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

[sistawendy]

Just getting a judicial name change order doesn't automatically make things happen. After that, you have to go around to every governmental and commercial agency on the planet to let them know. It's a process, and I took a leisurely six or seven months with mine. Things could get weird if you have any unusual legal transactions (e.g. house or car sales or court cases) during that period, but I doubt that's a problem for most of us.

Teaching in high schools, eh? It pains me to say it, but I'd exercise caution about expressions of non-binary gender identity to your employer. Parents, and therefore the school districts whose boards they elect, can be absurdly skittish about anything that goes near sexuality or gender identity. Find out their policy before you do anything like that, and if you can, make sure they've followed their own policy.

[kshea333]

That's partly why I'd want to do it now, get it all out in the open before I even step into my student teaching, have a mentor teacher I'm working under that I can get some buffer from, and then know better how to handle those conversations/navigate a high school teaching environment before I step into the classroom as a solo teacher. Regardless if I changed my name or not, I still plan on making gender a part of my classroom, discussing what preferred gender pronouns are, making sure LGBTQ folks are present within my curriculum (i'll be teaching history/social studies), etc. Luckily I'll be in California, where they're starting to mandate teachers to teach LGBTQ history, so hopefully it's a more open atmosphere than where I am now (Arizona - ugh), but you're right, it's definitely something I need to be away of and prepared for.

[emma_varia]

I have been agonizing about exactly this same sort of thing a lot lately. I'm attending my first-ever public event as a female later this month. I don't have any answers for you, but I have a huge amount of empathy and wanted to speak up and voice my support. Good luck!

[kshea333]

thank you! it's good to feel understood - good luck with your event!

[kshea333]

that's really good to know that you felt a transition period between your given name and your chosen name. what had been stopping me previously (among other things) from adopting my new name was that it still felt kind of foreign or strange to hear. but i guess it was unrealistic of me to think that after going by one name for 25+ years, switching it would take some time to get used to. and i agree, i like the idea of testing it out in certain areas and then building up from there.

[lietya]

I'm not sure that my musings will have any useful advice, per se, but maybe it'd help to know someone else has felt/thought some of the same things? First of all, the "not queer enough" and "not really trans" - it's really, REALLY common even for people who are transitioning to have self-doubt and worries and wonder if they'll regret this. I've seen it over and over again. Personally, I still don't claim the "trans" label and am hesitant even about genderqueer because I don't want to get yelled at for appropriation, but like you, I do feel as if I am without an internal gender (unlike you, it doesn't fluctuate, it just isn't *there,* which is why I hesitate at "genderqueer" as well

[kshea333]

thank you. some of what you talked about here came up in my reply posted below, but it's good to know others have that feeling of not being "queer" or 'trans" enough and there's a second-guessing or fear of regret. The more I talk about it the more comfortable and good it feels, so that must be a good sign :)

[offloe]

Hey

[kshea333]

If a more gender neutral name means people are going to respond to you in a more respectful way, then that's not a wrong reason. You are the one who has to interact with dozens of people a day, no one else, you get to decide... It's not wrong to want to be seen a certain way, and it's not wrong to decide for yourself how to get that done.Thank you. This (and other things you said too) is really validating. It's still a fear of mine that other transgender individuals might think I'm co-opting or appropriating their space because I'm not following the same path as others (which is what one person told me years ago when I was first starting to grapple with this, that because I didn't want to completely transition to a male gender role that I wasn't really trans). It may also be influenced by past experiences when I came out as bi/queer that I was "confused" or not really queer because I was female-bodied and still had some attraction to men. But that's stuff the LGBTQ community has to deal with among itself, and I'm starting to feel