name change - how do you know when to start?

[kshea333]

Hi all,

I'm new to this community but I've posted before in genderqueer and other LGBTQ journals here before, so I apologize if the beginning part of this post sounds similar. I'm a female-bodied queer person who doesn't really identify with either gender, or rather fluctuates between feeling like a man and feeling like a woman. While my dress

Comments

[ilanthefirst]

A lot of your post resonated with me, but I'm a little bit all over the place, too. I'm also FAAB and identify as transmasculine and genderqueer but am almost always read as female due to stature and voice. I actually made this LJ account when I realized I already had a masculine name picked out a couple years ago and was ready to start re-questioning my genderqueer identity, though it took me a long time to feel like it was okay to claim a transgender identity and ask people to call me a new name; in particular, it was hard to internalize that it's okay to identify as transgender and not want to pursue some (or any) parts of medical transition.

As others said, you don't have to switch all at once with everyone. I did take advantage of moving as an opportunity to start going by a different name, and I'm going to do it again very soon. After initial discomfort with my partner calling me my preferred name (before moving), I started to question the choice to go by a different name at all. It helped that I knew I would move again in a set amount of time (a year), so I was able to let go of those fears and give it a try. I still go by my birth name with family and co-workers, even though all the new friends I've made here know me only by my preferred name. Now that I'm about to move again, I've introduced myself to my future housemates by my preferred name and am making plans to go by my preferred name at work for the first time as well.

I'll also be a graduate student, and part of why I think I'm ready to start going by my preferred name professionally is that I'm going to be teaching and don't want my students to know me by a feminine name. (However, my students will be adults, so I don't have to worry about what their parents would think, and I won't be addressed with a gendered honorific in any case.) I've also made some changes to my presentation that I hoped would affect how people perceived my gender; even though I felt like it was a "bad reason" for doing it, the results have made me very happy. In a way, though, I feel like going by my birth name while presenting as more and more masculine makes me just that much more of a "gender pirate," and at the very least, that attitude makes it easier to handle not being referred to the way I'd like in every context.

[kshea333]

Yes, a lot of what you're saying here resonates with me too, and it's so helpful to know that others are feeling similar things (fears about regretting things, becoming comfortable claiming a GQ/trans identity, etc.). And definitely the part about wanting to be known by a more gender-neutral name by my students. That's a huge part of why I'm thinking about this so much more now.

I definitely have fears of not liking the new name I'm going by, and I'm going to have my partner use it more frequently before I move to try it out more. There's also still a part of me that's doubtful, or that's wondering if I'm just making it all up in my head, or sometimes that if I just *tried* harder to be more feminine than it would start feeling okay. But there must be something to the fact that it bothers me when I'm read as female, or that I don't want to be called "ms./mrs./ma'am" etc., or that i feel like a freak-doll when a female friend tries to dress me all up in their clothing - right?