Transcendent

[anarfea]

I took Vulgarweed's advice and purchased the book Transcendent: The Year's Best Transgender Speculative Fiction. I read the first story, and I think I made the right call in scrubbing the name "Molly" (or whatever I would have called them) from the novel. The first story, The Shape of My Name, is quite careful never to use the protagonist's deadname, At one point, the character "you" (the protagonist's mother) says, "I need you to watch--". Other times the name is referenced as "the name you called me," or "the name that was never mine." Anyway, deadnaming seems to be a sore subject for the readers who I hope will make up my audience, so I'm going to try to avoid ever having anyone call my protagonist anything but "Hooper" or "Doctor Hooper" until Holmes asks him what he wants to be called and he says "Colin." Then Holmes will call him Colin in private and everyone else will continue to call him "Hooper" or "Doctor Hooper."

The one place I'm unsure of is what name Hooper should use at the Molly house, where everyone goes by female names. I had originally used "Molly" because Hooper can't think of a female name other than their deadname, but I'm thinking that's not the way I want to go for the novel. So I'll have to come up with another female name for the Molly house scenes, I think. I also need a female name for Holmes! 

I'm open to suggestions, if you have any.

Comments

[vulgarweed]

Maybe pilfer ACD canon for female names? Violet, Kitty, Frances, Irene, Annie, etc. Or maybe Colleen, as a play on "Colin" (pretty damn Irish though).

[anarfea]

I'll think on it. Annie is nice. Maybe Maude, for Maude Bellamy. I can't use Irene since she's referenced in the fic. Colleen is out because apparently it's offensive to pick a name that's the "opposite gender version" of the characters deadname. I'm not entirely sure why this is the case but I'm trying to be as sensitive as possible.

[vulgarweed]

But Colin isn't Hooper's deadname, it's the name he wants to be called. (I don't think one would use "Molly" in a Molly house anyway even if it is their name right? If everyone's a molly than no one is. Kind of an I-am-Spartacus thing.)

[anarfea]

Yeah, I know it's not the same, but I didn't want people to think that I was doing the "of course he'd pick the 'female version' of his name" thing. And I agree using "Molly" in the Molly house is kind of weird. Oulfis thought it could be a cute moment and people would make fun of him for being "Miss Molly," but I'm not sure. I think I want to go with something else.

[pangodillo]

"trans character chooses a real name that's a switched-gender version of their birth and/or dead name" is a trope that misunderstands the reality of most trans people. Many of us do choose names that are similar to our birth names at first, for a variety of reasons; I did this myself. But most of us end up settling on a very different real name. The trope misunderstands us and doesn't seek to understand us, if that makes sense, and that's why many of us dislike it. It feels like cis people going "this is what I think it's like to be trans" and then deciding that their assumptions are hard fact without, like, asking anyone who actually went through the process of finding a gender-affirming name for themself.

All that said, I personally am delighted by the idea of a reversal of that trope: whatever Colin's birth/deadname is, it's not Colleen, and when searching for "wait what's my name but for a girl" they immediately jump not to their birth/deadname but to a genderswapped version of their own real name. I think it would be a nice affirming little moment.

(as a side note, I don't know if anyone else draws a distinction between birth names and deadnames, but I do in my own life: my birth name is the one I was given at birth. my deadname is the name I went by for most of my life pre-transition, which is something else. my legal name is currently the same as my birth name but eventually my legal name will be Olivier. and my real name is Olli. hopefully that helps clarify at least what I mean when I use these words; as I said, I have no idea if any other trans folks make these distinctions.)

