A Lesson in Names and Pronouns

I haven’t publicly “spoken” about this since coming out in my last blog. I don’t need to give anyone reasons as to why I haven’t, I don’t need to explain myself one bit, but I feel the need to bring the topic up. Why? Because not speaking about it makes me feel like some people think it might just go away, that this is just a phase in my life.

First I want to begin with a lesson in using proper pronouns and names. Imagine you are out to eat and the person serving you food mistakes you for the opposite sex. Immediately you correct them, right? Your are correcting them because they are wrong, because you know in your heart that you are you and we all want to be validated. They immediately apologize and correct themselves. It’s easy, it’s done and over with, simple and now everyone feels better.

Now when I tell somebody that I am transgender and that I’m a man nobody else gets the right to say that I am not. Why? Because they are not walking in my shoes, they have not lived my life, and they do not know how my mind works. They are not me and their opinion on how I express myself does not have any meaning on how I live my life.

So, when somebody calls me by my birth name I cringe. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I’ve hated that name since I was a kid. Even adding one of my middle names to the first only made it a tiny bit better, but still I grew to hate it. “Ruth” made me feel like an old lady, it didn’t fit. “Ruth Ann” made me feel like a little girl, it didn’t fit. BLAKE makes me smile. BLAKE feels like a good fit. Calling me by my old names makes me feel as if you are not accepting who I am, it makes me feel horrible, and it actually hurts me.

With that in mind let’s move on to using proper pronouns. Remember that scene in the restaurant where you correct the person serving you food? Okay good. So, now maybe you can understand that if I tell you that I’m a man, and my pronouns are masculine, that that’s that, right? I hope so.

Now I understand it’s harder for some people who have spent X number of years using the exact opposite for both name and pronoun. All I’m saying is that as soon as you start using the correct terms you’ll see just how happy it makes me.

Honestly I feel like this may be a bit scattered, and not very well put together, but I hope that it gets the point across.

Also as a bit of a side note, I’m still learning and figuring everything out myself. It’s not cut and dry, it’s a journey of self discovery, one that I know is very hard to understand, but it’s also incredibly hard to get through.

Many people who go through this don’t have the same support that I do, and I know that I’m lucky. I’m lucky that my mother is working on understanding and calling me by my name, I’m lucky that other members of my family are trying to understand and not exiling me for who I am.

My heart goes out to those who are struggling silently, without any of that support. May you stand strong and come out the other side, I look forward to meeting you there.

xo Blake