It’s the Year Mark Since I Was Legally Affirmed as Alysha Scarlett and a Woman. Here Are Five Details Regarding the Hearing.

I can’t believe it’s been one year since my name and gender were legally changed. It’s gone by fast. And the hearing made me feel as good as I was feeling while applying makeup right before the hearing. (While doing that, I listened to a favorite: “The Battle,” from the film THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: THE LION, THE WITCH, AND THE WARDROBE.)

Thus, the day ranks as one of the greatest of my life.

Six details regarding the hearing are below.

Right when Marvin Bagley, the Utah sixth district court presiding judge, said he was granting the change, I got chills. That went up and down my entire body.

This gender stuff is real magic. I literally am a woman.

Bagley also talked about how he didn’t approve but that he must grant the legal name and gender change given a ruling by the Utah Supreme Court.

In May 2021, the Utah Supreme Court ruled in the favor of transgender man Sean Childers-Gray and transgender woman Angie Rice after an Ogden, Utah judge in 2016 wouldn’t legally affirm them. Writing the majority opinion, Justice Deno Himonas said that “a person has a common-law right to change facets of their personal legal status, including their sex designation.”

A Merriam-Webster Dictionary definition of “female” is “having a gender identity that is the opposite of male.”

A Cambridge Dictionary definition of “woman” is “an adult who live and identifies as female though they may have been said to have a different sex at birth.” And one of two examples for Cambridge Dictionary’s definition of “female” is “She was the school’s first trans female athlete.”

A Dictionary.com definition of “female” is “having or relating to a gender identity that corresponds to a complex, variable set of social and cultural roles, traits, and behaviors assigned to people of the sex that typically produces egg cells.”

And gender journeys are science given the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition, Text Revision.

And before granting the change, Bagley asked what my children thought of me being a transgender woman. (For what it’s worth, they responded by asking if we could proceed with starting a game of Yahtzee.)

Lauralee Stephens Solimeno, my aunt who attended the hearing, said that she and Sanpete County (Utah) Attorney Daniels had a noteworthy exchange.

I can’t remember any details. It was probably something where Daniels negatively viewed Solimeno. Perhaps in thinking that Solimeno was in court for legal problems she had. (That wasn’t the case.) But given the degree of Solimeno’s Facebook activity, you could probably ask her on that platform.

Not relatively long before, I had interviewed Bagley for a story and reported on cases that advanced in his courtroom.

My name was visible in several Zoom court sessions wherein I was taking notes. (The sessions took place when COVID-19 was strong.) And I remember Daniels telling Bagley in a court session that I was with the Sanpete Messenger newspaper.

(I also saw Daniels and Deputy Attorney Wes Mangum in the courtroom, in advance of the hearing starting. I had reported on things they had said as well. And Daniels denied a request that I made as permitted by Utah’s Government Records Access and Management Act. I requested the names of businesses in Sanpete County that had gotten COVID-related relief.)

I so appreciate Carla Long, Monica Harward English and Brittany Mangelson for attending (virtually).

And Monica and her partner Pete Kadish left me a beautiful video congratulating me that awaited me after the hearing was over.

I am so grateful for these women for having done this. Two are close friends of mine and one is really close. We met through the Salt Lake Community of Christ congregation, which Carla led.

(And Carla and Monica are remarkable individuals.)

Angela Elmore, my attorney, did well in speaking with Bagley. She should have since she wanted to be my attorney even though she acknowledged to me that she and Bagley have a history. But she did well when I gave an answer based on a Bagley question that I thought was in a legal sense. And Solimeno was sweet to travel roughly 170 miles one way to Manti, Utah for my big day. (We also went to dinner together afterwards, which rocked. And I appreciate her paying for it.)

I appreciate Kory Meacham, a therapist who I saw for gender dysphoria, for his incredible letter that enabled the ruling. (And he is a remarkable person.)

Xtra Magazine, KSL NewsRadio and the Messenger also did stories as a result of the hearing. I am the first transgender or non-binary person in a rural Utah county to be legally affirmed.

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If you are interested in taking writing lessons from Alysha, contact information for her can be found here.

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