JACKSON, Miss. (WLBT) - A Hinds County chancery judge’s decision denying a request from a 16-year-old girl transitioning into a boy to change her name to a more masculine one has been upheld by the Mississippi Supreme Court.
On Thursday, the high court ruled 8-1 that Judge Tametrice Hodges was correct in denying the petition, saying that “it was well within the chancellor’s discretion to determine the child needed to mature more before refiling her request.”
“While the minor argues the chancellor had no discretion to dismiss the name-change petition because it was uncontested and both parents agreed, Mississippi law states otherwise. In fact, in Mississippi, a chancellor may only grant a minor’s name change ‘where to do so is clearly in the best interest of the child,’” the majority opinion states. “Here, the chancellor determined allowing the minor to legally change her name as part of a gender transition was not in the girl’s best interest due to a lack of maturity.”
Justice James Maxwell wrote the majority opinion for the court. He was joined by Justices Mike Randolph, Josiah Coleman, Robert Chamberlin, David Ishee, Kenneth Griffis, David Sullivan, and Jenifer Branning.
Justice Leslie King dissented, saying the record in the case was deficient and rendered the court unable to properly determine whether the chancery court’s decision to dismiss was correct.
“I find that the chancery court’s order should be vacated and that the case should be remanded,” he wrote.
The ruling comes nearly two years after a then-16-year-old petitioned the court to change her legal name. Records indicate the petition was filed by the petitioner’s mother and that both parents agreed.
The name of the child was withheld because she was a minor at the time of the filing. It’s unclear if the child is still underage.
“In the petition, the mother represented that she wanted to change her child’s name, ‘due to her [daughter’s] gender identification as a male,” the court wrote. “She claimed her daughter’s ‘given name makes her transition more difficult.’”
The mother requested that her daughter’s first, middle, and last names be changed, with the first name to be “a more masculine name the daughter had used socially, the middle name to the mother’s middle name, and the last name to the father’s last name only.”
The petitioner, a biological female, has what the court describes as “traditional female” first and middle names, and a hyphenated last name.
At a November 6, 2023, hearing, the judge told the petitioner that she would continue the request to a later time. On November 21, Hodges dismissed the petition without prejudice, saying the “petitioner should mature before [a] name change would be determined by the court.”
The petitioner appealed and argued that the state’s general name-change statute “has no limiting or discretionary language” to prevent the name change. The petitioner also cited a separate court case stating that a common-law rule allows any person to change his or her name if the change is not for a “fraudulent purpose,” and does not infringe on the rights of others.
Justices said that the case didn’t apply because the common-law principle doesn’t apply to minors.
“As this court made clear a century ago, in all chancery matters involving minors, the chancellor is charged with protecting the best interest of the child,” the court wrote. “And minor name changes are not rubber-stamped.”
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