Let Me Introduce Myself; October 10 2020

(Credit goes to sadiesavesit for the image, this week!)

It’s been weeks since I’ve been up to writing a blog post. Life has successfully kicked me while I’m down, but if you’ve seen my past posts, you probably know which day spat a great green gob in my face.

That’s right – it was my birthday! I’m thirty years old now! Woo.

I feel like the world expects me to shape up and become a proper adult, now. I’m no longer young enough for teenagers to mistake me as one of their own, but I’m not working a steady paying job and I haven’t accomplished anything of note. I’ve signed with a publisher, but I haven’t been published yet (hopefully I’ll have a date to announce in the near future!), and I still don’t have a literary agent.

Hitting a milestone and failing to meet your expectations for it is rough.

However, one thing picked my birthday up considerably. My brother-in-law (do I still call him that, being separated from my ex-partner? Eh, whatever) came to me with a question.

“Is your name not legally Red, yet?”

Indeed, legally, I’m still going by my deadname. If you aren’t familiar with that term, a deadname is what members of the trans community call the name they were born with and no longer use.

“Would you be interested in getting it changed?”

His gift to me is covering the cost of a name change. In Ontario, Canada, that cost is $137 – nothing to slouch at, for someone living on government assistance with a kid to feed!

Obviously, I was thrilled and accepted. I started the process immediately; I printed off the necessary forms, scanned my birth certificate, and applied online for a police background check. I stopped by City Hall and paid a fee to have someone certify my affidavit. For the next few days, those forms sat on my shelf, burning a hole in my brain.

Today, I got my background check back, confirming that I am not a criminal trying to dodge the law by changing my identity. Yay!

I’ll be sending off the forms soon. It’s going to be an overwhelming undertaking to get everything else changed as well: health card, credit and debit cards, my social assistance info... Thankfully, people have already put together checklists of who needs to be told about it!

So, it’s gonna take a bit of time, but I’d like to officially introduce myself:

I am Red Haven Berry, a proud trans man.