I’ve updated my post on the Twilight People project to register a name change for the director to Surat-Shaan Knan. I’ve always known him as Surat before, but he’s changing the name he goes by, as many trans people do. Both names are male-identified in Hebrew. However, the Shaan has personal religious meaning for him that I won’t pretend to fully understand but am happy to respect.
Obviously many trans people change their names on transition. Some are lucky enough to have names that work for more than one gender to begin with. Others being non-binary see no need for a name change. But if you are going from an obviously male name to an obviously female identity you’ll probably want to change. What many people don’t realize is that this isn’t always the end of it.
I was chatting to Shaan about the name change at the V&A on Saturday, and Fox Fisher happened to be stood nearby. He got in on the conversation because he too has recently changed his name. In his case, he told me, it is because his family has come out as supporting him and he wanted to go back to using his family name again. That’s wonderful. I changed my last name on transition to protect my family from association with me. I’m still doing that, because for some people being associated with an out trans person is still dangerous.
There are many other reasons why trans people might change their name a second time. If you pick a name without having tried it out much you might find that it doesn’t suit you. (I was using mine for years before going full time as female.) Or you may settle on a nickname or diminutive of the name you adopted.
Cis people do this too. Women may change their names on getting married, and may change them back again after separation. People become known by nicknames all the time. So hopefully it is fairly easy for people to cope with trans folk changing names. I think it is mainly newspapers who insist on knowing what our “real” names are. And as the Trans Equality Report succinctly put it, there is no such thing as a “legal name” in the UK. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
I wish Facebook would understand there is no such thing as a legal name. They chucked me off because I didn’t use my ‘real’ name, nevermind the fact that most of my fb friends were people I had met on-line using the name I used for fb, for them it is my ‘real’ name. Trivial in the scheme of things, but I know people have had problems with fb over this when they have far more serious reason to change their name than I do.