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'How / when did you decide your new name? What is your special meaning of your new name?'
Allow me to share my story how I chose my first name Sharon.
This also makes a lesson how some parents pay no attention to their children - normal or transsexual. To all parents - PAY ATTENTION TO YOUR CHILDREN! PLEASE! We transsexual / transgender provide numerous signs to family and friends throughout our childhood but they fail to perceive them. Choosing my new name was one of my many signs.
I could have feminised my male predecessor name of Nick, my 'dead name' in the parlance of one spirit friend, but I never liked it enough to keep it. As an adoptee, I decided that I had little obligation to keep my fake male first name and last name. I have no information of my biological family and saw no reason to keep whatever it might be since they saw no reason to keep me.
There have been occasions when I felt I owed little to either family. I already know - my anger issues at both families - my adopting family using me as their target for abuse, assault, and attempted murder. Yet it was not all bad in my adopted family; I found some benefits in this stranger household. I cherish among my best memories:
- (a) lived and travelled throughout the USA, Canada, and Mexico,
- (b) lived and travelled at Europe and into Asian Turkey, and
- (c) spoke about 12 languages foreign to my native English.
I doubt my original family could have provided much better.
I tried many female names for myself throughout my childhood - names of family, relatives, friends, neighbours, celebrities. I was raised Roman Catholic; I dutifully tried Catholic saint names. I posed names to family, relatives, friends, neighbours - claiming not as my own, but simply seeking comment of those names. So it was that I talked to my mom one Saturday morning (Spring 1965 - age eight) during visitation. I asked her about the name Sharon. Her reaction was something demeaning such as, 'That's a girls name. You don't want a girl's name.' 'Actually I do, Mom. I AM a girl, Mom! I'm gonna do it Mom!' But she obviously failed to comprehend what turned into another feminine protesting session that morning. So then I tried replying that it was for a friend, or whatever. My mom had no clue; I asked her about our conversation years later and she had no recollection of something so momentous to me. Sharon it would be in 1965.
I experience deja vu nightmares. My former and current names took extra meaning through them at least twice - Sharon Tate and Nicole Brown.
- I had a deja vu nightmare about a mass murder and a dead person named Sharon during the Summer of 1969. My original interpretation was that the death of Sharon in my nightmare was the demise of my self - unknown whether it was the death of my spirit or the death of my physical person. A few weeks later was the murder of Sharon Tate. I did not really know of her until that crime took her promising life. Now I could not let Sharon's memory go. It is something I hold within myself.
- I experienced another deja vu nightmare about a knife wielding killer in a black Ninja suit slashing at a man and a woman at a doorway (February 1994). I was all three persons in my nightmare: the woman, the man, and the killer. I strove to understand all the implications as all three. A few months later I turned on the radio at work as the announcer began a news story about a murder scene. He never got far into the story when I blurted out in a hushed voice, 'OJ did it. It was OJ' before that news commentator mentioned OJ. My co-workers gave their puzzled stare to me; I did not really know that I said what I said loud enough until they repeated to me that they heard what I said.
I can't bear to read about these crimes and learn if what I dreamed is what actually happened or if my dreams reflected co-incidental illusions based upon having experienced years of abuse and assault at home.
A few years later I met the members of F'Lail when I was doing videography for bands and musicians. They released a song called 'Nicole'. I was re-living both that nightmare and that crime all over again as I heard their haunting composition even though I do not carry Nick with me anymore.
On a different note but equally serious is my middle name: Anne Nichols, the American playwright and author of the play 'Abie's Irish Rose' (c 1922). Sorry, there is no major back-story behind this choice as there is for Sharon; I chose it to make a political statement. 'Abie's Irish Rose' is a story that resolves bigotry and prejudice - much as I endeavour in my small way. I have (or at least had until crooks stole it last year) an original first edition stage version of her play.
Choosing my last name was initially no more scientific than browsing through the telephone books; honest. We lived at a major metropolitan area; the book was about two inches thick. I nixed 'Smith' and 'Jones'. I initially went for something in the middle of the book - common enough to attract no notice and certainly nothing to elicit requests to explain the origin of a rare name.
But I changed my mind.
I withhold the story of my legal last name. Some who know my legal last name know that story. For others it will remain dormant.
Sure, I could have changed my name to something else at any time along the way. I am pleased with my choice. I now would not think to change my name.
My first legal name and sex identification change was Summer 1978 through Social Security Administration. My dad went to collect the mail from the box the day my new Social Security ID card as Sharon arrived (September 1978). He thought it was an error and told me he will return it to SSA; I had to sneak it from him when relatives came for dinner that Saturday.
My state affirmed my legal name change to Sharon and my legal status as female in Spring 1980; I promptly went to MVD when I had my papers at hand, and received my first new driver's licence with both my new name and female sex designation.
This was all so easy in 1978 and 1980. There did not seem to be a specific process then that there is today for either SSA or state legal name and sex identification changes. I simply wrote a letter to someone in authority and they issued their approval.
These events (name change, legal sex identification change, transition, operations) all happened right before my family's eyes and still they can't realise it 35 years later; I'm 're-born' at age 35 now.
Pre-transition began in 1974; full transition began in 1979, I completed transition in 1985. My only regret is that I did not do it better.
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