The Swarthmore Registrar's Office offers support for transgender chosen names for students who have not yet legally changed their name. The Registrar's Office can help with all sorts of name change requests.
We can arrange to have your chosen name appear in most non-private situations across the college, including class lists, directories, and so on, even including the college ID card.
For transgender students who want their swarthmore email userid to reflect their chosen name, we can change the network/email userid to follow the matching pattern for the chosen name. There is some scheduled down-time required to make this change, so plan on working closely with the registrar on this.
We still use your legal name for legal documents like the transcript, bill, and pay checks. However, we do permit you to use the chosen name on your college ID card, which in some contexts, such as voting, is legal identification. For actual voter identification when voting, you are advised to use identification that corresponds to your voter registration.
Please be advised that because we use your legal name in the administrative computer, sometimes the legal name appears in an unexpected context. If it does and you would like it not to, the registrar can usually figure out how to use the chosen name in that context instead.
New students should please be sure the personal information form of "newstudentforms" reflects their chosen name.
If you would like to use your chosen name generally across the college, or if you would like your network/email id changed to reflect your chosen name, please work with the registrar, Martin Warner (mwarner1).
You may speak with any of the deans about name changes and other support for trans* students and other academic policies and procedures. Swarthmore is committed to creating inclusive, respectful, and supportive spaces for all students.
For more information about LGBTQIA student groups and other avenues of advocacy and support, please explore the Intercultural Center or speak with a dean.
