Right now I'm going by female name shortened to male version. I needed legal name on my enrollment for study place for student grant reasons. There was a space on the form for "prefered name" for shortening names, but I didn't feel like explaining how Dante was short for <6 letter female name starts with K does not end in Y or I>
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I'm doing a legal name change at the end of the year to the name I actually want (First and Last, dropping middle and going without), so it's all good.
I heard it more than 10 years ago (first and last). Instantly, I thought it was awesome and I had to have it for myself. Issue was, I wasn't out - so I just used the name when asked online for a "full name", and to myself. I was upset for a long time that I couldn't use it offline due to the "stupid gender thing" getting in the way (again!). Fixed that now though, heh heh
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So yeah, deciding wasn't as hard for me as it was for some. Initially there was a magic 8 ball involved, but it became redundant early on
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