The Quiet Anniversary

Last Sunday was a special anniversary for me.  One year ago on April 22nd, the words Delia Marie Kropp were set down together for the very first time on any official document. 
A long, involved document asking lots of mundane questions: my legal petition to Cook County for change of name.


Nothing to get very excited about, right?  After all, the big celebration, commemorating when that name officially and legally became mine, is still two months off.  And yes, you'll be hearing plenty from me in the coming weeks building up to that first anniversary of my "re-birthday", as I now think of it.  But April 22nd was when the whole process started, and my new full name first came into being.

And the story of how that name was chosen is actually rather interesting.  Not least of all because nothing was further from my mind on April 22, 2011.  Nope.  I hadn't intended to change my name at all.

* * *

My business at the Center on Halsted, a Chicago institution for various LGBT services, was simply to get a State of Illinois I.D. card. In brief, this card is a sort of "pretend driver's license", an I.D. issued by the State mostly useful for buying alcohol, cashing a check, etc. if you lack an actual license. Significantly for transgendered persons, however, the State ID permits the holder to be photographed in accordance with their real gender, not their born sex, unlike a license. So M2F transgendered folk can hold something official showing them expressing as female, even though their name and gender still conform to those set down at birth. It would not replace my driver's license, but supplement it.

For me, the State of Illinois I.D. card represented a small, tangible step towards my new female identity. That's all.  Like ditching the wigs.  Wearing makeup in public. Mastering buttons on the "wrong side".  And it was a pretty convenient set-up there, with the Secretary of State actually sending specially-trained clerks right to the Center, on that one day only, expressly to make these State I.D's for transgendered and also homeless citizens. There was even a transgendered person working for the Center as liaison to assist with our applications. Hard to beat that set-up. So I stepped inside, and sat down.

Sorting through my application, the Center's liaison asked if I ever intended to legally change my male name to a female one. I said oh yes ... one day. Well, she asked, why I was I messing with a State I.D. today then?  I'd have to re-apply to the Secretary State anyways once my name changed, she noted, to get a revised Driver's License. With that revised license, I wouldn't even need the State I.D. as my full female credentials would be right there.  And of course, I'd finally be living with a female name, which was my intention anyways.

Well, that's a good question, I thought.  And I had my reasons to "take it slow". First of all, I didn't really have a female name chosen yet. Sure,  I'd adopted a few aliases over the years, when socializing en femme, going onlne, etc. but nothing permanent and certainly nothing I'd feel confident wearing the rest of my life. Second, having a real female name had always been one of those lofty, distant goals for me ... like wearing a bra actually filled with my breasts, or using the ladies' restroom in public. Surely, some proclamation from the heavens was necessary first, a prophetic dream or other momentous inspiration, before taking this enormous leap. And third ...

Well, there was no third reason. In fact, it occurred to me, as the rep talked me through what this name-change process might involve, that I really had no reason whatsoever to delay further. For Pete's sake, there I was, sitting with an expert who had shepherded many other TG's through this tricky process; just down the hall from a computer lab for access to the online application; and even a Notary Public upstairs to immediately sign off on all the paperwork.

Besides, at that point in my life, I was already four years into my gender therapy, and seven long years into the transition itself. The point of any transition being, of course, to actually change.

So, if not now ... then when?

Telling myself that I could simply miss my court date or rescind my petition -- that the consequences of all this didn't have to be Permanent -- I walked upstairs to the computer lab, logged on, and waded through two long and complicated online petitions. One to waive the significant court cost (formerly free, not long ago) and then the actual name change petition. I'm not a fan of legal forms and applications, and thankfully the instructions from my Center rep were right beside me, to smooth the way.

Then, umpteen screens into the form-filling process, appeared that $64,000 question. What was my new female name going to be?

* * *

I froze. For a long time. And my mind raced.

Sure, I'd already chosen my middle name. It would be Marie, both the middle name of my paternal grandmother and an eerie sound-alike for my given male name, Murray. And yes, in recent weeks I'd also begun some research online seeking candidates for a new and female first name. By now there was even something of a shortlist bouncing around in my head. But I hadn't actually *chosen* one yet. Did I really have to do that, now?

The computer cursor blinked impatiently at me, anticipating my response.

So my mind whirled again, retracing the steps in my Name Change Expedition thus far, like Dora the Explorer. (Hmmm... Dora? Nah.) I began with my basic criteria for selecting a female first name, the hurdles each candidate needed to clear. They weren't that numerous or difficult. Or so I thought ...

Hurdle #1  My first name must begin with "D". So my initials would be the same, of course. Providing some sense of continuity. And incidentally, allowing my email address, personalized stationary, and monogrammed briefcase to remain as is. Continuity ... and a little something like laziness.

Hurdle #2    It must have some personal significance for me. This one was wide open to interpretation ... it just couldn't be totally random, holding at least some shred of personal meaning.

