Is a bit weird. If people get called by their old surname after marriage, nobody freaks out over that.
Why freak out over calling someone by their old given name. It doesn’t seem like something that should have this level of shame attached to it.
Why freak out over calling someone by their old given name. It doesn’t seem like something that should have this level of shame attached to it.
Honest mistakes happen, and that's fine! It's simply a defense mechanism that gets thrown up rather quickly from hostile interactions
This isn’t a uniquely trans feeling, either. I have friends who had very bad relationships with their parents — so bad that they changed their last names. Like me and my deadname, my friends said that hearing their old family name could dredge up a lot of unpleasant memories. Like me, they wanted to put some distance between themselves and their pasts.
Yes, many people change their family name when they get married, and those people usually don’t freak out when they hear their original surname. However, that should not be considered representative of how everyone feels.
Because some people deadname people maliciously and so even if it was a mistake your action could be perceived as intentionally hurtful. People don't seem to maliciously use maiden names
I'm out of my element here but I'll add that I sense that it's an aspect of one's autonomy about their identity. "In the narrative of my life, I connect that name to a time when I felt that I was not myself." Taking a spouse's surname doesn't generally connote a rejection of an aspect of that time.
I feel empathetic of people who are marginalized. I'm lucky. In my life Ive generally rolled maximal privilege. I think principally of these things from a frame of the critique of power. I tend to favor balances of power among individuals. If that requires a bit of extra consideration on my part in regards to my speech, that's ok. It's a negligible cost in the name of my held ethical ideal of egalitarianism.