Last year, Sammi Mrowka, a graduate student at San Diego State University who is nonbinary and transgender, completed the legal process for changing their name and gender marker on IDs. Mrowka, who uses “he” and “they” pronouns, participated in a name and gender marker change clinic run by law students at the University of San Diego, who helped him fill out the paperwork.
“It was worth it to go through all of the mental stress and gymnastics with these government offices to finally get the relief of, for example, going to a doctor’s office and not having to worry about them using my deadname or misgendering me,” Mrowka said. “I can feel the huge, huge relief, realizing how intense it was every single day having to think about all that, to now, where everything’s done.”
University of San Diego and Loyola Marymount University, both Catholic colleges, host name and gender marker change clinics run by law students. The clinics assist trans and nonbinary people in California who want to change their name and/or gender marker on documents like birth certificates, marriage licenses, driver’s licenses, passports, and social security cards.
Accurate IDs allow trans and nonbinary people to live more safely and gain access to resources and public spaces. Accurate IDs can also reduce the risk of harassment, discrimination, or violence.
At LMU in Los Angeles, Siobhan Kelly Fogarty and Rachana Reddi, both third-year law students, are the leaders of Loyola Maymount’s name and gender marker change clinic. LMU had a name-change clinic in 2022, but it had been on hiatus, and Fogarty and Reddi spent the last year reviving it. They held their first virtual clinic this fall, with five people in attendance. At their first in-person clinic at the Los Angeles LGBT Center, around 75 people came.
Especially now, when anti-trans rhetoric and legislation is on the rise, Fogarty said the Loyola clinic explicitly connects to the school’s religious mission.
“We’re a Jesuit university, and our school has this social justice mission. [The clinic’s] mission is to serve the LGBTQIA+ community seeking name and gender marker changes,” Fogarty said.
USD’s clinic started in 2018 and meets virtually about once a month. Mrowka contacted the clinic in July 2023 after hearing about it on Instagram and through their therapist. Soon after, he had a Zoom meeting with a student volunteer and lawyer who helped him fill out the paperwork.
“I was kind of shocked initially since it is affiliated with a religious institution, but them even having this clinic made me feel comfortable talking to them,” he said. According to clinic volunteers and attorneys, USD’s clinic has helped more than 1,200 people since opening in 2018.
Lilly Wood is a law student at USD and on the clinic’s board. “The school is supportive of the clinic, but it’s unique in the sense that it is entirely student run,” Wood said. Other clinics at USD, Wood said, are either run through the school itself, meaning students can participate for credit, or are run through Legal Aid Society and facilitated by the school.
“The name change and gender marker clinic is run more like a student organization,” Wood said. “There are six or seven of us right now and we run everything.” In addition, attorney volunteers supervise and assist as needed.
As a virtual clinic, Wood said people reach out via email and give basic information, and law student volunteers begin filling out the proper paperwork. There are multiple forms — “it’s very complicated, but they all make up the petition for a name and gender marker change,” Wood said.
On the night of the clinic, participants from all over the state join on a Zoom call, and the volunteers meet with participants individually to make sure the paperwork is correct, then cover next steps for how to proceed.
“A lot of the legal clinics at USD are very meaningful but different from the gender marker clinic,” Wood said. “We have a domestic violence clinic, a worker’s rights clinic, and a lot of times people are coming in with challenging, sad issues that are happening in their personal lives. Usually when people come into the [gender marker change] clinic, they’re so happy to be there. You’re helping them be themselves in a more honest way. It’s celebratory.”
Shortly before Wood came to law school, she said her friend from high school who was a trans woman passed away.
“She really inspired me with her optimism for life even under horrible transphobia,” Wood said. “When I learned about the clinic, it made me want to honor her memory in lending assistance to other trans people in the community.”
Although Mrowka had been out as nonbinary and trans for about a year before coming to the clinic, they said they had little experience finding affirmation in legal and medical spaces.
“It was really nice to feel the difference of talking to professionals and not having to feel the tension in my body,” he said. “There was no, ‘oh god, hopefully they don’t ask about this or that.’”
Mrowka said he also has trouble filling out forms, and having the volunteers fill them out and answer any questions was a huge help. Once the forms were filled out, Mrowka brought them to the courthouse.
LMU’s clinic is one of the only on campus that isn’t officially organized, meaning they don’t receive school funding, which would allow for a director, office on campus, and for students to get school credit.
Reddi and Fogarty are pushing for it to become an official clinic and hope to see it grow in the coming years, continuing their partnerships with the Long Beach and Los Angeles LGBTQ+ centers and faculty members at Loyola. They’ve received a lot of interest from student volunteers.
“Being able to sit with people and fill out the forms, which for me didn't feel like a huge task — I would have done as many as they needed me to do — it felt good to be a part of someone’s journey in that way,” Reddi said. “It’s more important than ever to continue to do the work that we’re doing.”
Fogarty went to Catholic school growing up and “didn’t have the best experience as an openly queer kid,” she said. “I was concerned about coming to Loyola at first, and finding these communities is what made me feel okay. I saw that Loyola had an LGBTQ org that was the first of its kind in the country. [It’s important] to create space in these faith-based communities where everyone is welcome and seen and heard and safe.”
Part of Wood’s role on the clinic board at USD is keeping up-to-date on changes in the legal landscape of gender record changes.
“It’s hard to be optimistic right now,” Wood said. “We hear a lot from participants about their concerns. It’s unsettling to not know what’s going to happen next, but we'll be here to support the community as much as possible. We’re lucky enough to be in California, which is very protective of trans rights, but we’re still kind of at the mercy of the federal government in some ways.”
For Mrowka, though they are no longer religious, USD’s clinic “practiced a lot of the virtues that I learned as a kid growing up in church, in terms of radical acceptance and deep compassion and servitude toward the community,” they said. “It’s another example of what neighborly love could look like. They don’t pretend everything is fine in the United States, but it’s so focused on what we can do with what we have.”
Cassidy Klein is a journalist, writer, and editor based in Chicago. Find her work at cassidyrklein.weebly.com.
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