https://www.facebook.com/ftmresearch/posts/10101068246018241
Original post 11/21/19
I’m working on a longer post to explain this, but I want to make sure that there is a general awareness that I am very comfortable with certain people (people who knew me as a child and before I came into understanding of my gender) referring to me with my given name, as long as they do not refer to me as “she” or otherwise girl/woman/female. The practice of my parents, my chosen sister and her wife, Becca’s family, long time friends/family referring to me with the name my parents gave me is not misgendering me - although that practice is misgendering and harmful for many other people - it is not for me. More to follow.
If you’re unsure if you can refer to me respectfully as Stacey, just ask me.
Longer post today
My given name is shared with many cis men, in fact, many books say it is the "male spelling," whatever that even means. I admit I would have a harder time with using both names if I was named something like Stephanie (which my dad wanted to name me, but my mom reminded him that his sister's daughter was named Stephanie - thank goodness).
Being given the name Stacey and being OK with certain folks using that name to refer to me is actually very authentic for me. You see, my goal with my gender transition has always been to be my authentic self, I do not want to try to meet other people's expectations of how to "do gender" because, y'all, I spent my childhood and adolescence doing that, and it is EXHAUSTING.
When I initially came out as trans, I had many folks, even in my own community putting gender expectations on me, (e.g., being told I should not like to cook anymore or that I needed to try harder to lower my voice to sound more manly, read - more like their understanding of a cis man). This was incredibly painful and made me question if I was really trans or not, because I did not sign up to spend any more time in my life trying to meet others' expectations of how I should do gender. I realized that many folks were assuming that I wanted to be a cisgender man. Well, y'all, let's be really really honest, I am not cisgender and that is something I will never ever be. It did not take me long to accept that - but I have seen 100s of other trans folks experience deep grief over this - I see that response as a normal reaction to living in a cis world, and I say F that noise because we know that having pride in being trans is something that protects us from negative health and mental health outcomes (thank you
Rylan Testa
for your incredible research showing us this).
I also see many, many, many cis parents of kids who are on a gender journey as well as those who know they're not cisgender trying their very, very best to affirm their child's gender...but most of them are missing the mark. They can get their minds around ok my child is not a girl, he's a boy, so I will raise him to be a normal boy...but, unfortunately their conceptualization of 'normal' actually means cisgender...and that is something your child can never be...so many trans kids are getting robbed of the opportunity to have pride in being trans - a vital protective factor against suicidality. As cis parents get more and more connected with other cis parents and reinforce their child saying I'm not trans, I'm just a boy/girl (thank you
Aydin Olson-Kennedy
and
Jo Olson-Kennedy
for your teaching here), we are setting our kids up for a less authentic life, we need to stop pretending it is OK to raise trans kids to be cis kids - we need to train parents on how to raise trans kids as trans kids, and much of this involves increasing awareness of internalized homophobia and transphobia in everyone (this includes myself) - I see the key step to this as being connecting trans kids with trans adults and trans elders. The gap is becoming too wide and this gap is being reinforced by so many well meaning folks. I can't be quiet about this anymore, especially as I am sharing more of who I am - genderwise - publicly.
Speaking of that, my full gender/sexuality aka queer identity is transgenderqueer lesbimandyke (check my fb back many years on coming out day, I've been sharing this). What that means to me is that I most strongly related to 2000s lesbian culture including my people and my music (acoustic guitar anything please). It does not mean that I am a woman or want to be a woman, which I know is confusing for some folks, but it is not confusing to me. The deepest part of all of my identities is being a "both and." My gender is both binary and a nonbinary at the same time (aka transgenderqueer mash up) - I always say what I am most sure of about myself is that I am NOT a girl. I am both Christian and queer. I am both a psychologist and soon to be physician. I am attracted to folks who do not meet gender expectations that have been put on them, an oversimplified way to say this is both folks who are more masculine than expected and were assigned female at birth as well as folks who are more feminine than expected and assigned male at birth. I have been trained in both mental health and physical health. I will be trained in both 'western medicine' and two-spirit medicine. The list goes on.
It is my hope that this post more clearly and openly explains why I am glad to have certain people that I choose call me by my given name. I also hope that folks realize that this is only my truth and I do not speak for anyone else. I'm good with any pronouns except she and I'm not OK with folks referring to me as girl/woman/female, etc.
This is my truth and it sets me free to have you witness it. Expect photos of me in the future growing out my hair and wearing more shiny things. It is time to push myself further into my authenticity and further away from meeting others' gendered expectations of me...I'm talking a sparkly necklace
I want to thank
Alok Vaid-Menon
for their fierce commitment to truth - their way of living into authenticity makes a way for all of us to do the same. There are many other folks who deserve this thanks as well, but I want to name Alok here and acknowledge the privileges that I have which make me less likely to be a target of folks' transphobia and racism and femmephobia. I'm with you, Alok, in whatever way you desire.
Thank you all for seeing me.
EDIT to add what I forgot to include: I need to be more clear and state that I do not have a "deadname," a common term used by community for our given names. It is certainly possible for someone to misgender me by calling me by given name if they have not been invited to do so. I'm very literal, so this might impact my perspective, but I do not think the term deadname is healthy or helpful for me, as I have not died and my given name is what it is, also not dead. The desire to move so far away from our previous experiences - so much as to say that part of me is dead - unfortunately may result from internalized transphobia, an underlying desire to fit in/be normal (read: cis), aka trauma. We know the way to heal from trauma is to integrate, so trying to separate so far from our previous way of being as to say a name we were given is now a deadname, is something that makes me super concerned. I use the term misgendering when someone refers to someone else in a way that does not witness the truth of their gender, when they use an incorrect name, I also call that misgendering and not deadnaming. Again, please recognize that this is only my opinion and likely very unpopular. I'm open to being wrong here and being called into further conversation. Long story short, when people like my mom call me Stacey, don't worry about it, it is not misgendering me. May we all be ever more open to each other's process of becoming.
