrite legal statutes at will based on their precious feels.
There are two biological sexes: If you have XX chromosomes, you are a woman. If you have XY chromosomes, you are a man. Everything else is genetic abnormality or sophistry.
Althouse:
And yet, it corresponds with the idea in Christianity of being reborn.
Considering behavior, more like a vampire's raising.
"There's a problem with the petition... and perhaps also with the law requiring disclosure of recent name changes."
I think I want to know if, say, Bob Menendez was running to be my senator and he had changed his name recently.
This person is/was a sex worker and filed for BK under his birth name. Andy Ngo on X has the story, but for some reason I can't find him on X right now.
The best example I know to prove that prior names of politicians are necessary information for voters is not to be found on Wikipedia. I wonder who managed to exclude it.
In 1978, Goodloe Byron, Jr. was a Democratic congressman from Maryland (Frederick and everything west of there) who was so popular that the Republicans didn't bother to nominate anyone to oppose him. A skid-row bum from Baltimore named Melvin Perkins filed for the nomination, and filed as a pauper so he didn't even have to pay the $100 filing fee. Three weeks before the election, Goodloe Byron had a fatal heart attack while jogging. That was past the filing deadline, but not past the ballot-printing deadline, so when election day came around, Melvin Perkins was running unopposed.
Perkins was a total clown. I read the Washington Post every day back then, and vividly remember two particular bits - there were lots more:
1. The day after Byron died, Perkins took a bus to D.C. to 'claim his seat and his salary' and they told him he needed to get elected first, because there could be a write-in.
2. In one TV interview, a reporter shouted out "Where'd you get those pants?" since they were way too large for him, and Perkins said "They're my girlfriend's other boyfriend's pants. He's in jail so he don't need 'em." (Quoted from 45-year-old memory, but at least 90% word-for-word accurate).
Anyway, Byron's widow Beverly was personable, and three weeks was enough to organize a write-in, so she ended up winning 89-10, and served several terms.
Getting to my point, finally:
Some months after losing the election, Melvin Perkins went to court to legally change his name to "Goodloe Byron, Jr.", openly saying that he figured most of the voters in the district didn't realize that the Byron they'd most recently elected was not Goodloe, so he could easily confuse them and defeat her with a new name. I assume the court rejected his application, but I don't specifically recall. Surely they must have.
As for my initial remarks, I am flabbergasted that Wikipedia has no entry for Melvin Perkins, and the articles on Goodloe and Beverly Byron not only don't mention his name, they don't even mention that her victory was a write-in. I had to find the page listing the 1978 results of all Congressional races to get Perkins' name. I remembered that it was very similar to the name of the host of Wild Kingdom, Marlin Perkins, but the only similar name I could think of was Marvin, and Marvin Perkins is a black Mormon video producer. So who is keeping Melvin Perkins off of Wikipedia, despite his obvious importance and interest? The Byron family? Maryland Democrats? Maryland Republicans?
Besides the 1978 Congressional results, I did find one more glancing reference to him on Wikipedia. The page on the 1987 Baltimore mayoral election says a 'Melvin Perkins' (surely the same guy, though there's a black politician with the same name in Kansas) got 10.4% of the vote in the Republican primary - the same percentage he got running for Byron's seat. Baltimore is so heavily Democratic a city that that was only 534 votes. I wonder whether he cleaned up and got off Skid Row, or there were 534 Baltimorons willing to vote for a Skid Row bum.
Too bad Wikipedia won't tell me whether Perkins is still alive and what else he's been doing in the last 45 years. I could try searching the Baltimore Sun archives, but I shouldn't have to.
It the former person is dead, then why is Deirdre McCloskey upset that her children won't have anything to do with her? Their father is dead.
Trans folks are not known for their forgiving nature. Quite the contrary.
Are trans 'women' 'reborn' as virgins?
"But in the trans community, our dead names are dead; there's a reason it's dead — that is a dead person who is gone and buried."
That's a control function. Transsexuals exerting control over other transsexuals by holy writ.
Asserting authority seems to be a fundamental component of the transsexual movement.
"And yet, it corresponds with the idea in Christianity of being reborn"
It does not.
In Christianity, through the sacrament of Baptism, one is reborn in Christ, who is already alive; one takes on the identity of Christ through addition, becoming more real.
One does not became a "new person" through pretense, mutilation, castration or plastic surgery;you simply becomes less of who you are through subtraction, becoming less real.
--- Early Christianity has several examples of ascetic communities that demanded castration as a rite of admission.
Not to mention the time when Paul told some of the Galatians to cut their balls off. (G5:12)
The chapter had started out so well, too, you can see how those agitators really got Paul's Irish up.
That seems so hostile and hateful toward oneself.
