name change - when did you do it

[kyh]

When the police told me to do so...true story ...LOL

Hahahaha xP please do elaborate.

[Tejas]

girl running around with a male name

Personally, I think that's hot.

[Simon]

Mine was made legal in 2002. It was when I was living out West and cost me a whopping $70. I was lucky in that aspect as I've heard stories from the State I am in now and you have to have a lawyer to do it here.

I was exploring with various names right before I decided to get a legal name change but I was always going by male pronouns before then. I started going by male pronouns weeks after I left home when I was 18. I moved to NYC with an older woman I met on old AOL chat (I was young, dumb, and well you know the rest) and that was the point where I started to go by male pronouns.

I'm going to ask a follow-up question:
Were you regularly passing when you started having people call you by your chosen name?

Well, I would get a job and would put down my completely non legal name on the application at the time. Then once I was hired I would ask to speak with the manager in private and explain that I needed to use my legal name for tax purposes. Places were really good about working with me on a lot of things. They would let me use my "chosen" name on my name tag and use male pronouns. My co workers raised eyebrows more than once or twice. I'm sure people "knew" what I was but it was very rare that anyone would come up to me and ask. People were often very accommodating. I ran across some people who were transphobic but it was few and far between.

[Walter]

I had my name changed a few months ago. I had been going by Walter for....I think a little over a year

[DeeW]

I'm pre-T, pass sometimes other times not so much.(especially if I have to talk) Hopefully will start transition within the ball park of a month.
I've been thinking of asking my mom to use the name I want to legally change to, but she is unwilling to use male pronouns when I point out my distaste for 'she' and the like. With how everything is going, I feel like if I push her now not to use my very fem birth name it would become an issue of resentment and anger and my new name would be associated with that, which is what I don't want. Of course when I do get on hormones I'm going down hard on people on pronouns and my name. I am not doing all this to have people make me all dysphoric with one three lettered word because they can't deal.
Currently at work and when meeting other people, I'm going by a shorter version of my birth name which can be used for both guys and gals. Its something but not quite what I want...
This whole name issue is... tricky and difficult. Much like everything else.

[kelly_aus]

I've been going by the name Kelly pretty much since I came out - some people changed pronouns right away, some took some time.. I did the legal name change in August last year..

[Natkat]

I started my name online as well.
I always been creative and love to writte and chat with people.
I had an athour name which I also used as a nick name. once I made a story where I based the main character of myself. I do that alot now but back then it where the first time I had made a character so simular to me.
I began to identify with him as I wrotte the story so I got drawn to the name. and as I had people online ask me for my real name I picked and said they could call me that.
I kept it online for a time and then later I got to my friends said that they should call me that name and they did so outside the school (not to get in trouble)

I got it legally changed when I where around 17 or something, I kinda forced my parrents to sign the papers to let me change it as they wasnt found of too much attention and trouble, and I played the card that if they didnt allow me to change it during the break from my last school to my new one, (where nobody would find out of my old name) then I would change it myself, as I turned 18, which would be half in the year of my school and everyone would have a rought time to why I out of sudden should change the name and going by a name half of the year and by another one half the other..

[Staci]

I had been on hormones for three years before I got my name legally changed.  It was about 3 months after I went full time. 

[aleon515]

I plan to do the formal name change in June and I should be on T for a few months. Nobody calls me my given name (except my sister who, you know it's just too hard for her). I go by a nickname and Jay in only a few places now, as I don't pass. I came out using the nickname, and not everyone knows why. I have started getting my name changed in stores I go to, so that they look for me by my chosen name.

--Jay