Context: I am visiting a high school friend. Another friend who we both knew in high school has posted some interesting things recently. This friend has changed their name, but the friend I am visiting is not following them and is not aware of their transition.
How do I bring up this friend without dead naming them?
Consider first whether or not this is really your news to share. Maybe the mutual friend would want to come out themselves?
If you feel you must, it’s okay to dead name informationally/correctively. (I.e., “let’s go meet up with Jack” “oh, Jack is Jill now, just so you know!”) It’s bad contextually, like when used to deny the person’s gender identity or transition.
Regarding your first comment, please see my other reply. I understand not all transitions are straightforward regarding safety but this is not the case here.
Essentially, saying “Do you remember Sarah Morgan?” (negative response) “She used to go by Brett” would generally be acceptable?
I read your other response but this still feels like gossip at this point. Would you want to be gossiped about?
That said, yes, that would be fine. Or since you know the person doesn’t know, you can just say, “Brett Morgan is a woman now; her name is Sarah Morgan.”
Apparently I require further clarification: two friends went to different colleges and moved to different parts of the country. They did not keep in contact with each other but I kept on contact with both of them. The content of the conversation was not the transition itself, it was sharing essentially a blog post related to the topic of conversation (e.g. “Oh yeah, did you see Sarah’s post about the new Wheel of Time show? Sarah Morgan? Used to go by Brett? Yeah, she came out as trans a couple years ago. Anyway, so what she was saying in this post was…”
If you define this as gossip then I honestly don’t know what wouldn’t be considered gossip any time any third party is brought into any conversation.
That’s exactly what they were telling you you should do. I think you may have made it sound like you were going to bring it up out of nowhere
Yeah, I didn’t want to write out an entire “so this is how my conversation went” at the start of the post because it’s mostly boring, but apparently not doing so makes me sound fishy.
I just wanted to make sure I could approach this situation the best way if it ever comes up again. Thank you.
Haha. I was looking for clarification because two days ago I saw someone I knew before transition and was curious if it was you. But I worked with this guy a few times, with his mom for years. You’re not talking about me, but the timing was too specific not to wonder.
How dare you deadname Sarah, the lodge in New Atlantis will hear about this and you’ll be excommunicated from Constellation.
I’m sure this is a very funny joke I don’t get. Yes, I know, I’m sure I’m great at parties too.
In case it was unclear: obviously both names are fake.
Sarah Morgan is the name of a character from the game Starfield, a Science Fiction self-titled “Nasapunk” role-playing game by Bethesda softworks that just released in September.
Ah, yes, I’m aware of Starfield, just not that there’s someone named Sarah Morgan in it. I legitimately just picked a generic first and last name.