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What's in a name?
Jul. 26th, 2026 01:05 pmWhen they wouldn't let me do the things the others with my name could do, things I'd shown I could do better, I rejected my legal name. I refused to answer, as much as possible, to a name that had more rights for a different shaped body if I could not have those rights also.
I was 5.
When the adoptive paternal unit substituted my legal name, first and middle both, into one of the characters in a story in the erotica book that he'd found in my room and was reading aloud to me to punish me with, I realized I wasn't the problem. Also, I knew right then how freaking weird it was gonna be when thirty years from then I had a fetish for my own name as a result of this realization and how absolutely counterproductive he was being to his supposed goals.
I was 13.
When the hotel manager where I'd stayed off and on to survive homelessness came to cheer me on, using my legal name, during Covid as I relearned to walk after severe health circumstances I started to remember I didn't hate my legal name.
I was 42.
When the gay cashier, upon hearing me finally speak, my voice freshly deepened, made sure to catch my legal name as it came up on the computer and said it out loud as I left, unaware of what the world actually calls me now, I realized 13 year old me was pretty smart. I walked out suddenly certain I wanted to taste that name on a special someone's lips.
I was 46.
I was 5.
When the adoptive paternal unit substituted my legal name, first and middle both, into one of the characters in a story in the erotica book that he'd found in my room and was reading aloud to me to punish me with, I realized I wasn't the problem. Also, I knew right then how freaking weird it was gonna be when thirty years from then I had a fetish for my own name as a result of this realization and how absolutely counterproductive he was being to his supposed goals.
I was 13.
When the hotel manager where I'd stayed off and on to survive homelessness came to cheer me on, using my legal name, during Covid as I relearned to walk after severe health circumstances I started to remember I didn't hate my legal name.
I was 42.
When the gay cashier, upon hearing me finally speak, my voice freshly deepened, made sure to catch my legal name as it came up on the computer and said it out loud as I left, unaware of what the world actually calls me now, I realized 13 year old me was pretty smart. I walked out suddenly certain I wanted to taste that name on a special someone's lips.
I was 46.
