Stealth Mode Deactivated

I had a joke I was telling for a minute after the election. It's a joke that helped me cover the sense of impending doom being thrust upon us all by the media or well-meaning friends and family. A bit of humor to dissolve the fear and to animate hope.

"Stealth mode activated."

A phrase I intended to mean that I would change my name and gender marker to reflect what people already assume my gender is: male. I had the thought that I would fly under the radar with my cis-passing privilege as Klayten Paul Rose and pretend to be a straight-cis-man for the next however many years.

I've decided not to do this anymore.

My name, Katelyn Rose Pyles, and my gender marker, X, are reflected on my license precisely as I want them to be. I did the paperwork and paid the fees for the little X. I worked hard for this and resent feeling like I must change it, even if only to hide its truth temporarily.

KP Rose, the name people know me by, is a way for me to keep my legal name incorporated into my identity. I don't consider my name dead; it's just reimagined.

Perhaps it is dead, though, in the way that our birth names can haunt us when we want or expect it least. I was told once by an elder transwoman that we call them "dead names" because it's the name people use in our obituary or the news when we die... Or when they kill us.

A haunting.

I met this elder queer with the macabre definition of "dead name" when I was a barista. She was one of my regulars. By coincidence, we started and went through the initial pains of our medical transition together. We bemoaned the "second puberty" and lamented not having started gender-affirming care sooner.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, her sixty-something perspective was far more cynical than mine, but I listened. I navigated the nonsense, conspiracy theories, and casual bigotry and found something hardly sinister. I found a woman, a self-identified Democrat (we talked politics a lot), hurting from decades of internalized hate.

Internalized transphobia, homophobia, xenophobia, and racism. She had remained in the closet most of her life for fear of rejection and cruelty. Her perspective was painted with the deepest shades that trauma can produce.

I respect her, but I don't necessarily want to be her. Rather, I don't want to think like her.

I don't want to be afraid or assume the worst of my neighbors. I don't want to worry about people's private negative thoughts becoming negative actions toward me or people like me. I don't want to pretend to be something I'm not, so maybe someone will treat me better.

I don't want to be naive, but I don't want to live under the assumption that people mean to do harm and show disrespect towards trans people.

I don't want to hide, and I don't want to go back into the closet.

It's as much about keeping my sanity as it is keeping the steady flow of change coursing.

People need to do what makes them feel seen while still safe.

But that's why I can't change my name.

Or change my gender marker to M.

I'm happiest and safest when I'm true to myself. I'll weather whatever comes my way in the way that pleases me.

We all will.