Lately, I’ve been considering a new system to organize trans citizens. The system could be called a dead name tally. This tally, which as good citizens we would track ourselves, would count up and weigh the number of important uses of our chosen name as compared to the number of times our dead names were used across our lifetime. When the tally is in the favor of our chosen name, then everything could just be changed without the paperwork, fees, and letters. With this new system in mind, I started to count up the sides of my tally.
The first point in my favor would be a short, but certainly important, interaction with a pharmacist at the CVS on Nassau. For two years, I had picked up a testosterone prescription under the name “Jazmin” without much of a second thought. However, just one week before this interaction, Donald Trump was sworn in as president on January 20, 2025. That same day, Trump’s office declared via executive order that there were only two biological sexes and implemented transphobic policies for prisoners, taxpayer funds, and passports.
I wonder if these same policies or the general “new” ideology was on this pharmacist’s mind when he looked between me and the name on his screen and then back at me again. With a look on his face, one that I usually try to ignore, he asked, “Is Jazmin the name you go by?” In kind, I said, “No,” and he earnestly responded: “Well, I can change it right now!”
Here’s what I wanted to actually say : “Obviously not. Obviously I’m growing facial hair and picking up a prescription for testosterone, so no I don’t go by the name Jazmin; I haven’t gone by that name in a long time.” But, I didn’t say any of that. Instead, I gave him my new name and watched as he tapped a few buttons and looked up to signal that he was done. “James,” he said, “That’s a nice name.”
Add one to the tally! This one, unlike the numerous times I had already been called James for two years, should hold some extra weight. It was the first time that a non-Princeton institution started using my name. In fact, this interaction cancels out the use of my dead name with the correct use of James. If you add that up, that’s certainly a point in my favor.
Another point in my favor can be found in my return to Illinois in September. From Newark, where the TSA gave my passport and face the same look the pharmacist gave my dead name, to an Illinois DMV, I carried an ID with a sister’s face on it. When it was my turn at desk three, I presented paperwork that would allow me to change my name and sex marker on my license. This paperwork, a corrected birth certificate and a court order, had required more paperwork to even obtain. For months, I had the pleasure of notarizing documents, filing a pro se lawsuit, sending away my state IDs in the mail, and paying hundreds of dollars in fees to the states of Illinois and New Jersey. Finally, at this desk, all of this paperwork would lead to another point knocked on my tally.
“Wait,” the clerk said, “I don’t think you have what you need.” My first thought was of all the wasted time I had spent filling out forms affirming that I did want to be “James” Morales and not “Jazmin” Morales. Wasted time and money and—I had just forgotten to explain the court order to her. When I finally told her that this order connected my old and new birth certificate, she smiled and said “Why didn’t you tell me?” Probably because no one bothered to explain much to me as I corrected my name; no one held my hand. Why did I need to hold yours?
“So, James, congratulations,” she said with a small smile after sending everything into DMV headquarters. Congratulations for spending all that money, congratulations for explaining your name change for the hundredth time, and, of course, for doing what you were supposed to do, for being a good citizen.
There’s another point on the tally for me. Now, I get to travel the U.S. with an ID that has my name and looks like me (albeit with a stye). Now, isn’t this particularly meaningful; doesn’t this raise my chosen name’s tally significantly? The experience of doing the paperwork and getting my IDs should off-set at least a few hundred of the thousands of times I was called “Jazmin” until I changed my name on Tigerhub.
How do failures affect my tally? I only ask because I did try and fail to go by Jim in elementary school. I asked everyone who would talk to me to stop calling me “Jazmin” and to call me by my initials, J.I.M, instead. My thinking was, well, if I had a daughter I would never name her after a flower. No, I would name her something normal like Juan or Tom or John or Jim. Consequently, I wanted to see what her experience would be like if she—lucky her—was born with a name that was right.
No one listened to me. I was ten. No one wanted to hear about my new ideas for naming children. After a week, I gave up and resigned myself and my future daughter to a life of being named after a flower. Strangely, I never considered that other girls might actually enjoy having feminine names. Every girl I had met wondered what life would be like if her name was Rose instead of Lily. I figured my experiment was the same but with different variables.
If I had convinced everyone in elementary school to call me Jim, the Jim/James column would never have been outweighed by the “Jazmin” side. I would have years of my life, over a decade, that I could look back on in relief. I would see thousands more tallies on the side of my chosen name. My tally would be more than balanced; the tally would be in my favor.
I don’t actually want everyone to start keeping score. Trans people shouldn’t have to care about the time we spent closeted or dead named or met with confused stares. But, the tenuous nature of changing our documentation puts this pressing tally on us anyways. For instance, last week, Kansas revoked the driver’s licenses of 1,700 trans residents for changing their gender markers even though the process was facilitated by the state until February of this year. If our documents can be revoked or denied to us, then what do we have left but to keep score?
James Morales is a contributing writer for the Nassau Weekly.