On comings-out and transitions [Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος]

Thinking about National Coming Out Day. I don't think there's anyone in my life or even kinda near my life who doesn't know that I'm transgender. And a lot of you know that I'm kinky, and some of you may know/remember than I'm polyamorous. (Well, 'ambiamorous' -- I can actually be quite happy in a monogamous relationship or a poly one, depending on whom I'm in the relationship with and how it develops. But I identify more as poly.) I've been "out" about all of that for a long time, even if not everybody has had the last two come up in conversation with me, so it kinda feels like i don't really have anything left to come out about. But maybe I do (though I said some of this in less detail last NCOD). Because several years ago I realized my identity was shifting and I felt a strong mental pressure to start making my body change too.

While many of you met me while I identified as "intergender" (because genderqueer wasn't a label yet when I chose one), my identity is no longer in-the-middle. A lot of folks who've run into me recently have heard this because they've asked -- either because asking about pronouns is a more normal thing nowadays or because they notice changes to my body, or both -- but I'm closer to the F pole on the gender graph than I was, and looking forward to seeing whether this journey carries me all the way there.

So here's my Coming Out Day thing, which (as I mentioned) folks who talk to me one-on-one a lot or have run into me and asked questions already know, but not everybody is up to date on: I have been on HRT for about five years, my pronouns are she/her (though I won't hold a "he" against anyone until I harmonize my gender-presentation with my gender-identity), I am trying to schedule a relevant minor surgery, I'm trying to work up my nerve to shave my beard (which feels like a bigger step than growing breasts or telling people or trying to schedule an orchiectomy), and I'm trying to pick a new name. Some of this is scary, more of it is wonderful, a bunch of it is both. Even though I haven't reached my destination (or figured out for sure what my destination is), that mental pressure to act is greatly reduced since I started taking these steps, my emotions seem to work a lot better on estrogens than androgens, and a lot of "mental static" that I'd gotten used to has gone away. (As Zinnia Jones has pointed out, not all symptoms of gender dysphoria are obviously that, until treating the dysphoria makes them go away.)

I stopped using conventional labels like 'gay'/'het'/'straight' to talk about my orientation a long time ago, and started just saying "attracted to women" and leaving the label as en exercise for the listener ... but did (do) identify as "queer". First because being trans (and especially for being visibly gender-nonconforming) I was already part of the queer community, and again because even though attraction to women didn't feel gay, it didn't quite feel straight either. (Because when my gender was in-between, which was the "opposite gender"? The labels 'bi' or 'pan' would have worked if I had been bi or pan, but I wasn't and AFAICT still am not.) Amusing thing though: I've assumed that most other people mentally tagged me as het, and while HRT did not change my orientation (it can do that, but I've never found out how common or rare it is), changing my gender does mean that the label for my orientation changes.

It's been said that coming out isn't a one-time act, but something that winds up being repeated again and again when meeting new people or joining new groups -- and that goes double for bisexuals and trans people. Like coming-out, transitions are scary and liberating and sometimes difficult ... and there's more than one. Even for a textbook story of a binary gender transition there are medical, legal, and social transitions which may happen at different times and aren't instantaneous. Of those, social transition is the scariest (and generally the most important). And I've already transitioned socially from male to genderqueer years ago, but here I am in the middle (beginning, I guess) of another social transition, from genderqueer to female or mostly-female, in the middle of medical transition, and looking into options & to-do list for legal transition. And y'know? Telling people one on one has been relatively easy (has gotten easier with practice), but standing up to the world and saying, "Here I am, I am changing, this is what I am doing," is a lot harder. So I guess I had something for National Coming Out Day after all.

BTW, what do folks think of the name Eftychia (Ευτυχια, /eff-ti-KHEE-a/ where the χ is sort of between a kh sound and a gh or really-rough-'h' sound)? Still making up my mind, but that one's in the running.

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I can totally see how shaving your beard would be a much bigger step than many other things.

Good luck on your continuing journey to being even more awesome.

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Thanks! I wasn't sure how understandable the beard thing would be to people. Even I didn't foresee it being the scariest part, before I started this latest leg of my journey.

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That shaving the beard is scary makes sense to me. As we talked about briefly in email a while back, the beard is what confused me about your gender identity for a long time, and since identity is obviously very important, the beard must also have a strong pull or you would have eliminated that apparent dissonance by now.

I first met you in the mid-80s, I think. I've never known you to *not* have that big beard. It's part of you.

But when you're ready, it can also be part of your history.

