Born again. A fresh start. Wiping the slate clean. A new name.

[MsTiggywinkletoyou]

Some people transition gently - maybe they always looked and dressed androgynous, and had a gender-neutral name like Chris or Daniel/le. Some people transition more dramatically, completely changing both first and last name. The old name becomes the "deadname" and to refer to it - and by extension, everything that that person did - is taboo. They get to start again as their "true self".

Who else gets to start again, and who benefits?

*Adults who find Jesus and profess Christianity - all their sins are washed away - they may receive a new name at baptism
*Likewise those who convert ("revert") to Islam, some of whom choose a new identity (name, clothing, habits which may alienate them from family)
*People joining religious orders (Call the Midwife)
*Ne'er-do-wells who join the Foreign Legion, do the bidding of the French Republic for a few years, and gain a whole new identity, complete with citizenship papers
*Young offenders, on reaching 18
*Those in the witness protection programme - not only victims/survivors but perpetrators too - some scary criminals have grassed up someone scarier
*Any woman who, upon marriage, takes her husband's name (and non-heterosexist versions of this arrangement)

With the deed poll system, anyone can change their name for any or no reason; fine. On the other hand, very few people are allowed to leave their pasts behind; indeed, "allowed" isn't really the word - the state has to facilitate it (up to and including facial surgery for supergrasses). These examples are all different from noms de plume (often not very secret ones, from George Eliot to Posie Parker) or undercover policemen (playing a temporary role, shagging activists and fathering children).

A small number of people change names in an attempt to hide a disreputable past (ranging from a criminal record to repeated bankruptcies). Another small number change their names to mark the fact that they have turned over a new leaf - particularly religious conversions - in that they admit to past errors, and take steps to demonstrate that they have changed.

How does transitioning fit into this framework? I'm not sure, but I suspect there may be some parallels that merit consideration. I throw this out there for the wiser heads of Mumsnet FWR to ponder.

If someone wants to change their name to reflect how they feel it doesn’t bother me, if they had previous criminal convictions they would still stand. Why does this bother you so much?

From what I, see rename yourself Polly Fluffylocks all you want. But this does not give you the right to demand everyone forgets your past and call the Police if we use the wrong name.

I suppose we could consider stage names too.

What Lemon said.

No one gets to erase their public past without very good reason. Witness protection for example. Or a child who has had a name and location change for their protection. Note public: the state must keep a register of who was what.

Who wants to change their past and prevent people talking about it? Well a few types:

Someone who for example won Olympic titles but now insists on never being referred to as the name or sex they won them as - but such a keen desire to erase the past doesn’t extend to giving the medals back

Scammers and grifters. People who, for example, are keen on being seen as a lawyer and have set up and closed multiple companies without filing accounts.

People who have dodgy predilections, for example to do with tampons, and who want to erase any public discussion of it. Or who want to sue small operator beauticians to make money.

Or people like this who want to escape prosecution www.con-telegraph.ie/news/roundup/articles/2018/10/03/4162881-judge-to-consider-legal-points-in-mayo-case-involving-transgender-person/. By saying the old person nolonger exists.

So in a nutshell, with a few very specific exceptions, it’s people with very unsavoury pasts, who want to keep on scamming and gritting and avoiding consequences

There is another category of people trying to leave their past behind - two, now I come to think of it - that spring to mind. Both could be elided to witness protection, I suppose. One is being explored in YA novels at the moment (I've read a few on this theme and nearly picked up another yesterday) - the teenager, usually a girl, who has had something explode on social media and is trying to get away from it. For example, Roam, by CH Armstrong; or The Exact Opposite Of Okay by Laura Stevens. Actually, iirc rightly neither of these go as far as changing names, but it's a logical next step for reputation protection and I expect it to appear in YA shortly, exploring the difficulties of expunging oneself from the internet.

The other is (usually) women and children running from abuse. That's been a trope of "women's literature" and crime/thriller novels for decades. But it's an everyday thing too - how many times have you barely glanced at the box in your kid's letter from school, or sports or music, saying "tick here if you don't want your child to be in photos"? That's safeguarding not just for your kid's privacy, but for children who could be tracked down maliciously. Kids in the care system, kids who've been adopted, or relocated, or caught up in some scandal, or need asylum from the political system persecuting their parents. Lots of reasons.

I think there are more (and expect more in future) of these than we like to admit. Unfortunately the rules established to protect the vulnerable can be bent and loopholes found which result in protectionfor the dodgy characters above. It's almost certainly time for these laws to be overhauled to catch up with the Internet if nothing else.

Thanks to all who've commented, especially @silentcrow and @bowlofbabelfish. I'm especially interested in the positive and happy reasons for changing identity (not in pretending that the past didn't happen, but moving to a new phase of life). I had forgotten the example of adoption, when the state creates a new identity for a baby or child. And yes there are lots of flavours of wrong 'uns, but maybe understanding the positive reasons might help me/us understand trans changes in a wider context. It's a seductive idea, isn't it, to be re-born anew. Some nurses give transplant patients a new birthday, as a celebration: today your new life begins.

It's a seductive idea, isn't it, to be re-born anew.

Is it? Perhaps to you. I rather like my life and all the strange people in it and the continuity. It's my life, not some video game.

This is the third weird 'opening up questions' and making odd assumptions thread I've tripped over in here today. Is there a college project going on?

I think I'll make soup. Probably an ersatz version of minestrone with the addition of courgettes and kale from the garden instead of ordinary cabbage unless anyone has a better idea.

I dont think there are any positive scenarios. Positive is reconciliation and growth not denial and reinvention.

The only people who do this are either those who are hiding a dodgy past, those seeking to enter control or those fleeing violence etc. The last group I have sympathy for but it’s still not positive is it?

