Yield to through traffic
Sep. 8th, 2015 20:04![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
torquillI run across remnants of old stories occasionally.
When I came out as agender, I expected to be challenged by somebody. I had read so many stories of trans people meeting resistance to their identities, especially the "newfangled" non-binary identities, that it seemed inevitable. Of the dozens of people I interact with regularly, somebody would make a comment or refuse to acknowledge my gender identity. Yet no one did. People have forgotten, slipped, been unsure how to follow my wishes, but no one has deliberately denied me.
Now, in the process of changing my name, I have been subconsciously expecting resistance at every step. The judge might not accept my reasons. Someone, among the many departments and businesses whom I've had to change my name with, would frown and stall. Somebody would tell me that, actually, they couldn't do it without more documentation. Somebody would doubt that I had the ability to just up and change my name without a "good reason", like marriage. Someone would look at me, look at the name, and get suspicious of why someone they thought was a woman was changing her name to something like "Sam". Was this a joke? Was I trying to pretend to be a man now?
All I've gotten was quiet acquiescence. Which is as it should be; I was given to understand that a court order is the last word in these things, and though some people have been unfamiliar with it (the Costco clerk in particular had to ask me to point out the relevant lines) no one has reacted like it's illegitimate. They act like it's none of their business why and how I'm changing my name. Even the judge at my hearing only asked whether I had published the change, and nodded when I said that I understood I didn't need to under the circumstances. Then he let me take my papers and go.
When I tell people (like my doctors and my clients) that I've changed my name, they immediately start calling me by the new one instead. It's almost like I have the right to decide what people call me. Whodathunkit?
I'm so used to portions of my identity being handed to me by other people that I hadn't realized how much of it is under my control. I also hadn't realized that it would be taken in stride by the people around me, and that when my requests are at odds with their picture of my identity, that pretty much no one I deal with would accuse me of pretending to be someone I'm not.
Sometimes I feel like I must be... but since everyone else seems so sure I'm not, it must be true.
When I came out as agender, I expected to be challenged by somebody. I had read so many stories of trans people meeting resistance to their identities, especially the "newfangled" non-binary identities, that it seemed inevitable. Of the dozens of people I interact with regularly, somebody would make a comment or refuse to acknowledge my gender identity. Yet no one did. People have forgotten, slipped, been unsure how to follow my wishes, but no one has deliberately denied me.
Now, in the process of changing my name, I have been subconsciously expecting resistance at every step. The judge might not accept my reasons. Someone, among the many departments and businesses whom I've had to change my name with, would frown and stall. Somebody would tell me that, actually, they couldn't do it without more documentation. Somebody would doubt that I had the ability to just up and change my name without a "good reason", like marriage. Someone would look at me, look at the name, and get suspicious of why someone they thought was a woman was changing her name to something like "Sam". Was this a joke? Was I trying to pretend to be a man now?
All I've gotten was quiet acquiescence. Which is as it should be; I was given to understand that a court order is the last word in these things, and though some people have been unfamiliar with it (the Costco clerk in particular had to ask me to point out the relevant lines) no one has reacted like it's illegitimate. They act like it's none of their business why and how I'm changing my name. Even the judge at my hearing only asked whether I had published the change, and nodded when I said that I understood I didn't need to under the circumstances. Then he let me take my papers and go.
When I tell people (like my doctors and my clients) that I've changed my name, they immediately start calling me by the new one instead. It's almost like I have the right to decide what people call me. Whodathunkit?
I'm so used to portions of my identity being handed to me by other people that I hadn't realized how much of it is under my control. I also hadn't realized that it would be taken in stride by the people around me, and that when my requests are at odds with their picture of my identity, that pretty much no one I deal with would accuse me of pretending to be someone I'm not.
Sometimes I feel like I must be... but since everyone else seems so sure I'm not, it must be true.