I am just going to concur with RMD, and to hug you. *huggles*

:-) *hug*

Thanks for sharing that with us.

I think your name is a very personal choice, and only you can make it. The name you're considering is a big change from your current name, and if you feel as if you're becoming a different person, a vastly changed name is a good thing. If you're just becoming more of the person you've always been, though, then a sharp break in names could feel weird. If you'd like a similar name to your old name, I'd suggest "Gwen."

Best of luck!

There are already a Gwen and a Gwenna in my local circle, otherwise I definitely would be considering something in the Gwen / Gwenevere / Genevieve / Gwenhwyfar family. :-) I think all of those names are pretty, and they've been in my head longer than most others.

I know my name has to be my personal choice, and I'm not asking others to pick for me (Boaty McBoatface is off the table), but hearing how others react to names I put out there as possibilities helps me figure out which aspects of a name are important to me. Do I care about keeping my initials? How awkward is it if I pick the same name as someone I already know? (My gut says probably enough so to worry about -- though one friend has said I can have her name because she's accustomed to not being the only one.) So I want a similar-sounding name to give friends cover when they slip, or a significantly different name to signal/reflect other changes? Can I get used to being four syllables instead of one? How important is it to me to pick a Greek name to honour my Greek Cypriot heritage -- or a Celtic name or a British name to reflect the rest of my heritage? How much do I care about being easily Googleable? (The last time I Googled myself, I think all but two of the hits on the first four pages were all me -- how much do I care about that? And for each name I'm considering, is there somebody else with an established web presence and a similar name doing music & photography that I'll get mistaken for online?) Does a name I like come off sounding too pretentious or trying-too-hard, and if so how much am I going to worry about that? How hard are some names to spell/pronounce -- and how much inconvenience over that am I willing to put up with for the sake of a prettier / better-fitting name? Each of those is a choice others can't make for me, too -- but looking at how I react to other people's reactions to possible names helps me sort out how to weight those different aspects, and once that much is a bit clearer to me, I'll have a much smaller list of names to pick from, and maybe one will stand out as a best fit. Maybe.

So it's not about 'votes' from my friends, so much as how I find myself reacting to their reactions, and how that helps me weed out what is really important from what I'm just overthinking.

I'm listening to the suggestions too. Some, I'm like, "nah, don't think that's me," but some I need to chew on for a while, imagine introducing myself to people, using it as a byline ...

I'm pretty sure I'm going to stop being first-initial-middle-name though. And that will fill weird and take some getting used to. But it will solve a bunch of problems I have with other people's poorly designed databases.

I think of you as dglenn rather than glenn arthur; how many of those hits are dglenn? i remember quite early on you nixed glenda or glenna because of the bad movie refs.

(totes understand the concept of bouncing off of others; it's often all but impossible for me to make even the simplest decision unless someone else puts forward a proposal.)

If I search for "Glenn Arthur", hits for an artist in California come up first. (Six or seven years ago it was more of a mix., IIRC.) Searching for the version I've been using in copyright notices, "D. Glenn Arthur Jr.", gets four pages that are all by me, quoting me, mentioning me, or linking to me (though for some reason www.ziggy.ai thinks that I am a five million dollar company with twelve employees ... WTF?!) followed by a short page that includes a couple of Dutch pages that don't even seem to have my name in them but matched according to Google anyhow for some reason. Searching for "dglenn" gets mostly people with a first or middle initial 'D' and the surname Glenn, but I do show up once in the first page of hits (plus image thumbnails).

My SCA name is Arthur d'Glenn -- I'm thinking of keeping the d'Glenn part of that (though maybe regularizing it to "de Glenn" or even translating it to "du Val", because d-apostrophe-consonant isn't a natural pattern in any languages I'm familiar with). That way folks at Pennsic who hail me as d'Glenn/de Glenn won't exactly be wrong (only a handful of folks there address me as Arthur currently). That runs back into the "make it easy to cover when people forget, or make a bigger difference to remind folks something has changed?" question ... but with kinda different stakes than my mundane name.

(It also did occur to me that if I'm changing the rest of my name, I could change my surname at the same time. I can see pros and cons to that, two of the cons being changing a tie to my siblings & paternal kin, and making it even harder for folks who've fallen long out to touch to find me again.)

I like Eftychia, if you're prepared to have your name misspelled and/or mispronounced. (Just looking at that, I'd make the χ a kh, and probably put the accent on the second syllable.)

