Problems saying birth name

[AndrewG]

So I'm only out to about a dozen people at the moment and most of the time still get called by my female birth name. I've never really liked my name, and now understand that this might be part of the reason why. It wasn't too much of a problem when I first had that moment of realisation, but now I'm almost completely sure that I'm going to transition at some point, it's becoming a huge issue.

The job I do means that I've often got to answer or make calls that usually start with giving my name to a customer or colleague. I've done that automatically for years, but now even as I'm saying it picking up the phone it just sounds really wrong. What I find really difficult now is making a call. Just knowing that I'm about to say the words "Hi, it's xxx calling from..." has been known to start minor panic attacks. It's taking me a while to psyche myself up to make every call now and I really can't keep going on like that.

Unless I change job, which I really don't want to do, I know this is going to be a problem until I'm fully out. I'm trying to think of ways around it and I've got a meeting with HR in a couple of weeks. Hoping to raise this there and try to get them to agree to me saying my name only when I'm asked for it. I normally follow up calls by email any way so it's not like people won't be able to identify me. Written's not quite so much of an issue yet - maybe because I'm not typing it every time.

Has anyone else had this problem, and did you find a way to deal with it?

[Foxglove]

Hi, Andrew!  You're certainly not alone.  I hate my old name now.  On occasion somebody I know still slips up and uses it, and it makes me mad.  On occasion I still get a letter from some relative I'm not out to, and I don't like that, either.  I suppose part of it is that I do look quite feminine, and so it makes me mad when somebody uses a male name with me.

As for your problem, if you deal with your customers over the phone or by e-mail, then they don't see you.  So can you not just start using "Andrew"?  I suppose that could be a problem if your voice is still fairly high.  If it is, there's another solution I've thought of: perhaps for a short time, until you're out full-time, you could use a "unisex" name.  (What do you call a name that can be used by either sex?  "Mel", e.g.)

Obviously, you'd prefer to use your real name, but if HR would go along with a temporary name, then at least you wouldn't have to be using your old one.  I can well understand that you'd hate it.  I don't really know if this would be a good solution.  Just something I thought of.

[Lynne]

I can relate to your problem Andrew. I've never liked my male birth name very much either, especially the shortened versions but I guess I could have lived with it if I was a cis male.
As I started to move forward with transition and presenting as female more and more I started to really dislike my male birth name. But because I'm not full time and my papers are not changed yet I need to use my birth name for official business.

Nowadays I hate when I have to introduce myself using my birth name and feels strange when somebody refers to me that way. When I don't have a choice I just try to get over with the introduction as fast as I can and try to forget it but it's becoming harder to do that. It is really frustrating.

Before Christmas I couldn't pay with my credit card because they did not believe that my name is [male birth name]. I only attempted to tell them once that the card is mine.
When that failed I just wasn't willing to put effort in proving that I am legally male, I did not want to fight for something I don't believe myself and got money from the ATM instead. I could have just shown them my ID in a second but I didn't.

[Amathy]

Same thing with me.  I stutter when trying to say my birth name or have a panic attack.  Not fun at all.

I decided to just give myself a nickname and asked other people to call me that.  It is a modified piece of my old name so nobody questions it or anything.  Using a nickname shouldn't be an issue in at work.  If you can't find a nickname, you can just use your last name if easily pronnouncable or initials if they sound okay together.

I can't stop everyone from using my birth name but my friends all address me by my nickname now and I introduce myself by my nickname which has helped tremendously.  If you need your birth name for some legal thing, just spell it instead of saying it (names are spelled so crazy today Ive found few people question it)

[Lostkitten]

Can you use a shorter or other way of your name? Many names can be twisted or changed a little bit to sound androgynous.

[Zoetrope]

Ugh, my birth name is the same as my father's, my grandfather's, and my great grandfather's.

So much baggage there. And it always felt like it was given in default, never ever matched who I was.

I changed both first and last names to something with personal meaning. Much better now :~)

[AndrewG]

Thanks. Sorry it's taken me so long to reply but I really appreciate your comments and suggestions. It's really reassuring to know that other people have issues with this.

I've had a couple of meetings with HR now an they both went really well. It's given me a lot of confidence that I'm going to get be support I need from work - and it was just good to be able to speak about everything.

My birth name can be shortened in a few ways, but none of them have much of a uni-sex feel. The HR manager actually suggested using a nickname - but if I was to start doing that I think everyone would start asking why. It's an open plan office so calls can be easily heard and we sometimes deal with each other's emails.

They'd prefer me to give a name to customers, but don't mind so much about the other calls I have to make. I completely understand their reasoning and can just about cope with that. Think the only real answer is coming out to my family so I can be completely open.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[LoriLorenz]

My dad has always gone by "Andy" as opposed to his birth name Andreas. It's what I even use when putting down his info for emergency contacts! what about your middle name? Is there any andro/male version of that you could be comfortable with?

I like my birth name, but now consider it as a nick name since I am migrating to a masculine version that hearkens back to my German ancestry. I never liked my middle name, but like my initials so changed that to a prefered name in the same mode.

Good luck with making changes!