Evolution & Deadnames

I think that one of the largest challenges that trans and non-binary persons face is a general lack of respect. We have arguments and political debates about their right to health care, access to emergency services, their right to medications, to have their names and their documents match who they are — even if they should be “allowed” in locker rooms, sports, bathrooms, and school clubs. 

The more I am involved in the community and the more I advocate for it, the more irritated it makes me. The times I am innocently scrolling through facebook and see some ignorant comment on a news article — the times I am so enraged that I dare not respond — I am overwhelmed and frustrated by it constantly. 

Today as I was scrolling on Facebook, I saw the best tweet. 

Let’s unpack this, shall we? 

The mythical creatures that many a 10 year old boy has been OBSESSED with – they are allowed to grow and change. They may start out as a Squirtle, but by the end of their lives they look totally different and have even changed their names to WarTurtle. If we can take the time to learn the evolutions of mythical creatures that don’t actually exist outside of Nintendo, why is it so very difficult to respect the evolution of a child or person? 

For many the issue is the departure from what’s “right” and was “given.” But you know, a name may be a gift but you don’t have to take it. I have been given gifts that I immediately regifted, that I got rid of, that I donated, that I trashed — I think we all have at some point or another. Maybe an old tee shirt from a now ex boyfriend. Maybe a bracelet from a friend you don’t see anymore. Some things like this hold sentimental value for us, and others bring us trauma so we cannot get it put away or replaced fast enough. 

When trans kids change their name, many kids call their birth name as their “dead” name. Many parents, myself included, hate that term. After all, their birth name was a gift. A gift we thought carefully about, took into consideration all we hoped for them and all we knew them to be. Our feelings are hurt – many parents grieve – when the child they named so carefully and lovingly declares trauma attached to that gift. 

When I was 10, I loved to write stories. All I did, all the time — unless I was being FORCED to do school or chores — was lay in my bedroom floor and write. I would write romances, action adventures, mystery, historical fiction — I filled up many many countless notebooks and stacked them in the bottom of my closet only to have more added on top of them. One year, for Christmas, my grandmother gave me a tea set. It was beautiful, and a really nice gift (my mother said). I thanked my Nana deeply and took it home safely in the packaging which included styrofoam to keep the china safe. I put the box in the top shelf of my closet and left it there. 

It wasn’t that I didn’t love the gift, that I didn’t feel special, that I didn’t appreciate the affection and the thought that she had put into it —- it was that she didn’t really know me. And her gift reflected that she didn’t really know me. To this day, I have this tea set in my home (in my 30’s!) and I keep it safe on a shelf away from toddlers and puppies who may break it. Its special. But when it was given to me, it wasn’t really —— ME. 

For me, this is how I regard the name I gifted my son Aaron when he was born and was assigned female at birth. We didn’t really know who he was (yet). We carefully and lovingly picked a treasure to gift to him, but we didn’t realize that it wasn’t HIM at all. And for a while, he “played with the tea set” but as he got older, we realized that gift (while treasured) caused him pain and he wanted to put it away because it caused him trauma. 

Many of us as parents get so — hurt — when our children don’t treasure the things we give them. But sometimes, we saved things that aren’t interesting to them, or that they don’t need or want — I have dolls that Aaron was terrified of when he was small (long before he came out) that I had hoped he would play with as I had as a child. My husband saved baseball cards, intending to sell a batch and take us on an extravagant vacation. But things change, the world evolves, and so must we. 

If we can learn to embrace our children as evolving instead of simply growing, we will understand that they change as they grow. This is beautiful!!