Some time back, I saw a video of a reading. The reader (who was also the author) was a trans man in maybe his twenties, talking about names. He said he'd been assigned the name Susan Elizabeth (except it wasn't those names, but two other ones that were similarly gendered) at birth, but it had never really been his name. And now, he said, he understood. He was talking to his future daughter and he said, Elizabeth Susan, I see now: I was holding the name for you. It wasn't mine; I was carrying it. It didn't fit me any more than someone else's clothes would fit me, but that doesn't make it wrong, just mis-assigned. On you it will be wonderful.
The way that he said it and the amount of caring for his (as far as I could tell) still-hypothetical future child was really beautiful and rich. I would really like to find that reading again.
The way that he said it and the amount of caring for his (as far as I could tell) still-hypothetical future child was really beautiful and rich. I would really like to find that reading again.