Principle # 1 Name changes should be available to authors upon request without legal documentation, unnecessary barriers, burdens, or labor placed upon the author making the request.
Many publishers struggle with the extent to which such a policy should require “proof” from the requesting author, and what the burden of proof should be. Publishers raise the concern that such a policy might be exploited and allow bad actors to engage in unethical or fraudulent behavior. Such fears are not based in evidence or precedent.
Principle #2 Name changes should remove all instances of an author’s previous name from the records maintained and disseminated by the publisher.
Due to the aforementioned risks of disclosure, publishers must take care to not retain public facing records of the author’s previous name in any venue. This includes, but is not limited to, metadata, archival digital documents authored by requesting author as well as works citing them, tables of content, acknowledgments, and other paratextual materials, website URLs, search engines, database entries, in text citations, and bibliographic entries.
Principle #3 Name changes should not draw attention to the gender identity of an author, nor create a clear juxtaposition between the current name and the previous name.
Transgender people face significant discrimination, bias, and precarity as a consequence of their gender identity. Published works associated with a trans person’s previous name represent a direct threat to the safety and wellbeing of trans people, potentially exposing them to harm, including online harassment, employment discrimination, in-person assault, and even state sanctioned incarceration and violence in some regions.