Change name, keep professional reputation?

I've been through some rough times lately. In part I have been considering changing jobs, but I've been feeling trapped about how that would all work, especially since I'm still not in shape to work "regular" hours (ever changing meds interactions can do nasty things to sleep patterns). My current job tolerates that, and tolerates my androgynous dressing. But if I change jobs, which identity do I enter the new job with, and is it "too early" for me to be making those changes, especially as I do not consider myself transsexual ?

One thing I discovered about myself in my bouts of feeling anxious and hopeless, is that when I think over the longer term, I have some kind of in-built expectation that I will go further in transition. Oh, not necessarily SRS at all, but that "some day" I will change my name, and "some day" I may come out and work in femme clothes. Well, I'm no common fool, and the last time I had one of those expectations that "some day" I'll do something, it was HRT, which I had not expected to "try" until (say) retirement, and then one day it whacked me in the head, and didn't let go of me until I gave in.

But names... I'm in a bit of a quandry that I need to work through:

• if I am going to change my name, I want the new name to be something meaningful to me, a personal inspiration or statement of essence.
• as long as I am androgynous and a smuck at female appearance, and not publicly "transitioning" at work, I am not entirely comfortable taking a fully female name. "Sandra" goes to the men's room???
• If I am going to change my name, I don't want it to be trivial for people to google my old name or my new name and figure out that I am somewhere in transition. I think it would be difficult for me to adopt the "move away, no forwarding address, everyone you meet afterwards only knows you as female" strategy. Emotionally difficult: I don't have many strong ties to friends, and some of them in particular are people I'd rather not lose, and I have an extended family that may not be "close" but some of them are neat people I'd rather not discard. And the people I grew up with: I might not have seen them since grade school, but there are bonds there.
• My professional reputation is not small, and I've been building it up for decades. It is in a way my "brand name": some of the people whom I worked with decades years ago would be fully willing to recommend me for positions based upon what I did then and their knowledge that I have increased my good work since. In my level of work, positions are often "created" for a person rather than being pre-defined and posted for all applicants. I'm up over 3/4 million google hits. People see the name and expect the competence -- just like a brand name. And if I change that name, and try to keep the link between the names quiet, then I lose that brand-name advantage.

How do people manage, taking their "accumulated goodwill" with them in to their new life, without the names being easily connected? Do people willingly throw decades of good-will away to maintain their trans privacy, or do they find some other method?

For example, one passing thought: I could open a company in my male name so that the company would bring along the good-will, but "senior analyst" could be Sandra. A non-trivial problem with that: people I know recognize my response style after 2-3 messages at most (I adopted a pseudonym for a while.)

I don't want much, I just want it all :daydreaming:

Sandra,

Attempting to hold on to professional reputation and recognition for whatever reason is, ultimately a noose around your neck when it comes to transition.
I appreciate your concern for what you have built prior and up to this point however you must be willing to let that go in order to progress.

Here's a difficult question for you to hear Sandra; What if the friends and family members that you do not wish to lose contact and a relationship with don't wish to have a relationship with you once you transition??

I once thought that blood was thicker than water but in the end it was not.

I also ask you Sandra if you do not consider yourself a transsexual then all of this has become a moot issue.
If you are not in need of transitioning then why would you subject yourself to any of this?



Julia

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Originally Posted by Julia_in_Pa

Here's a difficult question for you to hear Sandra; What if the friends and family members that you do not wish to lose contact and a relationship with don't wish to have a relationship with you once you transition??

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That would be sad but livable, and it is not up to me to cut them off just based upon me anticipating that maybe they would have a bad reaction. My sister I already know would be supportive; my mother might have some trouble getting through the idea of why I couldn't just stay a male, but I know for sure that she loves me and will try.

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Originally Posted by Julia_in_Pa

I also ask you Sandra if you do not consider yourself a transsexual then all of this has become a moot issue.
If you are not in need of transitioning then why would you subject yourself to any of this?

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A fair question, and the answer is that each Transgender has to find his or her own level of comfort, find the point that works for them.

The balance is not stable for me, and there seems to be a real connection between my depression and my GID. The best analogy I have found is of a control switch in the brain that is leaking to ground, slowly giving more control to the female side. That both were always there, but that it took decades for the female portion to be stronger than a "nuisance" that the brain self-repaired against. That, regardless of the fact that I do not (yet?) self-identify psychologically as being female, that I transition to the degree that I do because I must, a matter of survival.

