We Need a New Term for“Dead Name”
It’s not a pretty term or subject, and I learned it the hard way
I inadvertently upset a lot of people last week.
It was a doozy. I posted about the most painful part of my daughter’s transgender journey, her name change. The result was several hateful emails including one alerting me that I was banned from an online transgender parenting support group and a very public scathing notice to that group stating that I believe I am privileged for using both pronouns and sharing the whole online experience.
Even though it shouldn’t have, the episode ended up with me feeling terribly when I just wanted to tell our story.
Not only did folks get super upset about my use of both her birth pronouns (male) and current pronouns (female) in the use of my story; many sent me personal messages that they hate the term “Dead Name.”
People I talked to — all parents of transgender kids — felt it was difficult to think of anything relating to their living breathing child as dead, including the name that child was given as birth.