Hurdle #3    Most of all, it should have no prior negative associations -- no yucky celebrity, acquaintance or historical figure whose face would appear in my mind's eye whenever the name was uttered. This last proved the trickiest hoop to jump through. Just try and come up with a name that doesn't have some sort of a stain on it, especially when you've been around for 54 years. Go ahead and try it. I've known (or known of) so many different women, with every conceivable name, good and bad and in between, and had to disqualify dozens of great name possibilities on this basis alone.

So, after weeks of consulting Mr. Google, and pouring over choices in languages as diverse as Hindu and Spanish, I felt my two best candidates were:

Dagne 
Meaning: New Day (or Dawn).
Norwegian. Both my paternal heritage and last name are Norwegian. And my chosen name certainly would signify a whole new chapter, a new day for me. Dagne suggested visions of wild Norwegian fjords at sunrise, pure and rugged, hearkening back to the ancient days of my Viking gene pool.  Who knows, perhaps the famed Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen even lusted after some cute little Dagne at primary school. Pretty neat stuff. True, a little hard to pronounce (DAHG - knee) but hey, with a last name like Kropp ... well, let's just say, I am used to having my moniker butchered beyond repair. So I had eagerly run Dagne back through Mr. Google. And came up with only one really famous person. Just one, but a doozy.

A certain Dagny Taggart (alternate spelling, same name) is the female protagonist of Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged", the very Bible of right-wing capitalist philosophy and testament of 20th century Machiavellianism -- and a book I so completely detested. Worse, there was a new movie adaptation of "Atlas Shrugged" running in movie theatres that very week, so the word "Dagny" showed up thousands of times on Google ... all in that unfortunate context.

But all in all, Dagne still seemed a promising pony, with only one major handicap, so still a contender. And my second candidate was ...

Delia. 
Nice British sound. Harkens back to a Greek derivation, "person of Delos", the legendary birthplace of Artemis. I liked Artemis. Moon goddess. Twin sister of Apollo. And according to Wikipedia: " ... the Hellenic goddess of the hunt, wild animals, wilderness, childbirth, virginity and young girls, bringing and relieving disease in women; she often was depicted as a huntress carrying a bow and arrows." In other words, one of those all-purpose, Swiss-Army knife handy-in-a-pinch deities who has your ass totally covered.

I really liked the sound of Delia, being somewhat lyrical, and feminine, like the sound of small bells. It would clearly be easy for strangers to pronounce, or so I thought. As for any prior associations, the only Delia I recalled was a lovely and statuesque blonde B-Movie starlet of Dutch extraction, now performing "The Little Mermaid" onstage in Vegas. Very nice.

Thankfully, I did not remember fictional Delia Deetz, the crazed artist-mom in "BeetleJuice" .. though actually the similarities between us are somewhat remarkable. More of that later...

So there it was, Dagne vs. Delia. Delia vs. Dagne. Neither exactly your garden variety American name, but not too radical either. So, just had to choose one.

But I still couldn't decide. And then I got angry, squeezed in my little seat at the computer lab. I rebelled at being painted into this corner, on such a critical issue. So, to hell with it all, I did what any logical person might do -- procrastinated, brushing right past the question and onto the next.

Meanwhile my mind raced faster in the background.  I can have a tendency to panic, and the telltale signs were starting to show ... shortness of breath, a fuzzy feeling in the head, flushing, a cold sensation all over. And then blam, suddenly the program would take me no further. A petition name was required to proceed.

So, this was it.

I looked around. Hoping for inspiration. The computer center was 100% full. Everyone else, lost in their own little cyber-world. Well, everyone but the two young trans-girls (definitely not women, yet) gyrating and fingersnapping to YouTube videos, singing along, out loud, to whatever song was onscreen. They made me angry. Misbehaving like that, having fun at other's expense.  They were a disgrace to TGs everywhere, two walking stereotypes, and why didn't the lab supervisor come and ....

Oh boy. Displaced anger. Bad move. Focus. Get back on track. For I knew this about myself: put this decision off, and you'll be going round in circles for days, weeks ... until the whole process of deciding becomes an impenetrable, unclimbable mountain in itself. No, I just had to finish it right now, or possibly never attempt it again.

For some reason, I then flashed on scenes from my adolescent days at Holt Junior High. Girls giggling, huddled together. Contemplating their choice of boyfriend -- which back in the '60s also meant, automatically, their future husband -- by writing down what their new married names would look like.  The boy whose surname looked best on paper behind their first name, the reasoning went, was obviously the best choice for a mate. Well, heck, it was worth a try.  So I scrawled both of my name choices on some scratch paper. Delia Marie Kropp. Dagne Marie Kropp. Over and over. I printed them plain. Signed them with a flourish. Dashed them off in my everyday virtually-illegible-after-years-of-keyboard-typing signature scrawl.