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The balance is not stable for me, and there seems to be a real connection between my depression and my GID. The best analogy I have found is of a control switch in the brain that is leaking to ground, slowly giving more control to the female side. That both were always there, but that it took decades for the female portion to be stronger than a "nuisance" that the brain self-repaired against. That, regardless of the fact that I do not (yet?) self-identify psychologically as being female, that I transition to the degree that I do because I must, a matter of survival.

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I am confused, just me I am probably not understanding where you are coming from very well. But, what makes you think that you are not transsexual? And if your not trannsexual I don't understand the need to change your name for work. Most people I know that are in the middle, crossdressers, non trans, two spirit or whatever, don't have an issue identifying as male with their male name for work and things like that. They seem to be comfortable either way. And most of them are not on HRT ether.

If you are comfortable working with the male identity don't change it.

Sandra,

You said it yourself, "especially as I do not consider myself transsexual " so why are you considering any changes? If you find another job, you are going to be faced with the same problems as with your current employer. And what is going to happen if you start your new job as a woman, with a legal female name and proof that you are indeed FEMALE on your legal documents only to revert back to being a male or something in between?

You have a lot of internal issues you have to sort out either by yourself or with professional help before you can move forward in whatever you want to do. Of course you need to know what it is that you want to be - male, female, or some state in between that no one recognizes as legal. In the North American Continent there exists the acknowledgement of only 2 sexes M or F. That's it!

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Originally Posted by arbon

I am confused, just me I am probably not understanding where you are coming from very well. But, what makes you think that you are not transsexual?

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I don't know if I can explain very well, but supposed you look at a group of men and a group of women, and you are asked, "Which are you?" and you can only pick one with no qualifiers allowed. I would look and although I would rather say "female", I do not have the feeling of belonging to "female". I'm getting further away from typical "male", but I am not psychologically over the line. My dreams... my body is male. My dreams of trying to find a washroom or some acceptable place to urinate (you know, the dreams that are trying to tell me it's time to wake up and visit the toilet): always penis-based urination. SRS is not something I would be likely to go through; I never hated the male parts, never hated the idea of them. FFS... I don't know, it sounds painful and expensive, but I can see some practicality to it.

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Originally Posted by arbon

And if your not trannsexual I don't understand the need to change your name for work. Most people I know that are in the middle, crossdressers, non trans, two spirit or whatever, don't have an issue identifying as male with their male name for work and things like that. They seem to be comfortable either way. And most of them are not on HRT ether.

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I needed the HRT. I was being torn apart by the internal GID pressures without it. But that didn't mean that I thought of myself as being female, just that I was needing to "act out" being female a lot.

Sorry I have to leave for an appointment now before addressing the name issue.

Try not to think of your life as a trap. You have some real positives that, it seems you're losing sight of. You're apparently blessed with a good professional reputation. You have an extended family and friends that you care for. I am concerned that you have reduced your options to a) chuck it all and start over at the loss of friends, family and reputation, or b) endure life as it is without realizing your deepest desires.

Sounds like your a very intelligent, creative person. Youv'e already begun to imagine other options besides those two, such as creating a new professional entity - retaining your "trade name" and working within that entity as Sandra. Seems you've already visualized at least one way out of that trap. Keep thinking creatively about your options, keep inventing choices and when you see choices that can work, you'll no longer feel trapped.

my dreams are still often male....45 years of subconscious...sometimes i dream i go back to work and i am not wearing clothes, and everyone sees a male..other times i dream and i'm female..who the heck cares ..they are dreams.
trying really hard to be male kind of gets to you over the years..

true..anything is possible for you..but your career, your life and your inner dialogue would be better if you could admit that you were transsexual

..transgender and transsexual are different things regardless of what the doc's say...transsexuals and their transitions have a singular set of issues...anything else is totally different..
if you admit your true nature and move on with transition , you will understand..

and if you are not ts, then you are putting yourself through the wringer for no good purpose..and your set of problems will be very different ..and they will likely include what you are going through now unless you can really cut the cord with the idea of transsexuality..

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Originally Posted by Traci Elizabeth

You said it yourself, "especially as I do not consider myself transsexual " so why are you considering any changes?

