{"id":119,"date":"2024-10-16T03:43:35","date_gmt":"2024-10-16T03:43:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wiseacreswest.com\/blog\/?p=119"},"modified":"2024-10-16T03:51:01","modified_gmt":"2024-10-16T03:51:01","slug":"whats-in-a-name","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wiseacreswest.com\/blog\/2024\/10\/16\/whats-in-a-name\/","title":{"rendered":"What's in a Name?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

First came the pronouns<\/a>, then came the name.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I didn't dislike my given name. The name just felt very female. And since I realized I was nonbinary, by the very definition of nonbinary, I wasn't female. A name change felt in order.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I started looking at gender neutral names. One caught my eye. For some reason, I passed it up. So. Many. Names. I felt overwhelmed by them all. I thought having a system would help.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I'm Irish and Welsh, so I perused Irish and Welsh gender neutral names that start with a C. I figured I could change the C to a K and it would align with my previous name. My plan was genius! How could it fail?! It can fail if you don't like any of your options. I decided to return to the overwhelming list of names… Soon\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First, I went to see Brandi Carlile \"and friends\" at the Hollywood Bowl. My friend and I attended hoping that Joni Mitchell might show up. She did. And so did other \"friends\" including Annie Lennox. Annie was alive. Bouncing, exuberant, having fun dancing up a storm. She was 69 and relentless. If she wasn't singing lead, she was singing backup. She was supporting others on stage. She seemed egoless and joyful. I'm a child of the eighties and the Eurhythmics never failed to capture my imagination. And Annie? She was one of the first androgynous women that came into my consciousness. I connected with her. The suits, the spiky hair, the everything. Most recently, she kept appearing in my Instagram feed with political messages. Could she be anymore awesome? Then I remembered the name that had caught my eye at the beginning of my search: Lennox. I didn't know anyone named Lennox. There was no baggage associated with the name. Annie was the only Lennox I knew. Once I really <\/em>considered the name, I knew it was right. It just fit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, when people question my name. \"Lennox?\" \"Yes, like Annie. Annie Lennox.\"<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Could she be anymore badass?<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/span>\"\"
\n

<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

First came the pronouns, then came the name. I didn't dislike my given name. The name just felt very female. And since I realized I was nonbinary, by the very definition of nonbinary, I wasn't female. A name change felt in order. I started looking at gender neutral names. One caught my eye. For some […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33,23,32,34],"tags":[27,15,35,16],"class_list":["post-119","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-enby","category-gender","category-nonbinary","category-trans","tag-aging","tag-gender","tag-genderqueer","tag-nonbinary"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wiseacreswest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wiseacreswest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wiseacreswest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wiseacreswest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wiseacreswest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=119"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.wiseacreswest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wiseacreswest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wiseacreswest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wiseacreswest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}