[pangodillo]

oh! and I meant to say also that I heartily approve of scrubbing Colin's birth/deadname. I tend to write the same way, unless I have a specific reason to reveal a trans character's birth/deadname. Mostly I do this because it's no one's business what a trans person's deadname is, and it usually doesn't even come up in the stories I write. In places where it could come up (like when Carlos attributes the fact that he got his legal name changed before he earned his diploma to his friend Rochelle's help), it's just habit to focus on the affirmation of the real name rather than on the deadname: in the cited example, Carlos said "she's the reason my diploma says 'Carlos'." It's not about what came before, what was pushed on us, what we had to fight to escape; it's about the now, the reality, the thing we chose and worked and fought to become.

[anarfea]

Thanks. I'm glad you approve, it means a lot to me. The only reason I didn't think that much of using Colin's deadname before was because the story starts before he really transitions. So, yes, he is working at the morgue and presenting as male during the day, but when he gets home, he's with Emilia, and Emilia would consider herself a lesbian if such a label existed at the time. She wants nothing to do with men ever again after the disastrous relationship with Sir Eustace, and so she can't accept Colin's male presentation as anything but a disguise. It's only after Emilia dies that Colin really comes into his own and is presenting as a man full time.

So it made sense to me, in the first draft, to have Emilia call Colin by his deadname. But I can avoid it by having her call him "Darling," and "love," and other pet names instead, so I will. I also don't want people to hate Emilia. She loves Colin. She just doesn't really understand who he is, unfortunately.

[anarfea]

Thank you for explaining that to me. It makes sense. And I will think on Colleen. I have a ways to write before I get there.

I haven't heard other people make the distinction between birth/deadnames, but then I think that probably most people don't have the experience you did of having a different name given at birth than the one they used most of their life pre transition.

[oulfis]

I think your explanation of the problems with the trope makes sense, though it actually doesn't match my own experience. My name is very similar to my deadname, and I really valued forging a sense of connection between my past and current identities. I think there is a really wide spectrum of name experiences-- I have an nb friend who just truncated their name to a more gender-neutral version, and a trans friend who didn't change her name because it was already gender-neutral. So the biggest problem from my point of view with the trope is the same one with most tropes -- the over-use of one "script" due to a simplistic assumption that it's universal. I agree that Colin coming up with Colleen could be a fun take on that trope. Or, maybe he picks something funny based on the name Holmes gives -- like they end up as the Victorian London version of Thelma and Louise. But I also think saying Molly in a fit of panic could be funny, cute, and poignant -- I think it's not uncommon for trans people to misgender and deadname themselves, especially early on, and sometimes our own foibles can become funny.

I'm increasingly persuaded by the idea of namescrubbing the deadname in general, though. I still get deadnamed by my dad (yes, ten years later.........) so I think I have a lot of mental energy invested in downplaying the pain of getting deadnamed, but is is really unpleasant and probably not necessary for a fun piece of fiction.

[anarfea]

Yeah, I get what you're saying. Cassidy, the code monkey of Ravelry came out as trans recently, and mentioned that "Cassidy" was actually her birth name, but that she went by something else for most of her life, and is now reclaiming that name post transition. So I know that not all trans people would feel that having a name that's a different gender version of their name is bad, it's just one of those things that I've seen trans people say you should not do, and especially that cis people should not do, and I'm trying to listen to those things as much as I can, though I realize that trans people are not a monolith and don't always agree.

I also know you were in favor of Colin calling himself "Molly" in a moment of panic, and Olli liked "Colleen," and both of those are "Problematic" and I have two actual real trans people in favor of them lol. I will give this some thought I have time.

I'm sorry your dad doesn't call you by your right name. That must fucking suck.

And yeah, I can see why Emilia would call Colin "Molly," especially since he isn't out to her. I'm not even sure if he knows his real name yet. I'm not sure when he thinks of it but it has to be by the Molly House scene for sure. And then he tells Holmes his real name after they've had sex the second time because Holmes says he feels it's wrong to continue to call him "Hooper" after they've been that intimate. So it would make sense for Emilia to call Colin "Molly" but it's a particular piece of angst I'm trying to avoid putting Colin through. I think it's hard enough that he can't be out to his lover.