I don’t hate the name Tris. In fact, I rather like it still! So why the change?

Since it’s a shortened version of the name given to me by my parents, I’ve been called Tris by various people my entire life. When I was 9, I picked the username ‘gingertris’ for my ROBLOX account (no prizes for guessing how I came up with that one), and I have used it for almost everything since. Having been gingertris for well over half of my life, it is such an integral part of my identity that it is now nigh on impossible to leave it behind.

But… that isn’t who I am anymore. I mean, who is the same person they were when they were 9?

The more I grow, and the more I learn more about myself (and in particular my gender identity), the more I realise that continuing to use Tris as my name makes very little sense.

Originally I planned to just keep using Tris indefinitely. After all, it’s what everyone knows me as! Even if I don’t like my birth name, there are feminine names that shorten to Tris, so why bother changing it if I don’t have to? The problem is, I don’t really like the feminine names that shorten to Tris, either. Even if I don’t mind Tris as a nickname, why jump from one name that I don’t like to another, especially given I could choose any name I wanted?

I did try out a different name for a few months in mid 2022, however after a while I felt that it didn’t suit me, so I went back to Tris. Around early-to-mid 2023, I was speaking to a friend about names, and they suggested a name for me. I kept that name in the back of my head, using it on my alt Steam account in game to see how it felt when people called me it; I liked it… a lot. Though publicly, I continued to use Tris, still because I didn’t feel as though I needed to change my name. I had no good reason to.

But, do I need a ‘good reason to’ change my name? My friend recently showed me this incredible video, and it felt like a switch flipped in my brain. Instantly, I was far more comfortable with the idea of trying stuff out.

They also made the point that choosing my own name, especially one that my parents wouldn’t have picked, would help ‘kill the person my parents wanted me to be’. Now. If you know me, then you know that my relationship with my parents is not good in the slightest. I do not speak to my dad, and my mum is not accepting of me being transgender at all. To me, the idea of mentally separating myself further from them (especially my mum), was such a compelling case for me using a different name.

Over the past few days as of when I am writing this, I have felt very Gender™, and it has been very nice. Not sure how I can explain it. Being happy, confident and comfortable enough in myself to go outside wearing feminine clothes, and it simply feeling so nice and so freeing. Catching myself in the reflection of a window, and briefly seeing a girl look back at me, and being happy because of it. Not despising my appearance, not feeling as though I will be seen as nothing more than a man wearing feminine clothes. All of these thoughts and feelings have just compounded on top of the rest of what I have already talked about here. When I am feeling this way, the name Tris feels even more inappropriate.

As I said at the start, I don’t hate the name Tris. I am still happy continuing to use the gingertris username, and have most aspects of my online life use the name Tris. I am still happy for people who know me from online as Tris to call me Tris. However, with any luck, it will become nothing more than a username for me. For other aspects of my life, I simply don’t think it fits me anymore.

Until further notice, I am June.

Update: June - one week on