The Name Change

Back when I was questioning my gender situation in 2021 and early 2022, one of the questions that occupied my mind was what sort of name I'd want to have if I could actually wrap my mind around the idea that I was really trans. I knew intuitively that it was a very important choice, so I wanted it to fit.

Note: for the purposes of taedryn.com, I will not be using my real name, but we need some names for this post to work, so we'll say Heather Mhairi is my new first and middle name, and Hamish John was my old first/middle name.

I examined and rejected so many names. There was a period of several months where I was just haunting baby name websites, scrolling through options. Somehow, I never really came up with one that seemed to fit. I wanted something that was as unusual and Scottish as Hamish (there are very few Hamishes to be found in the US, which I really appreciated). But I also wanted it to fit. And somehow, it was surprisingly difficult to find something that fit me. Not that I had strong opinions about whether Hamish "fit" or not, but after so many decades with it, it was worn in like an old glove, and I liked it. I'd never had to critically examine it before.

Finally, one day, I stumbled across Heather in a list. I have no idea how I skipped by it so many times, but suddenly there it was. Heather. Yeah. It was good. I got really excited, and told a friend, who's also trans, about it, and their reaction was, "Yeah, actually, that fits really well." Several other friends had a similar reaction. Something about my face and my hair, we speculated. I realized about ten seconds after settling on it that Heather was also the name of a very early crush in grade school.

So that pretty much sealed the deal. I've been Heather ever since. Mhairi was a close contender for my first name, but it didn't exactly fit. Someone, I think my dad, suggested that I could use it as a middle name. After all, it was unusual like Hamish, and Scottish like Hamish. And if it didn't quite fit, that seemed to make it excellent middle-name material. So, that pretty much settled the middle name as well, particularly since it had a parental blessing.

My parents had had a strong reaction to me coming out as trans. They were completely supportive, but my mom in particular ended up really struggling with it, and the name turned out to be a surprisingly large part of it. Hamish was important to her. She'd poured a lot of energy into deciding on that name, and although she knew this wasn't my motive, I think it felt a bit like I was repudiating her choice. Her therapist actually gave her a really excellent exercise to deal with my transition: make two lists, one which lists all the things she liked about me that were going away, and another which lists all the things that remain. On the "going away" list were two things:

• Hamish
• Male identity

On the "staying the same" list? Like 45 different things. I think it helped her a lot.

So, name settled: Heather Mhairi. I started using it pretty much immediately when my egg cracked, and haven't stopped since.

But, the legal name change? A whole different ballgame.

For most of my life, I've been a real law-follower. In college, I carefully drove the speed limit while everyone around me was going 5-10 over. I have mixed feelings about all that now, but the fact is that that's who I was, and who I still am, when I can see the sense and value behind the rules.

Around 2000, I realized I could learn to fly small planes, and embraced it eagerly. This is a pastime which strongly punishes breaking the rules, because almost all the rules of flying are there for very good reasons, and the punishment might be legal, but as often as not is simply death or life-altering injury. There's no shoulder to pull over on at 3000 feet, if you skipped something on the checklist.

This background might help you understand why merely going by a new name, versus actually registering that new name with the legal authority of the court might feel like different things to me. When I'm just using a name, it's revocable. It's a situation where I can yank the dress off to reveal the totally boymode t-shirt underneath, declare "Just kidding!" at the top of my lungs, and carry on as if nothing had happened, dignity at least partially intact.

But to file for a legal name change? There's no ripping that dress off. It felt like an irrevocable, bold public declaration, set in stone. It's not, of course. You can change your name until you're blue in the face. Hormone therapy, which I started a month after coming out to myself, is substantially more permanent, once breast growth starts, but here I am eagerly slapping patches on my butt twice a week. The "registering with the authorities" nature of the legal name change made it big and daunting.

So, I put it off. I could deal with it in the future. A problem for future-me.

Shortly after I came out to myself last year, I located my dream plane, and after a brief trip to see it in Florida, I ponied up my ameros and bought it. Of course, I did all the paperwork as Hamish. It was only a couple weeks after I'd even realized I was trans. There was no chance I was comfortable changing my name that early.

So, it turns out that the FAA has been short-staffed for years, since covid just ran the workforce through a woodchipper, and registering an aircraft sale was something that was taking around 6 months. My March purchase and registration change request wasn't processed until September, and that generated a scary-looking letter saying "you need to make a correction," which I didn't finally deal with until November. I figured they got it in early December, and that this would put me on track to get the transaction finally registered in June or July, since they would presumably not be getting any faster.

I figured that there was no way I was going to jeopardize getting this paperwork processed by legally changing my name. Who knew what kind of extra delays that might cause? I didn't need another 6 months tacked onto this already ridiculously-long process.

And so there it sat: I had the perfect, completely valid, totally well-reasoned excuse to avoid thinking about registering my name change legally. I definitely wasn't avoiding thinking about it, or anything. No sirree-bob. It's all the FAA's fault. It's not causing me low-grade, constant anxiety at all.

