In 2011, I changed my name. My reasons were simple: everyone mispronounced my name in a particularly offensive way. It wasn’t just the years of emotional torment; it was the simple, accidental mispronunciation from the little old lady in the office would somehow make that abuse seem legitimate. I wanted to forget, and I didn’t want to be reminded of it constantly, so I changed it.
But one of the conditions of a name change is that you give up your previous name. I got a new driver’s license, new passport, new credit card, new Social Security card, new email address, everything changed. I had to give up who I legally was without changing who I thought I was.
Just after the NSA scandal broke, an email filtered through my old account that ‘Syndney’ needed to complete the registration on Kik. I hadn’t registered for Kik, especially not called ‘Sydney’, but there was an account with my old email address on it. Looking through my old SPAM folder, I have confirmation emails from numerous social services, job applications, online purchases. I have no idea what’s being sent with, ostensibly, my email address attached to it.
As I stated previously, my reasons for changing my name were simple. But there are social presumptions, many of which are more complicated than what they are.
So when the NSA scandal broke, I was terrified. I’m caught in the awkward position of having given up an identity legally, but having to aggressively defend someone who I no longer claim to be. If someone is out there distributing illicits under my name, I don’t know about it. The government probably does. But I can’t defend myself. It’s not who I am, and it’s easier to claim I’ve held on to an old identity than it is to hunt down the thief of who I was.
