(no subject)

ridiculous impostor feelings about how dead my second deadname actually is.

like, my first deadname, i.e. my birth name is dead, or at least it fucking should be. it feels absolutely awful but some people still call me it.

but then there's technically what is my second deadname, which is my first chosen name, a name i went by for 4 years. i even changed my name legally to that name. this should really be properly dead too because i'd very much rather be called Delta, but it's much more alive than the other one, as it's still my legal name, so i have to put it on forms quite a bit or even introduce myself with that name. and more than once i simply forgot to tell people that that's not actually the name i go by or to change it in their system, at least in part because i also forget how easily it apparently can be changed in the UK for different things.

my second deadname barely feels dead because i don't have a visceral reaction to it the way i do to my birth name, so much so that i sometimes forget to let people know that's not actually my name. i don't even mind people knowing what that name was.

i guess that second deadname feels less horrible because it was one i actually chose rather than one given to me based on incorrect gender assignment, it was my first assertion of trans autonomy.