Intro and name changes
I've lurked here for a while, but I guess it's time to make an introduction for myself...
I'm 21, androgynous, queer, pansexual, and go from feeling like the FTM label completely applies to me to feeling conspicuously out of place and that I don't belong here at all. I've always been a tomboy, I was convinced I was growing a penis when I was about 3, and am now having the persistent desire to get top surgery ( now is one of those times I feel that I belong here).
Yet I read other transmen's life stories sometimes, and feel like I can't relate at all. I know that it's not a cookie-cutter type of identity, but this lack of congruency is a little frustrating.
But here is a subject that has bugged me since I was little. My birth name is Abby, a name that I've always disliked for myself. I've read that it's actually a unisex name, but it screams "FEMININE" to me. I wanted to be named something androgynous: Sam, Chris, Taylor, Aiden... So my question to you is about name changes.
How did you go about choosing a new name for yourself? Has it changed more than once? Did you choose it based on meaning?
Another issue for me now is that on my campus the trans and queer community has literally exploded into visibility (a good thing), and trans and lgb people alike are changing their names left and right. While my name has been eating at me my whole life, I'm afraid that if I do anything about it now it will appear that I'm only following a fad. Others, assuming that I'm outside of the sphere of those changing names, have expressed their criticism of the whole ordeal. I know it's a bad reason to not do anything, but I can't help hesitating.
I'm 21, androgynous, queer, pansexual, and go from feeling like the FTM label completely applies to me to feeling conspicuously out of place and that I don't belong here at all. I've always been a tomboy, I was convinced I was growing a penis when I was about 3, and am now having the persistent desire to get top surgery ( now is one of those times I feel that I belong here).
Yet I read other transmen's life stories sometimes, and feel like I can't relate at all. I know that it's not a cookie-cutter type of identity, but this lack of congruency is a little frustrating.
But here is a subject that has bugged me since I was little. My birth name is Abby, a name that I've always disliked for myself. I've read that it's actually a unisex name, but it screams "FEMININE" to me. I wanted to be named something androgynous: Sam, Chris, Taylor, Aiden... So my question to you is about name changes.
How did you go about choosing a new name for yourself? Has it changed more than once? Did you choose it based on meaning?
Another issue for me now is that on my campus the trans and queer community has literally exploded into visibility (a good thing), and trans and lgb people alike are changing their names left and right. While my name has been eating at me my whole life, I'm afraid that if I do anything about it now it will appear that I'm only following a fad. Others, assuming that I'm outside of the sphere of those changing names, have expressed their criticism of the whole ordeal. I know it's a bad reason to not do anything, but I can't help hesitating.