Need some perspective on "dead name" and my strong reaction to that term...
Hi there - I have a trans son who has still been using his birth name through high school after coming out slowly from 9th-11th grade, despite it being fairly traditionally feminine. I've been curious about this for a while, since pretty much every other trans peer changed theirs immediately, and he didn't seem super rushed to. But he has ADHD, and wasn't ready to be out to everyone with a grand announcement and name up front, and I think the task of changing it has just been a bit too overwhelming / hasn't bothered him *enough* to really solve to this point.
At any rate, he is graduating, heading off to college, and the time has come for the new name.
His dad and I are supportive. The new name is not something we'd have picked ourselves, but whatever - this is really his creative identity-building journey. It's not for us to say. What bothers me is the use of the term "dead name" because in my optimistic view, transition describes moving from one thing to another. You don't have to kill the old. You can just move on to the new. I'm finding myself super triggered by the implication that the old is "dead." I wish the community just used "birth name" instead... Why not? Does that resonate with anyone? How did you move through it?
Today, it came up because I was making a social connection, and he said -- "please don't introduce me to so-and-so, I don't want them knowing my dead name." (I was going to share his Instagram, which is still his old name - he hasn't set anything up with the new one yet.)
Would love to hear some optimistic stories about this particular aspect of transition. I know my attitude is tinged a little with grief, but I also just tend to over-personalize things like this, and am definitely already reminding myself it's just a term like any other, and I also don't have to make it mean more than it does.... Open to some education, but please don't soap box me for this one. I mean well.