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I rate the probability as better than 85% that my job is going to disappear. (A survey was done and 47% of the people in my organization are looking for new jobs so it isn't just me being pessimistic). Due to various peculiar features in the way my particular job was constructed, it will formally cease to exist as of April 1 (because I report to a position that formally ceases to exist then), but the job will continue due to organizational inertia for an indeterminate period of reorganization. There is international pressure to cut our staff, and by far the easiest way to cut staff is to tell someone that their job no longer exists... especially when, on paper, it really doesn't exist any-more. Do they go to the trouble of creating a new job for me, or just let me go? Odds are heavy on letting me go.

Maybe they'll bother to keep me on. But I have no good reason to expect that. Planning for the next job is an attempt to deal with the reality of my situation. But then I have to figure out "who" I will be for the purposes of whatever job that will be. Life's like that sometimes, requiring us to make decisions before we are completely ready for them :sad:

Name changing.... Have you noticed how there can be a big difference between the things you "know" you really like doing, and the things that you actually do? Concerts, movies, canoeing "Oh, I love doing that!". And at the end of the season you realize that what you really did was sit home and read some books? I try to pay attention to such things, and what I have discovered this last period is that what I am really doing is researching and thinking about names. Not that I have any kind of strong thoughts about hating my name, but I'm doing that researching and thinking anyhow. Which implies that at some level it is important to me.

It can be pretty subtle. I take taxis a lot, and drop by drop my annoyance is filling up at how the drivers call me "sir". Last week my massage therapist (who has never heard my female name) referred to me by my male name in conversation in the middle of the session, and I had to stop myself from blurting out in annoyance, "My name isn't ________, it's Sandra!"

Apparently my transition to what-ever kind of TG I am destined to become is still in progress.

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Originally Posted by Kaitlyn Michele

if you admit your true nature and move on with transition , you will understand..

and if you are not ts, then you are putting yourself through the wringer for no good purpose..and your set of problems will be very different

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I have undergone a number of the classic transition steps even as a transgender -- not trying to match some kind of ideal of what I "should" be or how I "should" act, but simply because I needed to, for internal reasons. Someone from outside looking my situation... it wouldn't surprise me if they said, "Are you sure they aren't transsexual?!" I never deny that I might be transsexual: I just say that I don't identify as transsexual. In denial? Maybe.

The best hypothesis I have been able to find that fits the known facts is that perhaps I really was "male" (with "transgender potential") when I was younger, and now "male" is no longer controlling. I know that is a somewhat heretical idea in the TS community, but the key point for me is that I am trans now and what am I going to do about it? If I were to (for example) end up 24/7 non-op because that worked for me, would it be such a tragedy that I did not undergo years of psychiatric analysis to "prove" that really I was a "girl" in grade school? I've been in gender therapy for more than 3 years, learning to live with what is.

Truly, it depends upon where YOU decide to go with it all. As I see it, you can remain male which would require you do nothing. You can chose to be simply tg, which you may or may not want to change your name. You can chose to be ts pre-op which you would present as female so a name change is probably in order. You can chose to be ts post-op in which case you would definitely want to change your name. The thing is, it is up to YOU to define.

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Originally Posted by Jorja

Truly, it depends upon where YOU decide to go with it all.

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Choices require examining what can be done and how difficult it is to do it (and timeframes required for it). Which is what I am doing in this thread, trying to work out the implications of a name change upon my professional career. Especially upon switching jobs, which is a time when it helps to be able to pull as many strings as possible.

One thing you could do is keep your initials the same. As you transition, start going by 'JM Smith' or whatever and have that printed on your business cards. If you don't normally use your middle initial, then it could be anything. It may be limiting (especially if your birth name is Xavier) but maybe something to consider.

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Originally Posted by Flent

One thing you could do is keep your initials the same.

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I just checked a site with a large catalog of names, for female names with the same initial I have.

There were 2 names that are so heavily associated with particular celebs that the tabloids routinely refer to them by first name and everyone knows who they are talking about. Those two names are also strongly associated with a different minority culture than I hail from -- enough so that people would be asking WTF I used that name.

There were 3 names in common (and not infamous) use. One of them is closely enough associated with a famous transsexual as to be generally advised against. The other two... I just don't happen to care for.

There was 1 name that is not so common but would be recognizable and not a special problem. Well, except for the fact that the father of one of my best friends is considered the world expert in the item designated....

There were another 2 names, recognizable but not at all common, that happen to be the names of people I know personally.

The remaining names were pretty obscure. Well, I did happen to have a great-aunt with one of the names, it would almost never have been used in my generation.

