Coming Out At School?

[Guest Zeda]

I am currently in one of the many awkward phases bound to happen. I am out to my friends and out to my family, but I am still presenting as my assigned gender. I am not going to be able to start HRT for at least three more years and I have hardly gotten anywhere with my voice in the few days that I have legitimately practiced. I don't feel comfortable, yet, presenting as a different gender, so I think that is a sign that I should at least give it a few more months before plunging in.

That is the current background. Today was the first day of the semester, so I went to my classes like normal, and I was familiar with all of my professors. In two classes I was asked something that has never before made me nervous: "What name do you prefer to be called?" My friends and family know that it is my eventual plan to change my name to Zeda. I have an opportunity to get my professors accustomed to this, but I am not yet used to the name in spoken conversation. In written conversation, I have gone by Zeda for the past five years and my actual name has rarely been used. In oral conversation, though, Zeda has never once been used. Even I had rarely used it out loud and I only started using it about a week ago.

My classes are rather small, especially compared to many universities, and all of my classes are in topics that don't draw as much interest as other areas. This means that conversations with the faculty are not uncommon and they all know me by my actual name. I feel that asking to be called Zeda would be too drastic of a change for now.

TL;DR - Should I have my professors start referring to me as Zeda, or should I put it off for another semester and give them advanced notice?

Also, I am a math major, and I have been made aware many times how similar Zeda and Zeta sound and look. Zeta functions also happen to be a class of functions that are studied in fairly advanced mathematics, and the professors might find that to be interesting or presumptuous of me.

[Guest Zeda]

HI Zeda,

Darn, can't remember much math, but still had to try three times not to spell your name wrong. I guess it might be confusing?

Anyway - it's entirely your call. But, if you're not yet comfortable with hearing yourself called Zeda and you're only out to a handful of people, it sounds like you may as well wait.

Best of luck with math!

Love, Megan

I think I was just caught off guard with the question on the information gathering forms. This is the first time where I realised that I could actually make a choice and change my name, even if it isn't official. I typically have no qualms with pushing myself through the next set of doors, so to speak, but this stumped me. My spouse thought it would be a good idea since it would help get people-- including me-- accustomed to my new name. I am thinking of using that old trick of flipping a coin, but I think that I will figure out that waiting is the best option.

Thanks, Megan!

Also, there is another problem that has been worrying me. I am retaking a French class that I failed a few years ago and gender is a key component to the language-- everything has a gender. For example, "Je suis une programmeuse" and "Je suis un programmeur" translate to the same thing in English, but the first tells the user that I am a female programmer and the second says that I am a male programmer. You can understand why this may be awkward. I am still catching my professor up on all that has transpired since the last time I took the course, so I am thinking that I can let her know about my gender stuff.

Again, thanks!

-Zeda

[Guest JazzySmurf]

Hi Zeda! I'm sorry to be so late to the discussion... About the coming out timing, you can definitely do it at anytime; keep in mind, though, that coming out in the middle of the term also probably means that you are going to be out amongst your current classmates, or at least raise questions. Mathematics professors tend to be quite ok with things like this; and, if your school has strong pro-LGBT policies (it's best to check with your student advisor on this), even the crabby ones won't give you a hard time. When the time to come out at school is right, you'll definitely know :-)

ps: I do agree that Zeda does sound a lot like Zeta, but if they can handle transgender, then they can probably also handle Zeda. As long as you are not calling yourself something silly, say like Dirichlet-L, I think you'll be fine :-) Good luck!!!