I wanna hug her

Careful now, the ghost of Maria is likely lurking just around the corner.

Pretty safe to assume Chanel is not really tuned into her immediately present company, that’s for sure. She’s only physically present with them at the moment.

@Drake Zephyr

You can just say Rain, as it is widely frowned upon to call people by their deadname regardless if it's referring to a point in their past before transition or not. Don't worry. People know who you're talking about.

Rule of thumb: Mentioning a deadname is like bringing moldy ancient fruit cake infested with a plentiful biome of life's smallest miracles and food webs to a party.

At best the person will blow it off as "Who's Ryan again? I vaguely remember a Ryan who was a penny poker bud from kindergarten..."

At worst you will suddenly find yourself presented with a wall and there is no way around that wall. (Take Kellen for example, whom dared to violate Rain's beautiful hair. Rain wants absolutely nothing to do with her ever again until further notice.)

I have met a particular trans person who felt the need for precision, and preferred that their deadname be used to refer to actions they took before they figured out that they were trans. That was one person out of at least dozens of trans people I've met who want nothing more to do with their deadname ever.

Even that one person would have been offended by someone refer to what they did back in the ancient days with both their name and the deadname.

Determining the exact point they wanted the deadname used versus their live name was not quite as straightforward as just what name they were using when. Their timeline was something like, up until they were 17, they were resisting what they were as much as they could, and were thus violently transphobic. Once they accepted who they were in principle, they started a period of discovery, during which they continued using what would become their deadname. They started transitioning years later, and figured out their new name in their mid to late 20s. The time period they wanted their deadname to be used to cover was their transphobic period. They wanted this, because they couldn't bear the guilt from the actions they had committed due to that fear. That said, they did still take responsibility for them.

It's been a long time since I've read through all of Rain, but I don think she had a period like that.

Why does everyone get so frikin triggered all the time over the smallest things! I never call people by deadnames! I was just using it in relation to the time of the event. I'm sorry (not really) I offended everyone! Maybe I should just stop leaving comments because I always seem to get everyone triggered! The only trans person I talk to on a regular basis is totally fine when I ask if people like know or knew them as a guy or as "Will" instead of "April". They don't get angry. I don't have lot of experience with trans people so cut me some slack okay!

That reply, was mostly addressed to the 2 that went on multi-paragraph rants against me. Jocelyn, thanks for being a bit more civil and straight too it. I'm sorry (for real) about my poor word choice. I can go ahead and edit if that would help.

@Drake Zephyr

There are exceptions to every rule. Just because you know one or two people who are okay with something, doesn't mean you can assume similar types of people should be expected to act the same way. And nor should you be getting on people for being triggered by it. Deadnames are absolutely not a small thing. It's often purposely used to attack, abuse, and gaslight trans people; it's really serious stuff, actually. Just look at Kellen. Or Aiken earlier in the story, before he did some research on his own time.

So when people ask you not to do something, don't take offense to their taking offense. It's not just "oversensitivity". They have their reasons for feeling hurt or uncomfortable. You don't need to have a lot of experience with trans people to respect their feelings and wishes. Just apologize, and don't do it anymore. In fact, Gavin himself offered this exact advice in the story very recently: "And if I say some dumbass thing I didn't realize was bad, and they tell me it's offensive... I just stop saying it." The message is pretty applicable universally too and shouldn't be hard to follow.

It's okay not to know everything; no one here (even the trans readers) started out knowing everything about being trans. Heck, I'm still learning things and I write about the subject for a living. But that's why it's important to hear people out when they explain things. No one was acting triggered or getting out of line; they were explaining the problem. And I've found the best way to learn is to listen.

Okay I'm sorry. I do have a really bad problem with getting really defensive when people try to "correct" me on something. I won't use any dead names okay?

@Drake Zephyr

In the future, if you say something that some folks correct you on, I would suggest trying to avoid that part of you that tells you to be defensive. You've been ranting about "triggering" people a lot on multiple strips, and oftentimes they're just trying to educate you, not rant at you. If you really want to be an ally (not just for your friends, but for the entire community), it would be best to listen to what people are saying, learn from it, and avoid doing it again in the future.

