When I got married in 2007, I decided to hyphenate my last name. My wife planned to do so, so I figured it would be fair and fine for me to do so as well. In Ohio, there is no provision for men to change their names upon marriage, but women are given the freedom to change their names pretty much any way they choose. I had to go through a separate name-change action in civil court, which I completed maybe a year and a half after the wedding.
By that time, I had started my career in federal service. All of my records and credentials included only my original last name, not my hyphenated one. Over the course of years I got my records updated, got new credentials, and in most cases, had to explain why I changed my name in addition to providing the proof of name change from the court.
One thing that has persisted in my federal records is my email address. While my name shows as the hyphenated version, my actual address is still just the original name. This is left over from the mission support guy in NYC who did the change to my Outlook profile--he changed my visible name without changing my email address. He said something at the time like "well, if you decide you want to change it back, this is easier." There was a sense that maybe my wife had put me up to it, or that maybe I'd reassert my masculinity and go back to my proper name.
These kinds of biases have not gone away. Men, however, have always kind of looked at me quizzically when I explain it. My neighbor, who is a pretty liberal dude but about 18 years my senior still calls me by my original last name, even though he's only known me with the hyphen. He even said something like, "yeah, but that's not your real last name." I usually just shrug off the intimations, as most of the men making these comments are either older or from a more masculine cultural background. But it has bothered me.
It occurred to me that this is a form of discrimination. Me choosing to hyphenate my name is a little queer. It's not in line with the regular gender roles of men keeping their names and women maybe hyphenating (with the suggestion that a woman who hyphenates isn't properly subservient to her man anyway). So there's a nuance that I'm not as male as I should be, and therefore, a bit queer. I'm not the poster child for queerness or being discriminated against for who I am and how I've chosen my name. I have not had to deal with any of the shit my gay or trans friends have dealt with, or even the kinds of discrimination that any woman deals with on an average day in America.
But it is discrimination. Women in my organization who have been married have had their credentials and email addresses updated within days of submitting the request. There shouldn't be any reason mine has been held back.
So I'm pushing to get my stupid email updated in part because I want to normalize this kind of change and name use for men (CIS WHITE AMERICAN-BORN MEN, YES) in my organization and just chip away at that dividing line. Me, 5% queer, doing my part.
UPDATE: My organization does one thing efficiently, and that's update people's names in the IT directory. They then deleted my old profile, so ... I was unable to log into my computer all day. I had to dig around and find the actual PHONE number to call our help desk and talk to a PERSON to get it resolved. But eventually we did and it's all good now.
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