It seems particularly spiteful and hateful towards the parents who named the child and (presumably/hopefully) loved the child.
"a dead person who is gone and buried"
In the immortal words of Thornton Melon "...tell that to the bank."
No this is perversion of chritianity of nature
I'm curious what happened in the late 80s or early 90s that necessitated the law's passage.
And yet, it corresponds with the idea in Christianity of being reborn..."
Not at all. Render unto Cesar, etc etc.
Cool! your mental deformity keeps you from running for office! Yay!
Sorry not sorry: you don't get to say "I'm trans" and wipe the slate clean. We you a rapist? A child molester? Somer other sort of criminal? You have to carry that with you if you want to run for public office.
We dont' care about your delusions
MadTownGuy said...
I'm not seeing the correspondence. It's ironic that you cite Paul, formerly Saul of Tarsus; he and a few others (Matthew/Levi, Barnabas/Joseph, Mark/John) had name changes but never made anything about their previous names, at least not as recorded.
Um, no. He was "Saul" when talking to a Jewish crowd, and "Paul" when talking to Gentiles. As far as I know, that continued until the day he died
My point about Christianity is that Paul spoke of the person of the past as having *died*
This is not about the transgendered, it's about changing names. If a transgender candidate doesn't change names after transitioning, they will not be disqualified.
Too bad Wikipedia won't tell me whether Perkins is still alive and what else he's been doing in the last 45 years. I could try searching the Baltimore Sun archives, but I shouldn't have to.
https://www.baltimoresun.com/1993/10/20/great-and-gruff-character-melvin-perkins-passes-into-legend/
By Dan Rodricks | drodricks@baltsun.com
PUBLISHED: October 20, 1993 at 12:00 a.m.
Somewhere along the way, we lost track of Melvin Perkins. A lot of people thought he was dead.
He is.
Melvin died after a heart attack July 30, two weeks before his 70th birthday, and we’re just now catching word of this Maryland legend’s passing. Sorry about this breakdown in our journalistic vigil. I hadn’t heard from Melvin since 1986 when he called collect from a nursing home. We know he was a candidate for mayor in 1987 (and many times before that). But apparently none who knew of Melvin’s death fully appreciated his life and thought call the obit desk.
For the record, Melvin was one of the great, albeit gruff, characters of all time, a perennial candidate in constant need of a shave and a shower. His presence on the Maryland political scene was like crab grass — not pretty, but something you could count on. He was the Skid Row candidate; when he ran for public office, he did so as a pauper. (As a matter of fact, one of Melvin’s many civil suits established the right of paupers to run for office without paying the usual filing fee.)
Running for mayor in 1983, he promised housing for his brethren poor, many of whom had been displaced with the demise of pensioner hotels. “The mayor [William Donald Schaefer] says there are no flophouses in Baltimore,” Melvin declared. “Well, then! Let’s build one!”
He was the wise fool, espousing a political philosophy cultivated in hoosegows and saloons from Baltimore to Hagerstown. “We’ve had plenty of congressmen who ended up in jail,” he cracked. “What’s wrong with a congressman who started out in jail?”
In 1978, Rep. Goodloe Byron, the incumbent Democrat from Western Maryland, died during his re-election campaign. That left Melvin the unopposed Republican in the 6th Congressional District, and the episode received national press attention. Byron’s widow, Beverly, won the election. But for a few brief, grungy moments, Melvin Perkins had the spotlight. He even went to court to get his name changed to Goodloe Byron. A judge denied his request.
Dr Weevil said...
I am flabbergasted that Wikipedia has no entry for Melvin Perkins..
I'd like to take this time, to say.. ON THIS ISSUE; i COMPLETELY AGREE with Dr Weevil, so much so;
That i give him my advance consent to ridicule my using ALL CAPS.
Thank YOU, Dr Weevil for bringing this important man to our attention..
And for showing WHY name change records are Important
People have legal right to change their birth name, but not right to demand prosecution of folks who misspeak and use their former name. Call yourself "John" or "Mary", whatever your current legal (not self-appointed) name is, then skip checking "sex" and "prefix" boxex, and proceed with caution.
Re: Althouse:
Is typical for a transgender person to see their past self as dead — dead and buried? That seems so hostile and hateful toward oneself.
My impression, as someone who is sympathetic to people who claim to be transgender but not at all sympathetic to the idea that being transgender is real, is that this is extremely common among Americans who claim to be transgender, and is the whole reason they coined the term "deadname." And it doesn't surprise me that they feel that way.