Yah, I'd probably have to put a pronunciation guide next to it in "about the author" boxes on things I write, and prominently on my homepage. I'm still sorting out how much of that I'm willing to put up with for a name that's pretty, Greek, and means "happiness".

The beard does seem like A Step, so I can see how that'd be hard.

(Eftychia means happiness?)

Yup! (Wikipedia says etymologically it's from "good luck", but they give the "happiness" as the main meaning, and that's what I've seen elsewhere.)

not everybody is up to date on: I have been on HRT for about five years, my pronouns are she/her

I'd no idea. Mazel tov! Welcome to the team!

Eftychia (Ευτυχια, /eff-ti-KHEE-a/

Wait, both the second and fourth letters are an upsilon, and it's pronounced /eff-ti-KHEE-a/? Huh. Are all those words that start with the "eu" prefix supposed to sound like /eff/?

I think it's phonetically lovely, especially with the χ sound, but I don't expect most Americans to be able to cope with that phoneme, and I find the pronounciation and emphasis non-obvious from the spelling. You're going to have a lot of trouble with people not understanding you on the phone.

What would your mother have named you if you had been AFAB? Is your mother still alive and well? Are you talking to her about your transition? If she's good with it, it might be worth talking to her about it. In most societies around the world, including ours, parents give names to their children as a sort of blessing, a way of expressing their hopes and aspirations for their child. If she is not hostile to your transition, you might ask her for the name she would have given you if she had known – her blessing for her daughter.

Glad to be aboard!

The eu->ef thing seems to be a Modern Greek vs Ancient Greek thing. (Either that or it's a Cypriot Greek vs Mainland Greek difference, but I think Greek Greeks do it too. I'm not 100% sure.) So Λευκωσια (Nicosia) is pronounced /Lef-ko-si-a/, and "ευχαριστω" ("thank you") comes out "efharistoh". Since the Greek I studied in middle school was Ancient, it took me ages to figure out how to spell most of the words my relatives were saying, and I'm still stumped on several, but I finally for the "ef is spelled ευ" part down.

Yeah, part of why I asked for folks' reactions to it was to gauge just how big the spelling/pronunciation problem is going to be, and how attached to the name anyhow from how I feel about hearing that problem voiced by others. (Makes it less abstract, if that makes sense.)

My mother (who died in May) did not remember what she would have named me if I'd been AFAB. I did ask. I really, really wish she'd been able to tell me.

I know that my parents were planning to name me Mikaelakis or something similar (see previous remark about spelling) but changed their minds after they heard my father's mother try to pronounce it, deciding it was safer just to name me after Dad. So the name "Michelle" occurred to me, but I'd have to be really attached to that name to ask somebody very important to me to get over their own issues with that name, and I like it but I don't think I like it enough. And because I was baptized Orthodox I had to be baptized under a Biblical or church name (which neither of my given names are), so they picked Κλημης for that (which winds up sounding approximately "Gleemus" the way Mom said it, and took me forever to figure out the spelling of so I could Google it) and it turns out to be the Greek form of "Clement", so of course I considered "Clementine", but that made me sound like an anachronism. I might use Clementine (with a French pronunciation) as an SCA name, since I found an SCA-period composer named Clementine de Bourges.

But yeah, I really wish I knew what my parents would have named me if I'd been AFAB.

My mother (who died in May) did not remember what she would have named me if I'd been AFAB. I did ask. I really, really wish she'd been able to tell me.

Awwww. :(

And because I was baptized Orthodox I had to be baptized under a Biblical or church name (which neither of my given names are), so they picked Κλημης for that

Right, everyone in my sweetie's mother's family has at least two names, the one the Anglophones could cope with, and their Greek names.

At the first Christmas dinner I spent with them, I asked

tn3270's mother if her name – which was only two syllables and didn't sound at all Greek to me – was short for something, and she said yes it was, and told me her full name (four syllables). Which blew away

tn3270, who had no idea his mother had any more name than that. She had literally only ever used her two-syllable, easy-for-Americans name, on all official paperwork since registering for kindergarden. But apparently it's not what is on her birth certificate.

Amusingly, Aunt C has a perfectly Greek – even Classical – name she was known by as her American name. She just had an even Greeker name that I first heard about in the Greek parts of her funeral service.

Anyways, so, technically, you don't have a naming problem.

You have two naming problems.

HTH. :) :) :)

Eep!

(It does kind of liberate me a bit, because I can pick whatever difficult name appeals to me, but tell people, "you can call me [easyname]". It does mean I have to like both though, so yeah, two problems.)

