A trans-identifying man running for the Ohio state House of Representatives has been disqualified for not disclosing his birth name, often referred to by trans-identifying people as their “dead name.”
Vanessa Joy was told by election officials that he was not eligible to run as a Democrat for Ohio House District 50, even though he had collected enough signatures to do so, because he had violated a little-known 1995 Ohio law requiring candidates for public office to disclose any name changes over the last five years on their signature petitions. The law does not apply to marriage name changes, according to The Hill.
Joy has legally changed his name, including on his birth certificate in 2022, and said he had been unaware of the law.
“I would have had to have my dead name on my petitions,” Joy told News 5 Cleveland. “But in the trans community, our dead names are dead; there’s a…