Leaving aside the autogynephiliacs, I think many young adults and adolescents who embrace a transgender identity are experiencing a deep dissatisfaction with their existing selves -- both their physical bodies and their past actions and experiences -- and claiming to be a different sex offers them an avenue to wipe the slate clean and dissociate themselves entirely from who they were, or rather the parts of who they were that they prefer to forget (they usually don't want their relationships to start over from zero, after all). Policing "deadnames" is important to them because it provides a social legitimation of the idea that their new, transgender self is someone different, not just the same person wearing different clothes or going by a different name.
I don't think this is true of all people claiming to be transgender -- e.g. I think autogynephiliacs just get off on forcing other people to participate nonconsensually in their fetish. And there are people who claim to be "genderfluid" who don't insist on that sharp, permanent discontinuity between the male and female identities. But I do think the idea of the former self being someone different who is dead and whose name is now taboo is core to the current explosion in transgender claims among young people. There's a parallel, I think, with the recent fad of young adults and adolescents claiming to have self-diagnosed dissociative identity disorder with multiple personalities or "alters." I think they're both forms or patterns people are adopting to evade the stresses of being themselves, and getting the people around them to cooperate and reinforce the separation between identities is important to their egos as a result.
It's not entirely dissimilar to born again Christians, I think, especially those who are turning to religion after a great trauma, disruption, or failure in their life.
Jesus was resurrected as Jesus, not Jessica. The latter is a warped dream of Herr Mengele, Levine et al of progressive, secular sects.
These people are fucking lunatics.
I will not be a part of their looney-tunes world.
So I suppose that nobody will get upset when Donalda Trumpesta petitions to be on the CO and ME ballots.
I agree with Althouse. Don't keep people off the ballots for technical BS. But if you are going to run, don't pretend to be someone else.
Speaking of "dead and buried," that's what is happening to the victim in yesterday's Iowa school shooting by another member of the LGBT+ community who claimed to be "gender fluid." This country was a lot safer when mentally ill people were institutionalized rather than coddled and celebrated for their 'bravery.'
I can see a similarity between Paul's experience and the trans person with their dead name. Paul's dead name was Saul. He was hostile toward his earlier identity, calling all of his achievements dung. He even said that he had been crucified and no longer lived himself. Anyone with a dramatic conversion experience may think of their earlier self as dead. Gender transition is its own kind of conversion too.
Is there a burial rite? (Paging Pope Francis!) I'm picturing a cemetery with gravestones:
Here lies P Johnson. A real Dick.
Schrödinger's tranny.
Blogger joshbraid said...
"And yet, it corresponds with the idea in Christianity of being reborn"
It does not.
Be easy, Josh. The idea is more likely to have occurred to her while discussing cheeses at Whole Foods than discussing Jesus at Sunday School.
The new self has not reached the age of majority. Under their interpretation they are not old enough to run for office.
@Dr Weevil
There is an Eddie Murphy movie whose plot is similar to your story, except it Eddie's character is a con man.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Distinguished_Gentleman
I wonder if that is where they got the ideal?
Balfegor: very thoughtful. But it's not just the autogyenophiliacs who demand constant attention to their fetish. The other fetish operating here is being a victim in our victims priviledging society. I've seen this especially in the young women who are getting sex change operations.
Remember the Ellen James society in The World according to Garp, where women "protested the patriarchy" by cutting out their own tongues in memory of an 11-year-old whose rapist cut out Ellen's tongue so she couldn't identify him? It came flying back to me the other day when I asked a young girl who was bragging about her upcoming "top surgery." I was trying to talk her out of it as we were in line waiting for a bathroom. "I'm fighting the white male patriarchy," she said.
This is the opposite if forgetting the past. It is literally self-infantilization, or permanent adolescence. It is demanding to stay there, and blazoning your bravery in rejecting "the man," and everyone must continually recognize your "sacrifice" to join the sacrificial group, self-destroying as it is.
And the act of becoming transgender is literally a rejection of new life, not the validation of the possibility of being better in regeneration, body, heart, and soul. It is cutting off, literally, the opportunity to grow, change, and create new life.
The metaphor is entirely contrary to Christian apologetics. Remember, Christ will rise again from the dead. He was the vessel impregnated with our sins so he could open the doors to Heaven, a birth metaphor that bears no relation to transgenderism.
Believe it, or reject it, but don't misrepresent the believers. This is easy stuff to research and cite accurately.
Tina said..
It is literally self-infantilization, or permanent adolescence
There's a Reason Why they sell them as "puberty blockers", instead of chemical castration
Ron Winkleheimer (6:51am yesterday):
At first I thought you were saying Melvin Perkins got the idea from an Eddie Murphy movie, which he couldn't have since it came out later. Now I see that you wrote "they" (the movie-makers) may have gotten the idea from him. Seems likely. If they did so consciously, I hope they thought to send him a couple hundred so he could buy pants that fit.
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