And still, nothing. This was getting ridiculous. Pathetic even. Things couldn't go on like this. I thought of how those few friends I'd already "come out to" had resorted to calling me "D." Hey had to call me something, after all, and "David" no longer fit. So I was dubbed with an initial. "D", to mark the spot. A temporary place holder, awaiting an eventual female name. Just plain old "D".

Or "Dee", if you'd grant this lone letter the dignity of a proper name. Okay, let's go with that ...

The only Dee I could remember was a Dolores, nicknamed Dee, the most lovely, tall Italian woman, and wife to a close friend of the family. Sadly, Dee passed away years ago from breast cancer, but her memory is still so vivid, and so overwhelmingly positive, that whenever I hear her name spoken, I picture her statuesque, graceful form and that lovely, chiseled Mediterranean face flashing from kind compassion to fiery defiance in an instance. Dee. All good.

Dee. A nifty nickname for ... Delia.

Bingo.

And that, as they say, was that.   David begot "D" begot Dee begot Delia.

So I typed Delia Marie Kropp into the appropriate box. Quickly, before I could change my mind. The three words just stared back at me, neither good nor bad.  Just a name. So I proceeded on, with the program automatically inserting that name into various other blank boxes, and finally printed the whole thing out. Pages and pages of the two petitions.  Somewhat numb, I then carried these documents out of the computer lab and back to my Center rep, who walked them upstairs for Notarization, and shortly returned with them, all ready to mail.  Which I did.  And the Cook County court stamped them into official "consideration" a few days later on April 27th, 2011.

The wheels were in motion. I was truly in transition, moving ahead to my destination, on my way to becoming this Delia person. At last.

* * *

In the weeks leading up to my court date, I took every opportunity to test-drive this new name. Told my Chicago pals about it, and started introducing myself as Dee, even to certain merchants in my neighborhood. Most of all, I was inspired -- or finally forced, perhaps -- to finally complete the process of Coming Out. First, to my parents back in Holt. Then most of my high school, college and other chums by way of a Facebook link leading to this very blog, whose first post dealt exclusively with my new identity, and new gender. Two huge and difficult Comings Out, ones I'd only thought about for many years, both finally motivated and made real by a mundane legal form. Who'd a thunk?

And in that between-names time, I discovered something else. When bearing the appropriate label, a female one, the gender-changing announcement went a lot smoother. Be they new acquaintance or old friend, when someone could call me by a female name, lo, it became much easier for them to grasp the actuality of my becoming female. "First, there was the Word". Indeed, language is the framework for our imagination, and that becomes a base to build our reality upon. This proved no exception.

The notion of soon becoming Delia even made a big difference in how I saw myself, and my entire transition. It gave me an unexpected confidence. When meeting strangers, always a difficulty for me, I could now smile, extend my hand and introduce myself as a female. Such a simple thing, a name. And yet it to me, in everyday practice, it opened a whole new world.  By the time of my actual court approval at Cook County Courthouse June 21st, and emerging from the Secretary of State office minutes later, clutching that first female driver's license to my chest, I felt more complete than I'd ever anticipated. Truly amazing.

Certainly, I never saw this coming when sweating out the whole awful name decision process, back at that computer lab in the Center. I might've enjoyed it a lot more, maybe experienced it as a celebration rather than a curse. Who knows?

* * *

Having lived with this name for a full year, I'd have to say that the tortuous thought process behind it was worth the pain. It feels right. It sounds like me. And on paper it even looks like me:  certainly a little unusual, but somehow charming all the same. And definitely female.

I did get one thing wrong, though. As it turns out, very few people can pronounce it properly. Instead,  I get Dahlia, or the ever popular Dell-EE-ya. But even this awkwardness becomes an opportunity for friendly small talk, a little extended give-and-take to break the ice. My usual response is "DEEL-ya ... as in, rhymes with FEEL-ya." So, I forgive them their mis-pronunciation, and they, hopefully, my sense of humor.

I've even discovered some really cool people with this name. Like Delia Smith, the "British Martha Stewart" with decades of TV shows and countless books to her credit. And Delia Derbyshire, acclaimed '60s pioneer in the field of electronic music, who also happens to perform the famous "Dr. Who" theme. Oh yeah. Neat folk.

As for the fictitious Delia Deetz, well ... no name is perfect I guess. And there are those disturbing similarities. Passionately committed to her (admittedly bizarre) ideas of interior design, she could almost be me, stamping a demanding directorial foot while negotiating a different stage set, or costumes, or anything else critical to realization of My Artistic Vision.  In fact, I'll even let Ms. Deetz have the final word:

Delia Deetz: "I will live with you in this hellhole, but I must express myself. If you don't let me gut out this house and make it my own, I will go insane and I will take you with me!" 

Still gutting out my house, and making it my own,


Yours,

Dee

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