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Originally Posted by Swift
I would think (and hope) that in real face to face life most people are pretty tolerant and would understand that deadnaming was likely just a slip of the tongue. Where it becomes more of an issue is the online realm I think.
How do you feel about some viewpoints that a deadname should be almost essentially erased from history? (I'm asking you because I'm coming from a place of wanting to learn and you're more well versed in that world than I am.) After Page's announcement, I read his Wikipedia bio because I wanted to know more about his life. On the Talk page (the section where editors discuss changes to the article) there are many people calling for the name Ellen Page to be removed completely from the article and indeed from all Wikipedia articles. I can't get on board with something like that - that essentially we're all supposed to pretend that there was never a person named Ellen Page who presented as a woman. In an encyclopedic context, it's just an indisputable cold, hard fact.
In the past I've also seen online anger over the film The Danish Girl for mentioning the protagonist's deadname multiple times, but isn't that kind of thing necessary in a biography?
I think it's wild overkill and I was pleased to read the Wikipedia article on deadnaming and learn that it's not a universally held viewpoint in the community. |
To you and WhiteTiger's point, "online" is basically the disaster measure of anything. Online, especially in heavily disconnected places where nobody really knows each other and there are a whole lot of other issues going on (like Twitter), you're going to get extreme reactions to anything. People just react, they want to be part of the conversation, they need to be heard.
Real life, it ain't really like that. And I would just suggest people not worry much about what happens online (especially not if your social media presence isn't a big part of your world, if it is, then you already know to be cautious).
To answer your question, I know people in the community who have no problem referring to their old name when referring to a time they had that name, they recognize that represented who they were to some extent, they just are someone different now. So going back and removing all historical records as if "Ellen" never existed? That seems silly to me, but that's just me.
As a general rule, I would say call people what they want to be called, don't deadname people out of malice or some moral refusal but also don't worry if you say the wrong thing and be open to being corrected, and let whoever the person is guide things. The main issue I have with the people who are editing the Wikipedia article, for example, is that I doubt very much anyone asked Elliot how they prefer Ellen be treated in a historical context. And that's really the only thing that matters.