@Drake Zephyr

I think your defensiveness is probably your own sort of being 'triggered'. I was not trying to rant at you. Sometimes explanations are just long. My only goal was to help you try to understand. If it helps, you can usually get the mood of my posts best if you read them in a sad, tired voice. Different people are different. I'm one of the very different ones. I want to help people. I do get frustrated with people not understanding me, but it just makes me tired, not angry. I'm sorry I upset you. I hope things get better for you.

It's definitely a context thing. I know I've referred back to work I've done in the past where there's no realistic way of changing the name on it. If someone were referencing some of that work, I'd actually almost expect them to credit me as attributed on that work, not by my current name, unless they know me.

@Jocelyn
To be fair to DrakeZephyr, while the replies here were civil, I've seen plenty of pages where the replies to him weren't, think exlamstion points, shaming language, and all caps. It does seem like a majority of the time when he comments, even just opinions not relating to trans people, someone is "correcting" him and saying he's wrong or even that he's bad to think that. So, I can understand why at this point he would be defensive.

@Fox

And Drake has said some things in the past he shouldn't have as well (I read every single comment; I'm aware of what goes on here). But that's not what I'm talking about right now. What people have said in the past is not relevant. On THIS page, he was offered advice regarding something he said being inappropriate, and rather than apologizing for his words or taking it to heart, he doubled down and attacked those who were just explaining something to him. Even the edited version of his initial comment is extremely passive aggressive.

I don't care what happened in the past; that kind of defensive behavior is toxic and unnecessary. So in fairness to everyone, I want the comments section to be safe for people to speak their feelings about the comic or the issues brought up within it. If someone - anyone (including myself) - says something inappropriate, I think it should be addressed so that people can continue to feel safe here. It's okay to be wrong and/or not know everything, as I already said. But when we are wrong, we should listen to those corrections/explanations (and take note of why we're being corrected), rather than assume it's a personal attack.


@everyone
Just respect each other, folks. Simple as that. ^_^

This doesn't really require further discussion.

@Jocelyn Fair enough. I guess it just gets frustrating seeing people jumped on for being ignorant or disagreeing. Also, imo the past shapes current behavior so to me it definitely matters because nothing occurs in a vacuum. I honestly think the reactivity of some posts is just as toxic as defensiveness, but your mileage may vary.

I really don't wish to fuel the fire any further, just share my personal two cents.

I have very strong feelings about having been a girl inside ever since my earliest childhood, even though I couldn't have known until my teen years that transgender was even a thing. I personally take serious offense when associated with my deadname, because it implies I haven't always been a girl, invalidating all the hell I've been through to finally bring to the outside the girl I've always been from the inside.
Because the actions I've taken, before transition or not, have been conscious decisions in awareness of their weight and consequences, made by that girl I worked so hard to be recognized as being who I am, but having internally always been who I am, I prefer to account for everything, past, present or future, under my girl name, my one and only real name, rather than a badly malformed disguise forced upon me without asking.

TL/DR. My deadname implies I haven't always been the girl I went through hell to be recognized as who I am, and have internally always been. That's why I take serious offense to being associated with my deadname.

Again, please do not take any offense from my comment. I just wished to explain how I feel about it, in case anyone wonders why it's a big matter.

Although this was a long time ago, I still feel the need to formally apologize for my actions. I didn't intend to double down or attack anyone or be passive aggressive, but looking back at it, yeah I was and I'm sorry about that. I know I was wrong, and I've changed a lot in the past few years since I left that comment. Regarding things in the past too, some of my opinions have changed and maybe some haven't I don't know what comments specifically yall are talking about but I try my best to be respectful and respect people for what they want to be called or what words they wanna use. Although personally I couldn't feel how it is to be deadnamed. Around December of that year I started dating a trans girl, and whenever people dead named her, I turned into a total guard dog and whenever I saw her hurt, it made me feel pain too. So, I do have some understanding of it now, and I never want to make someone else feel like that, so again I am very sorry.

Character development 😍