Article Title
The Role of Name Choice in the Construction of Transgender Identities
Abstract
This paper investigates the significance of re-naming oneself during the process of transitioning amongst transgender individuals. Onomastics has been a widely studied subject and it is a common belief that names are a fundamental aspect of social identities. Names play a significant role in indexing individuals, gender is often indexed through a person’s name and it can be troublesome when the name and gender do not seem to align. The notion of finding oneself and representing one’s true identity through a name is a very large part of transitioning one’s gender identity, but not any name will do, rather each individual is searching for a ‘true’ name. That is to say a name that embodies the essence of who they are, which includes a feeling that their name is solely them. This enables them to construct for themselves an identity to put forward in society that they feel confident about.
Recommended Citation
VanderSchans, Arielle
(2016)
"The Role of Name Choice in the Construction of Transgender Identities,"
Western Papers in Linguistics / Cahiers linguistiques de Western: Vol. 1, Article 2.
Available at:
https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/wpl_clw/vol1/iss2/2