I am reminded of my cousin Lia, whom I only ever heard called Lia until I went to Cyprus and misspelled her name "Lea" and was corrected with the explanation, "It's short for Evangelia." It wasn't a surprise to anyone else though, as when I saw her house there was a sign on the fence with her full name on it, advertising that she's an architect. (This is my cousin the Timelord. I visited three of the four houses she designed (she usually does parks), and each one was bigger on the inside, two of them quite dramatically so. I figured out some of the tricks she'd used -- leading to a "You spotted that?! Only other architects ever catch that!" moment -- but I couldn't account for most of it. She was amused when I announced that I'd figured out her secret, that she's a Timelord.)

Come to think of it, I also never heard aunt Vaso's whole name -- Vasiliki -- until I started working on the family tree, but apparently that is a pretty standard shortening. But I don't think either relative's short name was chosen to be easier for Anglophones (though Vaso lives in England, so maybe she would have done so if she weren't already called by an easy short version of her name).

The idea of a Greek name and an even Greeker name delights me.

I know that my parents were planning to name me Mikaelakis or something similar (see previous remark about spelling) but changed their minds after they heard my father's mother try to pronounce it, deciding it was safer just to name me after Dad. So the name "Michelle" occurred to me, but I'd have to be really attached to that name to ask somebody very important to me to get over their own issues with that name, and I like it but I don't think I like it enough.

Μιχαέλα?

Daughter of a bandmate. I haven't decided whether that would more or less awkward than picking the name of one of my same-cohort friends.

Part of the problem is that I know a lot of people, so most of the easy names are taken.

Oh, and thank you for the information about Greek. I don't know what anybody is saying, but phoneme combinations like "efk" and "efh" seem very much like what I hear. They're Laconian.

::hugs::

It's a big thing, and you are brave as hell. (And you've *always* had better legs than me!)

Re names, I like the Guinnevere/Gwenhymara (probably misspelled) group - but I will support whatever you choose as long as I know how it's spelled and pronounced.

Shaving the beard... that will take a little getting used to, I think. But a worthwhile step.

::more hugs::

No suggestions. All support.

I know having a Greek name is important to you.

Speaking as someone who named her child Chava Yechiela as Hebrew names, there is a reason her English names are easier to pronounce. You will likely need to pick a nickname.

Also, what is your tolerance level for misspellings?

My tolerance level for misspellings is one of the things I'm trying to figure out. It's definitely going to be a factor.

Thanks for the update. It's hard to keep track of what's happening with people I don't see often. Best of luck, whatever your choices.

Pronouncing "ευ" as "ef" is definitely standard for modern Greek.

It's been said that coming out isn't a one-time act, but something that winds up being repeated again and again when meeting new people or joining new groups -- and that goes double for bisexuals and trans people.

ain't that the whole. damn. truth.

Haven't seen you in person since several Arisias ago, thus I speak from a point of ignorance and for that I apologize; the beard I remember well. Trim back in stages with it maybe, over the course of days or weeks, if you haven't done such already? Easier on the mirror glances for sure, and other folks get used to it with less WHOA WHAT'D YOU DO? factor.

once again I wish trades worked, as if we were all a bunch of Mx. Potatoheads; here, let's swap breasts for beards, uteri for... etc.

Clémence? (kleh-Mohns, though French, I know)

Yeah, hearing a trans man in California complaining a while back about not being able to grow a beard even with testosterone, I was thinking, "dude, if only I could give you mine."

Several years ago I heard about a trans man and a trans woman coincidentally scheduled for bottom surgery at the same time in the same hospital, who even more coincidentally were a good tissue match for each other, and the surgeons were all, "Hey, let's transplant her testes into him, and if it works he won't have to inject T for the rest of his life," but the insurance companies involved said no, that's experimental, thou shalt not. I don't think opportunities like that will come up very often.

I kinda started doing the gradual beard shortening thing, but then I'd not get around to doing maintenance for a while and it would grow out, or it would break (every so often I suddenly get a whole lot of, like split ends but in the middle instead of the end, and a bunch of hairs break off over several days) and suddenly it would be much shorter all at once instead of gradually for a while (and then grow out again...). But what you suggest is still an option.

Thank you for sharing this ... I'll try to remember the pronoun but it won't be easy. I like the idea of trimming the beard more and more as part of it. I suspect that once you get the surgery, the beard may go quite a bit naturally.

I'll admit that I will have a terrible time pronouncing the name or spelling it.

http://www.cutebabynames.org/greek-baby-names.aspx?originID=31
has names for Greek Girls.

