KATY, Texas — A Houston-area resident who recently relocated to Texas has been refused a driver’s license because her last name was changed following her same-sex marriage.
Courtesy photo
The Texas Observer reports that Connie Wilson, who married her partner of nine years in California last year, legally took her wife Aimee Wilson’s last name. Wilson now appears on both her California driver’s license and her Social Security card, in addition to all of the couple’s financial and medical records.
But when she applied for a Texas driver’s license recently, she was told by a Department of Public Safety agent that even though she and her spouse are legally married, her marriage certificate cannot be used to authenticate who she is.
“She immediately told me, ‘You can’t use this to get your license. This doesn’t validate your last name. Do you have anything else?’” Wilson says. “She told me I would never get a license with my current name, that the name doesn’t belong to me.”
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Wilson’s other option is to obtain a court order, a DPS spokesman told the Observer. But Wilson said obtaining such an order would cost at least $500 and there’s no guarantee the petition would be successful.
Wilson has contacted Equality Texas, which is now working with Houston Sen. Sylvia Garcia’s office in hopes of resolving the issue.
