Earlier, I posted on Gender Neutral Pronouns. But now, I am going to talk about something even more important - the use of a name which is not attached to masculinity or femininity. In society, names are especially important and they hold attachments to many of our memories. We remember our parents getting pissed and calling us by our first and middle names. My mother even told me that if she was going to name me and if I were born a genetic girl, she would have named me Lacie Starlene. Yeah, I didn’t get that either. But why should we give children names that try to lock them into one gender or another without their consent? What is the motivation behind this idea?
I dislike my old male name with a fervor that no one will ever truly understand, unless they are in this situation. I mean, yeah, it was alright for a guy but it does not do me justice in my life in the here and now. I hate having to put it down every time I apply for a new job when they ask for previously used names. Hell, I hated putting it down yesterday when I had to put in a form so I could register to vote (and yes, the voter registration form from Colorado Secretary of State does require these things to get people registered to vote). I mean, it was a name that could not be seen as a female name and sadly, it’s clunky and it had to be changed post-haste. Fortunately, I have the court order changing my name, a Colorado ID with the correct name and gender marker and I am socially known and accepted as Jessica Sideways. However, whenever I need to be cut down for size or have my ego diminished, there are always the people that always ask me “What is your real name?” or “What was your birth name?”. I just tell them ever so sweetly “None of your damn business, now leave me alone” (am I the perfect lady or what?).
Life would have been easier without a gender-specific name. You know, something like Summer, Autumn, Spring or Welcome (yes, I have been reading the Hippie Handbook that I checked out from Boulder Public Library). But regardless, who are we to lock into a child a name that assumes one gender over another, when frankly, we have no fucking clue what this child’s gender is. A statement I would like to use here and would like to continue to use is “Anatomy is not Destiny”. This was used for the women’s liberation movement and I’m using it here. How do you know that the child that you just gave birth to and that you supposedly love is truly the gender that you claim sie is? If you are just guessing based on the child’s physical traits, then I might say that you are not doing the child justice by locking them into a future that they did not ask for and is quite difficult to get out of. Let’s just stop the bullshit here and now and start treating our children with the respect that we should. After all, they will choose YOUR nursing home. ^_^
