Why is it rude to ask a trans* person what their birth name was?

If you are a cisgender person, it’s almost certainly crossed your mind: what was their name before? If you don’t know better, you’ve asked, and probably gotten a response ranging from uncomfortable to outright offended. This might have made you confused and probably also upset. You were just asking a question, how were you supposed to know?

This is controversial to say, but it’s true: how are you supposed to know unless we tell you?

Well, here I am, and I’m telling you now: please don’t ask a trans* person what their name was before they came out.

To which you have another question: WHY is it rude to ask a trans* person their birth name?

It’s a great question, and one that I wish we could talk about more, because The More You Know, the less you’ll fuck up.

Let me tell you a little story: You’re very sick and have to go to the hospital. The doctor constantly wants things checked out, and you’re not sure if you’re going to survive. You feel awful, you look awful, your eyes are caved in and your skin is tattered from the needles they inject into you and the pills they give you. You can barely eat or drink, but you know that to stay alive you have to. You constantly want to sleep, but you still have to go to work. Every time you go to work, people treat you like shit, because they don’t know you’re sick. You’re hiding it pretty well, but it makes you mean and irritable, or at the very least boring. You start to wonder whether it’s worth it to stay alive, because you’re just not acting like yourself anymore.

You eventually recover, and start to feel ok. You meet someone new, and you mention that you were sick once. They ask for a picture.

“A picture of what?” you ask.

“A picture of when you were sick,” they say.

“I don’t really want to show you a picture, that was a really bad time for me,” you say.

They are confused. “But I’m really curious. Can’t you just show me a picture, what’s the big deal?”

“I don’t really see why it’s important. I’m not sick anymore,” you say, trying to laugh it off and move on.

They’re not laughing and look disappointed. “I won’t say anything weird, I promise.”

You’re tired and want the conversation to end so you pull out a picture on your phone and show it to them. It was the night before you almost killed yourself, before you started to get better.

“Wow, you look really pretty. You’re super thin too, you don’t have anything to be ashamed about,” they say in earnest.

You were barely eating anything and wearing 5 layers of make up to cover up the thin, sickly color of your skin. Besides that, it was a really weird thing to say, but you don’t want them to get angry at you, because they gave you a compliment. “Thanks…I guess.”

For the record, I’m absolutely not saying that transgender people are “sick,” but we do sometimes need medical attention in the form of hormones and surgeries, and most of us at least think about killing ourselves or actually succeed in doing so.

Asking for my birth name immediately takes me back to that place where I was depressed and unhappy with my gender. Just asking. That name is forever ingrained into my brain, and I have to deal with it every time I open the mail box, go to the doctor’s office, open emails, get on a flight and have to show my passport, etc. I live in fear that when I go to the doctor’s they’ll call my dead name. I try and forget, but bureaucracy doesn’t let me. When someone else asks me my name, they are forcing me to think about that time when I was deeply, deeply unhappy.

Not only does it make me unhappy, but it makes me feel in danger. Perhaps in Europe you may think I’ll sound daft, but in America, trans* people (especially trans women of color) are being killed every day. Trans woman of color are murdered every day, people commit suicide left and right, and trans people are more likely to become homeless because the system doesn’t protect us. Germany is different and I do feel protected by the system regarding my gender, but that little voice saying, “What if they beat you up? What if they kick you out? What if that guy over there sees the name on your credit card and decides to give you trouble? What if someone sent you to jail? You’d die in jail. You’ll have to go to the male prison now, and you won’t survive.”

“I didn’t know!” you might scream to yourself, feeling defensive about having asked.

It’s ok. You’re right, you didn’t know. You’re not a bad person. Just move on, and don’t do it again.

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