A second transgender candidate running for the majority Republican Ohio House could be disqualified from the ballot after omitting her former name on circulating petitions.

A second transgender candidate running for a seat in the Republican-majority Ohio House is at risk of being disqualified from the ballot after omitting her former name on circulating petitions.

The Mercer County Board of Elections is set to vote Thursday on whether Arienne Childrey, a Democrat from Auglaize County and one of four transgender individuals campaigning for the Legislature, is eligible to run after not disclosing her previous name, also known as her deadname, on her petition paperwork.

A little-used Ohio elections law, unfamiliar even to many state elections officials, mandates that candidates disclose any name changes in the last five years on their petitions paperwork, with exemptions for name changes due to marriage. But the law isn’t listed in the 33-page candidate requirement guide and there is no space on the petition paperwork to list any former names.

  • LetThereBeR0ck@lemmy.world
    14·
    6 months ago

    At the risk of being dogpiled, I’d like to try to have some discussion on this.

    Up front, I want to say that Ohio does a lot of dumb shit, trans rights are human rights, and weaponizing random laws against queer people is bullshit.

    It seems clear to me that:

    • There is a reasonable motivation for requiring reporting of recent name changes, and the exception for marriage is due to this being extremely common. The article states that this usually came up in the past when people wanted to run with a nickname rather than their given name.
    • Not stating this requirement on the form is stupid and bad.
    • This is compounded by the lack of a box for a former name, practically guaranteeing that this information is omitted.
    • All of this is a problem that should be fixed. The Republic governor has acknowledged this, according to a quote from the article.

    What isn’t clear to me is that this is selectively enforced against trans people. We only know about the cases where it has happened to trans people because those are the cases that are being reported on. It is not surprising that a cis person encountering a bureaucratic annoyance because they put the name they go by rather than their birth name on the form was not considered newsworthy.

    The vibe I get from this is that this is ragebait where the headline invites the reader to jump to conclusions while the contents of the article suggest that this is actually just a stupid case of the government being bad at making a form (something I have personally encountered a lot).

    I’m totally fine with being proven wrong, it wouldn’t be surprising in the slightest if there is malicious intent here. Is there evidence of selective enforcement here?

    • yaaaaayPancakes@lemmy.world
      92·
      6 months ago

      Yes there is evidence. Just a few days ago a third trans candidate in Ohio ran into the same problem and their board of elections overturned the rejection during their appeal.

      So this year you’ve had 3 trans candidates with the same problem. 2 upheld and 1 overturned during the appeals process.