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I woke up naturally far too early, and I am Thinking Some Thoughts about trans naming. @brimwats and I have been working on a project related to trans citation practices. 
I have seen a few tweets that say that if Netflix can change all of Elliot Page’s credits, why can’t it be done across the board for the Wachowski sisters? This is a good question to ask!
It is a question pertinent in academia right now as trans scholars fight journals and publishers for the right to change our publication names retroactively. And in librarianship, there is a lot of discussion of when you change someone’s name in records.
A NACO record, for instance, is not about reflecting a timeline of a person and their work but rather providing a current access point. Default should be to change it unless asked not to.
With academic publishing, there should be processes in place for scholars to contact the journal and ask for the change. We also need to develop best practices for citing trans scholars when they have work published under a former name.
Why do I think a library authority file but not the works themselves (again, not the record) should be automatically updated?
Naming is power. Librarians hold power over library users through our various standards and policies. We can acknowledge our authority and expertise while respecting the needs and behaviors of those we do this for.
But for works themselves, at the source (like the publisher, and not the library record) is not about third-party access but rather assertion of ownership and control. This is my creative output, and I decide how I am credited.
In my research on this topic, I have noticed that there is no one consensus on how works published under former names should be cited. Some view their deadname being visible as undignified or violent. Some don’t.
I, for example, do not even want my birth certificate changed. I have no plans to change the names on my degrees, masters thesis, or two published articles. “Jay” did not do that work. “Jessica” did.
I am distanced enough from that name that nobody accidentally calls me it anymore in professional circles. I am not a trans person who views myself as a before/after person. There is not pain in remembering when I lived as a woman.
So just as my experience and preference is unique to me and not universal, it follows that it is that way for all experience: the desire to have ones name corrected is not a universal one.
The best thing to do, in my opinion, is to ask the creator themselves and to err on the side of caution by changing it if contact is not possible.
I do not know how this sort of thing operates on a larger scale in Hollywood and how much control creators have over their credits and such. Perhaps this is not the case, but I assume the Wachowski sisters have enough resources to ask for those changes if desired?
Like, if either of them wanted those changes made but were denied, I imagine there would be a public uproar about it.
This is an evolving conversation that is finally getting wider recognition as trans people are actually listened to and direct these decisions. This means that changes and mistakes happen publicly, and it’s messy!
I notice that often, trans people (including myself) project our experience onto all others for some sense of validity and belonging. When we see something that contradicts our experience, it causes insecurity.
“I wouldn’t want that, so obviously this is true for everyone else and this is automatically an act of transphobia.”
“I don’t feel that way. Am I really trans?”
And so on.
“I don’t feel that way. Am I really trans?”
And so on.
There’s a desire for one-size-fits-all solutions. But I think what we need instead is the flexibility and room to accommodate multiple solutions where we have the safety of correcting people without the threat of violence.
Anywho. The nature of language and power and semiotics and ethics and aesthetics continues to occupy my every waking thought.