I’d also note that people replying to this thread should be wary of explicitly naming individuals who have done dodgy stuff. Some of them are rather litigious.

@thatdamnwoman Clearly being born again is an appealing idea for at least one major world religion.

@bowlofbabelfish Most of the positive scenarios I could think of were religious ones, but traditional marriage is another one: becoming Mrs Jane Smith (or Mrs John Smith in ye olden days) is not only a new name, but a new social role as well.

I've thought of another reason for changing names to signal a growthful phase of life: revolutionaries such as Malcolm X (dropping a "slave name") and 2nd wave feminists such as Judy Chicago (dropping the patrilineal name).
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judy_Chicago#From_Cohen_to_Gerowitz_to_Chicago:_Name_change

I don’t think those are similar - a change of name on marriage is not denying the old name. It’s not threatening prosecution for mentioning the old name.

I’ve never heard of nurses giving patients a new birthday - that seems a bit inappropriate tbh

It's not similar. No one threatened legal action for referring to a person's prior name. No one tried to change their name in an attempt to hide their past.

False equivalence.

If you make your soup in a slow cooker, you can go out and return yo a wonderfully smelling house

Women who change surname on marriage are not 'reborn'; everyone on their community knows their original surname, they are referred to as nee (can't find accent on my phone) in sone contexts, their mum and dad and male siblings and unmarried (or non name changing) female siblings and other relatives still have that name, and they're still very much part of that family, as well as part of their in-laws family. It's a comparison that doesn't really work.

In Spain their children will have their name and their husbands double barrelled until the next generation. (And plenty of people do that outside Spain as well).

Sometimes children's middle names are their mothers' maiden names.

And not every country in the world expects women to change their family name when getting married.

I changed my name in my early 20s. It was the best thing I ever did. I was mentally disintegrating and had no positive connections to my name - had been severely abused by the people who gave me that name and needed an overhaul so that I could even begin putting the pieces back together. It was a positive thing for me.

Also, you aren't totally reborn in the sense that you still have the same NHS number, benefits numbers, you are still entirely traceable in the system, you still have to use your old certificates and stuff to get jobs and onto courses. It can be psychologically refreshing. I know lots of survivors of abuse do it. It also provides the double benefit of being less traceable by abusive family members. They could still trace you if they work for a government agency or something but not through normal means.

Your name is something that is used vey frequently in your life, so every time somebody called me the name I had chosen for myself (as opposed to he one my abusers named me) it improved my feelings of self-worth, agency, and dignity.

My adopted DDs have to put their previous names on things like passport applications. So they are 'reminded' every time.
They need a long 'birth' certificate for things like DBS checks. This states they are adopted.
(They did get new NHS numbers though).

I've been thinking about this thread off and on all day and am reluctantly going to have to draw the parallel to roleplaying/LARPing. I've played D&D and lots of other systems, both on paper and online, for 20-odd years. Whilst it's no more than a pleasant, creative hobby to me - it's like collaborative storytelling - I have seen people get wedded to the experience of playing their character. I've left groups because of this behaviour; big national LARP games where people couldn't or wouldn't leave their character in the game room and continued in character in the bar afterwards, creeping on other players.

For the right psyche in the right situation, it's truly seductive to become someone else. Even I've been so emotionally engaged with an Xbox RPG that I cried when my character got dumped (in my defence I was pregnant and everything made me cry!). You can be anyone you want to be - stronger, faster, more attractive, highly skilled. I can absolutely see why being someone else seems like a valid coping strategy. Immerse yourself in a culture where everyone is supportive and the act begins to become the truth.

For the record I currently play a demon-hunting nun with a shotgun

My change of name did not mean I was taking on some fantasy role. I was saving myself from disintegration, and giving myself a chance to keep living with dignity. I think that some people are far to quick to dismiss this - there is a level of missing the point about trauma and what it can do to people. I find this kind of ignorance sometimes on the GC side of the trans debate. I am GC but I also recognise that lots of trans people are responding to the trauma of sex stereotyping in childhood the only way they can think of. This is genuine in so many cases. It doesn't mean that people should be allowed to enter spaces meaningfully reserved for the opposite sex, but I think that a measure of compassion is missing for the fact that lots of trans people are traumatised. I am not trans but I changed my name to save myself. Not to create some character and force others to play along, but to assert myself as a person at all. I had not been treated as a person by the people who named me. The result of changing my name was a healthier and happier me because I was not reminded of abuse ever time I was named. This was a positive choice for me.

I understand both a religious sense of rebirth, and the psychological benefit of changing a name after experiencing abuse and negative connections with the previous name.

There is definitely something powerful about being able to draw a line underneath painful things and move on. Very few people use my previous name, most people use my new name. In terms of my beliefs, I do get previous sins thrown at me and that's just something I have to own. I might believe in redemption, but everyone still lives with consequences.

Thanks for so many thoughtful responses, coming from very different personal experiences. Mumsnet is a rich resource.

Moralitym1n1 An elderly (female) relative of mine, spotting a young acquaintance in the village street, said, "oh there goes Anya. I don't know who she is now." She meant that Anya had recently married, and she'd forgotten into which other family. I got chills down my spine at the thought of that erasure of identity (in my relative's eyes).

silentcrow I'm glad you brought up game-playing. This has touched my life directly: a male friend with bipolar disorder, immersed in RPGs, decided he was trans, but even that didn't resolve the enduring distress of life, and so he ended his. Starting afresh was not enough for him. I do wonder how much he thought in the metaphors of the games, of levelling up and so on.

Hmmmm19 Your perspective adds an important depth. "Psychologically refreshing" to choose a new name. Yes. "Saving oneself from disintegration" - yes, the parallels are clear, and it's that compassion I wanted to tap into, and cultivate in myself.