The problem, of course, is that as I got used to being Heather Mhairi, I kept seeing Hamish John everywhere: bills, correspondence from the bank, emails from different accounts; every last one of which I'd registered as Hamish, long before I knew what was up. And every time I saw my old name on yet another thing, I had this little ping in the back of my head: "but... that's not my name."

It got to the point a few months ago that I realized I was actually ready to make the change for real, and was actually getting annoyed at having to wait. But my convenient excuse was still in place, and still just as frustratingly logically valid. Finally, a couple weeks ago, I had the idea to ask them what effect a name change would have on the registration process, and send the FAA an email.

They're much better at responding to emails, and soon I had the answer: actually, we're only a few weeks from processing your registration, and if you can get the documents to us before we do, we can just do the name change at the same time, and save you a step of updating the name on the registration down the road.

Picture, if you will, all the blood draining from my face, as I realized that my last excuse, my rock-solid reason I couldn't think about this at the moment, just evaporated into thin air, and, in fact, I had a good reason to move right now to get the process done. Oh shit. Oh crap. Uh...

Suddenly all the leisure I'd had to contemplate the process was gone. No more hiding behind my excuses. Now is go time. This was yesterday.

I saw the email around 2:00 in the afternoon. Blood drain, holy crap, yes yes. I re-read it a half-dozen times, trying to be certain I understood what it was saying. I finally thought I did, and sort of frantically looked up the county name-change website I'd found earlier.

Ok, yes. Petition form. Surprisingly large number of dollars. Photo ID. Something to prove residency if the photo ID didn't have a good address. And... that's it? I... Huh. I really thought there'd be more to it than that. The hearing, of course, but I thought there were, like, more steps, more gatekeeping. Nope. Fill out this form, bring your pile of cash (if you pay by card, it'll be a couple weeks before you can get in for a hearing), and show up at the next hearing date.

Wow.

By 3:30, I had filled out the form and printed it, signing it in ink with my old Hamish signature (holy crap, I have to come up with a new Heather signature!). I had a sufficient pile of cash ready to go somehow. By 4 pm, I was taking a surprisingly nervous photo of myself standing outside the courthouse. I almost started crying as I was pulling away from my house; I couldn't tell why exactly.

Went in through the metal detector (crap, forgot about the metal detector, but they didn't squawk at my tiny pocket knife; must remember to leave that behind next time) and stepped up to the clerk's window. Handed over my petition and stack of green paper to the bored-looking clerk. He took it all and typed at his computer for a minute. He counted out the cash and gave me my change and a little receipt with Hamish John on it, but no mention of my new name.

"Can I see how you entered it?" I asked. Mhairi is a weird one, and I knew I didn't want to have to correct it after the fact if I could possibly avoid it. He explained that he'd give me a proper form in a second where I could double-check everything. A moment later, a new piece of paper showing how he'd entered everything. Confirm your old name and your new name, please. Yep, looks right. The empty hallway echoed with my voice. Someone wearing body armor and a big pistol on his hip and a LOOMIS vest walked past. He set off that metal detector, for sure. We arranged where and when my name change hearing would be: next week, that door down the hall, just go in and sit down, they'll call you up.

I tripped out the door, passing the bored-looking cop stationed at the door, and got out to the car. I was Feeling a Lot, but again, nothing I could really identify. It had occured to me as I was filling out the date on the petition: it was my egg-crack anniversary. February 28th. I was filing my legal name change petition within a few hours of the literal moment I knew I was trans, a year ago.

Since that moment, only about 24 hours have passed. Somehow, it's only been a day, and so much has happened.

So much has changed.

I am a different person. I can almost literally feel a warm wash of euphoria lifting me up. Resetting the level of euphoria covering the entire world by a perceptible amount. I dreamt, half-awake, of a wave washing over me, warm and soft and beautiful, and everywhere the water touched, I was the real me, I was Heather. I was the person I've secretly dreamed of being since I knew what "boy" and "girl" meant; often so secretly I didn't tell even myself. The level of water, the level of rightness in the world, had gone up. I was more me, I am now more me, than I'd ever been before.

Almost incidentally, I'd already scheduled a hair cut for that evening, and told my hair stylist about the whole name change thing; she was so excited for me. I told her to cut off a bunch of hair, so maybe I'd stop looking so much like an aging hippie, and give people a stronger impression of femininity when they looked at me. It looked so good when it was done. Nearly the A-line bob of my dreams. Might go back and get it touched up, you never know quite how curly hair is going to react, so she left it longer than I asked for just in case.

I've started to figure out what those Big Feelings were. I think there was a lot of "anxiety suddenly gone" relief. There was a lot of "oh shit, big event!" that's been building up, ever so slowly and gradually, for the last year. There was a mind-blowing sense of synchronicity with the FAA, my old nemesis, emailing me back on this exact day, with such unexpectedly good news. Two friends mentioned wanting to attend the name change hearing, and although they couldn't actually make it, the idea hit me so hard that I started crying. Not just this big, momentous change, but this big, momentous change in front of friends and family. I called my parents shortly afterwards, and invited them to the hearing.

Really, it's only the start. But what a start. I cannot fucking wait to start nuking those old accounts that still call me Hamish. Let's goooooo!