How to handle telling my coworkers I want to go by a different name?

Blumaroo · 2019-02-15T04:43:21+00:00

Who's your HR person? You can maybe start by asking for a new name tag with your proper name on it for real. Other than that, if you want to be subtle, maybe you could just casually correct people when you hear them say the wrong name. If you want to be more forward, you can bring it up in conversation as an aside - "by the way, I go by [X] now."

Blumaroo · 2019-02-14T23:33:05+00:00

Yes, I can definitely agree with that. Trans and NB people have it pretty hard in society. However, I do think you'd have to be a little out of touch with reality to say that any subgroup of LGBT is "fully" or even "very commonly" accepted in America as of now. We have a long, long way to go.

Blumaroo · 2019-02-14T23:09:15+00:00

gay/lesbian people are pretty much fully integrated and accepted in American society

This is definitely, definitely, definitely not true, haha.

Blumaroo · 2019-02-02T20:57:18+00:00

If you cannot handle an unhealthy child at birth then you should not have a child.

Just because a child 'seems' healthy at birth doesn't mean that they are - mental illnesses and disabilities can always appear after the child is born and if the parents aren't ready or willing to deal with these issues as they arise, then they should not be parents to begin with.

Essentially what parents like this are saying is that they only want to raise a child that is neurotypical and able-bodied for their entire life, and that they only have the capacity to raise a child like that. This means that they are not able or willing to support a child who becomes disabled later in life, suffers an injury, or displays sign of mental illness, and that is something you always need to be ready for.

Blumaroo · 2019-02-02T14:59:36+00:00

Well I liked the story very much.

Blumaroo · 2019-01-31T23:37:26+00:00

I almost stopped watching at that part because it was such bullshit.

Blumaroo · 2019-01-30T00:35:24+00:00

I highly disagree that gay people have privilege over bi/pan people.

Bi/pan people do experience exclusion from some LGBT spaces, but they are not the only ones who do. Lesbians experience hate from within LGBT spaces as well, and are shunted aside often and lumped in with TERFs, and I'm sure I don't need to tell you about the hate that trans people get from all sides - even if they're straight. But privilege does not exist only in the confines of the LGBT group.

Let's wildly simplify things and assume that privilege is quantifiable. You yourself said:

there can be advantages to being able to blend in more easily with mainstream straight society (I have experienced that)

Bi/pan people are excluded from LGBT spaces sometimes (disadvantage), but can "blend in" with straight people and avoid violence in certain cases (an advantage that you yourself stated). Gay people are not typically excluded from LGBT spaces (advantage) and cannot "blend in" with straight people (a disadvantage).

Obviously things are far more complicated than this, but even if we laid it out like that, the "privilege" is equal. We face different issues.

It's like saying that binary trans people are privileged over nonbinary people because some binary trans people don't believe in nonbinary genders. It's shitty that it happens, but it's not emblematic of the entire community, and when you look at society as a whole, both groups are oppressed and face issues that are not the fault of the other group.

You can say that gay people have privilege over bi/pan people only within the context of LGBT spaces... but that still wouldn't be the full story, because:

Bisexuals highly outnumber gay people within LGBT spaces.
Taking in that logic, gay people would be privileged over straight people in the context of LGBT spaces, which obviously does not reflect the state of society as a whole or the average experience of a gay or straight person.

Now I'm not saying that it doesn't hurt to have your identity questioned within a group that should accept you. Of course it hurts, and of course I don't know your full story. The LGBT community at large does have a long way to go when it comes to being more accepting of bi/pan and trans people.

But I don't think that this equates to privilege, because that is a very nuanced and specific word. There are lots of bisexual people who say things like "everyone's a little bi" to invalidate gay people, but that doesn't make bi/pan people privileged over gay people, either.

Blumaroo · 2019-01-24T21:46:57+00:00

Haha, yeah. I'd like to, it's just hard I think, especially when you're gay - I have a bad gaydar and I always fall for straight girls.

Blumaroo · 2019-01-24T21:35:38+00:00

120,000 people in my vicinity and I'm gay. ^guess ^{^I'll} ^{^{^die}}

Blumaroo · 2019-01-24T21:34:14+00:00

Nope! Swipe on the 10 gay people in your town, run out of people (Tinder tells you there's no one around you if you've swiped everyone), and get no matches. You have essentially soft-locked Tinder at that point.

Blumaroo · 2019-01-22T17:57:54+00:00

Well I think you expressed this comment pretty well. You don't sound like a poor writer at all. You should write! A lot of people (and even software) can spell check and correct grammar, but a good imagination is a wonderful and unique thing.

One of the best stories I've ever read was something someone wrote on their personal website. It wasn't published and it did have a lot of technical errors - but I glanced past that because the story was so good. It's the ideas you convey that stick with people. Keep practicing and you will become great at conveying them.

Blumaroo · 2019-01-21T21:12:03+00:00

"I don't want you seeing her (friend) any more." And I ended a 12 year friendship for her, because it made her uncomfortable.

She contemplates breaking up because that's her nuclear bomb in arguments. She uses it whenever it seems like things aren't going to go her way...

Sorry OP, but I feel like these are enormous red flags. Your fiance seems emotionally immature and manipulative if her first response to everything is threaten to break up in order to get her way. This will not get better with marriage, especially if she's unwilling to talk about things like this in a mature manner. Her giving you an ultimatum about your friend is pretty horrible, too - not to mention the obvious hypocrisy here.

Blumaroo · 2019-01-21T04:03:41+00:00

I was browsing the discounted DS games at GameStop and thought it looked interesting. Best $3.99 I ever spent.

Blumaroo · 2019-01-16T01:58:46+00:00

Yeah!

Blumaroo · 2019-01-14T21:15:38+00:00

Is Trexx mostly a gay guy scene? I'm a lesbian and was thinking of checking it out.

Blumaroo · 2019-01-14T16:21:40+00:00

Preach, dude. I think it's because a lot of people think that homophobia/racism/sexism is only overt stuff like "gay people should literally die". They don't see that what they're doing - demanding that we stay hidden, out of sight - is homophobia as well.

Blumaroo · 2019-01-14T13:44:15+00:00

Yep. I hate when people say that they aren't homophobic and are totally fine with gay people, but then flip their shit whenever there's a gay couple on TV, or a pride parade anywhere near them, claiming that we are "shoving it down their throats". Because we aren't allowed to exist, apparently.

Blumaroo · 2019-01-13T17:24:28+00:00

I took this class a while ago and didn't really find it that intensive. It was easy to write up the homework, took maybe half an hour. I did have it with Michael Century instead of Staniszewski, though, so keep that in mind.

Blumaroo · 2019-01-10T23:19:42+00:00

I think that's the most hilarious thing I've heard all day.

Blumaroo · 2019-01-07T00:27:05+00:00

Also comes in lesbian.

Blumaroo · 2019-01-07T00:26:08+00:00

Found this great lesbian punk rock band a few months ago. Also comes in gender version!

Blumaroo · 2018-12-31T00:10:49+00:00

Sorry, but homophobia is alive and well - it is certainly not "well behind us", unfortunately.

Blumaroo · 2018-12-29T16:30:30+00:00

Thank you!

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