Do you have any advice on how to become more comfortable introducing yourself to people with your chosen name rather than the one you were assigned at birth? Because I'm starting college soon, and as I meet people I realized my first reaction is to always give them my legal name rather than my chosen one, even though my legal name tends to make me feel fairly uncomfortable because it doesn't fit me well. I want to be able to just introduce myself as Raven, but I feel like I'm always speaking
under false pretenses if I do. I never have any trouble bringing it up afterwards, like if role is being called I never feel bad about saying I prefer to go by Raven, but I just can’t seem to introduce myself that way.
If raven is the name you prefer to go by, then raven is your name. No false pretenses whatsoever. Legality has nothing to do with it. I totally understand this feeling, though. I started a new job right after I started going by Quinn, and for awhile I couldn’t help but feel like I was lying to people by not telling them my birth name. I can promise you that feeling will subside, and it will be replaced by pure joy and a whole group of people that are incapable of deadnaming you because they don’t even know your birth name.
-Quinn
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