Dead Names
Dead Names
This is a term that the transgender community uses for the name they used before coming out, before transition, and before the world knew them as their authentic selves.
This is one of the hardest things for parents of transgender kiddos to accept. Not only the fact that their kiddo isn't the gender they thought they were but also that the kiddo no longer wants to use the name you as the parent chose for your baby. And now your kiddo wants a new name of their choosing which you might hate (I don't) and... The name you chose is called a "dead name".
I personally don't like this term but my opinion on this doesn't matter. It's the term that is used and for many many transgender people, it is an appropriate term. Each person is different but in our case, my daughter's prior name is not, and never was, HER. That name and person is gone.
But as a parent of a trans daughter, what I've learned to be the most important for the acceptance and affirmation of a trans child is to use that new name and new pronouns as soon as and often as you can. No one is dead though. Your kiddo is still there.
What does kinda die, though, is the vision you had of your child's future. Of your future with them... Wedding, grandkids, etc. We all develop thoughts about our future and it's normal. Many parents of transgender kids struggle with this. It's not so much that their kid is trans but all of a sudden the future changes in a heartbeat. And the worry for the future, although always there, becomes much stronger.
But instead of wallowing in all this talk about death, I and many other affirming parents are taking another path. We are celebrating life. Finding joy in getting to know our kiddos as their authentic selves and having a blast.
The past is the past. I'm living in the here and now and looking forward to a new and bright future for my daughter, no matter what she tells me about ..
Dead Names