this post was submitted on 19 Nov 2023
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The thread description reminded me -
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Back when I was a school advisor, I learned something from a coworker (teacher).
Some of our teachers were "oldschool" and refused using a new name a student had because of their beliefs. And that the main (or a big) reason why certain kids do suicides is because they are not called by the names they want to be called.
When someone refuses to use a trans person's new name because of their "beliefs", that's them effectively saying "my beliefs are that I know who you are better than you do, so you'd better conform to who I think you should be". Trans people commit suicide not because of the name, but because of what refusing the name really means: that society wants to define their identity, denying them the personal autonomy to define themselves. I think if you denied such autonomy to cis people, plenty of them would commit suicide too, because living as an identity someone else has chosen for you is intolerable to most humans.
It is more than "a name that they want to be called". Sometimes people don't fit in the social constuct that was assigned to them without their choice. What you describe is someone affirming themselves by themselves. When we are denied the right to define ourselves, that can be devastating.
I know that the name is not all that belongs to building a self image