When I figured out I was trans I immediately chose to go by the name, Jamie. The reason I chose the name so quickly was that I was so desperate to grasp on to anything gender affirming. I didn’t put nearly as much time into the decision as I should have. Its been almost 5 years now. For this entire time, Jamie has been a perfectly serviceable name. People see my face and attire, accompanied with the name, and just assume I’m a woman. But just because the name does work for this purpose, doesn’t mean it has worked for my heart. For all this time, I have grown slowly more resentful of Jamie. I knew it wasn’t truly the name I really wanted. Over the last 6 months or so I have been putting a lot of thought into the matter. and quite a few names have been considered. Names that I thought about: Jessica, Katherine, Chelsea, and Jennifer (as much as I like Jennifer, it’s my mom’s name so it just was never a serious choice). The one name that truly stuck out to me was, Rose. I’ve always gravitated to a flower aesthetic for a lot of things in life, and I guess my friends say I have a flower vibe. So the name rose fits pretty well. Most importantly, it feels right. A couple weeks ago in a discord server with a bunch of my trans friends, I was ranting about my resentment for Jamie. Their response, “just change it, stop being a coward”. So you know what? I stopped being a god damn coward. I announced the new name to my older sibling Gabe, my roommate. After telling those two, I still felt to anxious to let anyone else know. There was only one person who I knew I had to tell after I told the previous two. My best friend. I knew he’d be more than cool with it, he’s always been supportive of me, he was one of the first people I came out to as trans. Just somewhere in my lizard brain that powers the anxiety, I felt irrationally scared to tell him. So perhaps I was still being a coward. Then a couple of days ago I felt the power of the gods on my side, emboldened by a sudden sense of confidence, I told him. I definitely told him loudly and proudly and definitely wasn’t crying my eyes out when doing it… It went well though, as I always knew it would. After I got over that stupid mental hurdle, I was able to muster up the courage to tell the rest of my immediate friend group. They were all cool with it as well, I have good friends so it was never an actual concern.
So here I am now, just kicking it as Rose. I guess who ever reads this now knows. Mom, Dad, if you are reading this, no you didn’t.
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