Callista (beautiful)
Chloe (blossoming)
Zoe (life)
Sophie (wisdom)
Melody (music)
Kirstin (follower of Christ)

For legal change of name, you may have to go through the courts. Get multiple copies of the final paperwork and put some in a safe deposit box. Start making lists of everywhere that you have an ID or account. When it gets done, start updating (Social Security first, then DMV, then the rest). Get a passport or a passport card with the new name as soon as you can.

You may want to get pictures of you in various states of transition so that you can show that you are who you are. Take selfies with the daily paper or something else that would be harder to fake as you do beard trim and before the surgery, after the surgery and weekly for a few months after the surgery (it takes time for those hormones to decrease in the body and stop affecting it). Again, this will help you show that you are still the same person.

After five years on an antiandrogen, the orchiectomy probably won't have much effect on my beard. I think beard growth might have slowed somewhat and it might be a little thiner, maybe -- I know axillary hair and leg hair growth both slowed way down (and scalp hair started gradually creeping back where I'd had only fuzz for a long time).

Two years on HRT is accepted as enough time for most of the changes that are going to happen to have happened. Well, at least the changes the NCAA and IOC care about -- breast growth can continue a little longer (I think I've got as much as I'm going to get, at this point -- 42B) and I'm not sure how long fat redistribution and facial remodeling continue. I'm not expecting the surgery to change much chemically except that I can finally stop taking spironalactone, the foul-tasting antiandrogen that's also a diuretic. (I'll still keep taking estradiol and progesterone.)

I had been worrying a bit about crossing the Canada/US border after shaving my beard. Your idea of photographs in stages sounds helpful.

I was telling my Mom about your post and she asked that I comment to you and tell you that she loves you and wishes you the best in your transition.

Picking a name is a fraught thing. I recall when I was thinking about it in my teens; I think it took me like 6 months to come up with something, and all I was doing was teen angst "must leave, go elsewhere, new identity so don't get caught' thing. Reading the comments, I agree that the beard may leave by itself once the hormone levels shift further.

Eftychia might end up shortening to Kia on the phone, and other lowish bandwidth sound systems; pronouncing it in my head, the first two syllables get lost in shwa-ness.

Good luck on your journey, and thanks for the update!

According to one of the name websites, a usual shortening is "Effie", so now I'm weighing how I feel about "Kia" and "Effie". One of those might work for the "..but you can call me ___" thing.

The beard isn't going away on its own, though it might have started growing more slowly and maybe thinned a little. Testosterone is kind of a one-way trip that way: once it turns on those follicles, they stay on even when the testosterone goes away, barring electrolysis (which I doubt I'll ever be able to afford).

Hearing from others who have had trouble choosing a name is useful. It helps me take the brain-cycles I'd otherwise spend feeling silly for taking so long to decide, and put them to use in figuring it out instead.

I don't know if this is something you would come up against, but 'effie' might sound too much like a shortened term for cursing.

I feel like 'that's not a shortened form i would risk' / 'that's something I would have actively avoided when I was thinkign of things to name kids' is conflicting with 'adults mostly dealing with adults who adult' and 'i think i recall people my parents were friends with with that name, maybe?' Effie sounds familiar-ish in my head in the way I associate with my childhood and adult-maybe-family around my parents.

I'm not sure that para makes sense, but I'm not sure I can explicate it otherwise... my words are only sort of working, today.

But, no. Don't feel silly. You're choosing an essential part of you, for the future. It is a reason, complete to itself, to spend time for All Due Consideration.

Would that I had anything to offer for input, but it looks as though you have support coming from all sides, from even a Time Lord! :-)

On names, just tell us how to spell it and pronounce it, but be patient when we fail to do either on multiple occasions.

Shaving, yep, is a big step. Representative, I guess, too. But, yeah, a big one.

:: hugs::

Thank you for sharing this. I knew some of this but not most of it, I don't think. (Two Pennsics in a row not running into each other will do that, I guess...)

Your chosen name is lovely, and will probably be misspelled and mispronounced so you'll have to figure out how you feel about that. I wouldn't let the fact that others around you have a name deter you; if the *only* reason you don't want to be a Gwen (or whatever) is that you know one, well, naming collisions happen all the time. I remember one class in grade school with *four* Lindas out of, I think, 25 people. I worked on an 8-person team with two Toms. It happens. People deal with it.

I've always thought of you as Dglenn, but I suppose that's not among the options. :-)

Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

On comings-out and transitions

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