More Than Just A Name Change…

The meaning of giving something or someone took another meaning for me when I was 16 and in class when the teacher said that naming something in the bible it’s like having ownership no that thing or person. Now, nearly eight years later since I’m 24 in a few days, I still think about what was said in that class, and this is the reason, or at least I think it is that I couldn’t connect with my name.

Why is it essential for me to connect to my name?

I think I told this story before, at the age of 7 or 8 while my mum was putting to bed. I asked her what do you need to do to get a name change, and she said it was costly and challenging to do, which felt like a trapping wall. Last March was the end of a battle that I’ve been fighting with myself for years. I was able to bury my deadname and restart my life with my new name and in a way, end a chapter with my life as a female and start a new one.

The hardest thing and the first thing I had to do was to tell my mum that I want to be called Alex and at first, she didn’t want to know anything to do with it, but as she saw how bad I need this to get some comfort, she got on board with it, and that meant a lot to me. Being a wheelchair user added an issue that none of us saw coming.

The first two notaries I asked to help me doubted my ability to make such a big decision which caused me to get refused by them as a client which sucked big time. If you know me, you know that I don’t give up that easy. A friend who is also trans helped me find the third one who didn’t blink an eye to help me and like that, the process began for me to change my gender marker and name to Alex which enabled me to reduce some of my pain.

Alex