Contested Citizenship: Renaming Processes among People of Transgender Experience

ABSTRACT

Scholars have illustrated the significance of forenames in processes of social identity and personhood, yet little attention has focused on the relationship between names and gender identity among people of transgender experience. This article uses mixed methods to consider what’s in a name among people of transgender experience whose gender identities are within and outside of the gender binary. Chi-square analyses demonstrate a robust association between gender identity and gendered characteristics of the current name. While there are nuanced differences according to gender identity, renaming is fundamental to recognition and an important cultural practice for all people of transgender experience. Names are also controllable state objects, which pose tensions between administrative governance and the individual, who has the right to legally amend them. Ultimately, transgender name stories reveal the ways that names become active sites of contested citizenship.

KEYWORDS:

• Names
• renaming
• transgender
• agency
• contested citizenship
• mixed methods

Acknowledgments

Deep thanks and gratitude are due to Natalee M. Simpson, Elizabeth Daniele, Naomi Pueo Wood, and members of the Syracuse University Sociology Department Brown Bag Series for generous feedback on previous iterations of this article. I am also grateful to the anonymous reviewers at Journal of Homosexuality and special guest editor, Mimi Marinucci. Mostly, I am thankful to all participants who shared their time, stories, and trust with me.

Notes

1. I occasionally use ‘name’ as shorthand for ‘forename.’

2. Gender identity is the notion of oneself as man, woman, in-between, or neither (Bornstein, 1994).

3. Used as an umbrella term, ‘transgender’ includes individuals whose gender identity does not align with their sex-assignment at birth.

4. Gender transition practices include but are not limited to social transition (e.g., clothing, informal name changes, pronouns); use of medical technologies (e.g., laser hair removal, hormone treatments, surgeries); and legal transition (e.g., legal name changes, sex designation).

5. Genderqueer is both an identity and embodiment that describes resistance to assumptions that there are two and only two sexes and genders (Nestle, Howell, & Wilchins, 2002).

6. See Popular Baby Names: https://www.ssa.gov/OACT/babynames/.

7. WPATH, formerly the Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association, is the leading international organization focused on transgender health.