Hi everyone, Ever since I came out to my partner five months ago I’ve had this quiet nagging voice in the back of my head demanding a female name and pronouns, and I don’t really know what to do about it. It’s like…my boy aspect feels that using a female name AT ALL would be one more stage in erasure of his identity, but my girl aspect wants more public recognition. Intellectually I’d be happier using an androgynous/neutral name, but I’ve been using my neutral family nickname for that with certain people for a while and it’s not really working to allay my feelings. Part of that could be general discomfort I’ve always had using the name outside of family settings, but nevertheless it is clear that I can't continue to do nothing and stick with my birth name forever. I’m quite fond of my username, Hats, and luckily I do actually like top hats, so I suppose I could try persuading people to use it as a nickname. I’m also currently drawn to the name Zoe. It’s tempting to use different names and pronouns for different genders, e.g Hats and “he” when I’m feeling either male or both, and Zoe and “she” when I’m female, but this could get confusing for other people even if they know what my gender identity is. I suppose I don’t really know how to go about experimenting. Does anyone have any suggestions? If anyone replies, please address me as Zoe because I need to know whether it feels right in practice. Thanks.
Hi Zoe, You can definitely use more than one name, but it'll be difficult for some people. What might be possible is to have close friends switch between your two names and pronouns depending on how you're feeling, and to give other people an easier option (give them one name and pronoun to use, or tell them you use both (maybe present one as a nickname) and either set of pronouns and let them choose what to call you).