So, adding that all up, there are only 2 or 3 usable names available with the same initial as mine, and I don't happen to care for the 2 unobstructed choices. :sad:

Hmmmm... How about changing your middle initial to match a new (and androgynous) name for your female self? I seem to remember you mentioning that you were contemplating changing it a while back.

A professional colleague transitioned at a mature age after a significant career and continued to work in our profession post transition. This person was published in peer reviewed journals and citations occasionally turn up her previous name as well as her name post transition. Whenever I have heard her pre transition work cited it is always using female pronouns e.g. back in 1980 she did a study on X, despite her being pretransition when the study was done and published. So I think if you are as good as you say you are, your good clients (and employers) will back you up and the ones that it makes a difference too, well, do you need them as clients (or employers)?

Oh, just don't change your last name. It generally has more hold.

Sandra,
..........................................um, I have so many thoughts about your situation but I don't really know what to say.

Three years in therapy? I've been following your posts recently and I've really begun to question the value of that therapist. Many of these issues that you are grappling with amount to nothing more than a hill of beans for most of the TS gals I know. The name thing seems to be getting a disproportionate amount of brain space for example. based on your analysis so far, I give you 2-1 odds that you will end up changing whatever name you finally settle on. I also have serious reservations about this "need" to transition. Some of the things you say are right on the money and then you'll follow up with something rather bizarre like getting upset at being called sir, when you look like a man.

The internal battle most of us face isn't about the transition at all. It's about the acceptance of something that has haunted us since we were old enough to have a thought. I'll bet you that 90% of the trans people on here will say that once they finally got to the end of their rope, transition was a foregone conclusion. After that it was just means and methods. You have either not yet reached the end of your rope or you are not really a trans person. You have fixated on this for some reason though and I can't help but wonder why your therapist hasn't been able to help you more. I do sympathize with how you feel, but you are literally burning daylight and confusing yourself with these bouts of what I can only describe as intellectual masturbation.

You are clearly very bright, but this is NOT an issue to be solved by analysis. TS people solve this issue by looking into their hearts with wide open eyes. That's where the answer is, that's where it always is, unfortunately many of us just refuse to see it.

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Originally Posted by Badtranny

The internal battle most of us face isn't about the transition at all. It's about the acceptance of something that has haunted us since we were old enough to have a thought. I'll bet you that 90% of the trans people on here will say that once they finally got to the end of their rope, transition was a foregone conclusion. After that it was just means and methods. You have either not yet reached the end of your rope or you are not really a trans person.

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Yes, you are quite correct: I am not at the end of my rope and I don't know if I am transsexual, but I am certainly transgender. I have transitioned to the degree I have because I have needed to in the present day.

I did not feel the same way in childhood: I was sure then that I was male ("innate sense of identity") -- but I did wonder why the other males had to be so strange.

I have been on hold recently, not needing to go further during that time, but I can tell it is creeping up on me. It was 15 months ago that I started HRT, which dampened my dysphoria considerably, and I have been adjusting and processing with the new brain chemistry.

By coincidence my workplace has been very very stressful during most of my time on HRT, quite hard on everyone. I find out today if my job is definitely gone or is provisionally gone or will continue. When contemplating life after my present job, I realized that I have accepted that I will be going further, but the form and timing of that "further" are still open. I am not at the end of my rope yet, but my instincts are telling me that I will need to change more.

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Originally Posted by Badtranny

You are clearly very bright, but this is NOT an issue to be solved by analysis. TS people solve this issue by looking into their hearts with wide open eyes. That's where the answer is, that's where it always is, unfortunately many of us just refuse to see it.

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Yep, the story of my life: analyze, analyze, analyze, eventually come to some kind of logical conclusion, then throw away the logical conclusion and act on my heart. My regular (non-gender) therapist has been remarking on this topic.

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Originally Posted by sandra-leigh

I find out today if my job is definitely gone or is provisionally gone or will continue. When contemplating life after my present job, I realized that I have accepted that I will be going further, but the form and timing of that "further" are still open.

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My job appears to be continuing! For now, anyhow. But it's the right point for me to be doing late-career planning anyhow, and I know for sure there are places I'd rather be working. And that means I have to give more thought to what to do and when towards further transition. That's probably worth a thread by itself.

What a relief! It's good that you're still planning your late career, but it does take some pressure off.