Nice Name, did your mum pick it for you?

The title of the this post is a bit of cheap jibe sometimes thrown back at people who poke fun at  trans  people and the names that  we chose  for ourselves. 

I don't tend to use this, not necessarily because I'm a nice person who doesn't go in for such things - sometimes I get frustrated with people who wilfully choose to  ignore my lived reality and the evidence base.

Because the fact is my mum did pick my name for me, and she picked it for me  when she was pregnant with me, one of the 'missed signs' was the fact that even as a very little one I asked what my girl name would have been. 

Here we get the  crux of this post. No-one is forced to use a name they think does not suit them or  which they don't like. 

Even if you know no (openly) trans people it's likely that you know someone who doesn't use the name that is on their birth certificate. 

 No one forces  you to use the name on your birth Certificate,  although  it's only trans people who have the chance ( after spending  several hundreds of pounds and having to go through a whole load of hoops to get a GRC)  to revise their birth certificate...