"It's just for the aesthetics", I told myself while jumping through 30 bureaucratic hoops to change my legal name. "It has nothing to do with gender", I insisted while changing to an extremely feminine name.
The first week of living with my new name has made these lies become much harder to tell. But let me back of up just share how this has felt, since I think these stories are important to share.
In the month leading up to the name change the anxiety kept building and I felt my first cold feet. It took me a while to realize what was happening. The dynamics of when I was thinking about the name had been flipped on its head. Instead of primarily being about joy I was only thinking about the name in the context of paperwork and the reactions I feared from telling people about it. Every interaction had become a question mark: "Will I be Aria here?" Understanding that made me feel comfortable that these were not actual cold feet. If anything it would be a relief to stop asking "Will I be?" and know simply, "I am".
When the actual court date came it was so easy. I feel thankful for King County, WA. I'd already filled out my forms but the judge came out ahead of time and offered the room blank forms if they needed them. It was a small group of excited trans and non-binary people and the judge was so intentional about giving the congratulations and joy the moment needed. I didn't know him but I felt supported by him. The feeling afterwards was nothing strong, but there was a sense of relief and like something had been set right.
The next couple of days were formalities. Going to the SSA appointment I'd scheduled ahead of time (I'd needed to wait an hour on the phone to do this months ago, since you can't schedule online until after your court date), telling my team at work on Friday after all our meetings. The weekend was good. Like a weight had been lifted.
When Monday morning came around it was quite frankly terrifying. I was almost too sick to go into work. The idea of seeing people's reactions to needing to relearn my name scared me so much. But I'm so glad I pushed through. My work was so supportive and kind.
Which isn't to say it was without awkwardness. There is an undeniable foreign-ness to the name the first time someone I know says it. It is not natural. There is a stiffness in how hard they're working to overwrite their brain. They (understandably) swap back and forth between the old and new name, and the more normal the new name feels the more jarring it is to hear the old one.
Much credit to my work, by the end of the first day most systems were already updated. And the feeling of seeing Aria show up in Slack and greet me in all my dev tools was indescribable. A wave of elation and joy that went far beyond the aesthetics of a name. It was like finally people were seeing the real me I wished I was all along. I'd never consciously considered myself to have experienced much gender dysphoria, but that feeling was so undeniably gender euphoria.
And that feeling... it's like unlocking the floodgates. All the sudden these feelings I'd shoved to the back of my mind are seeing their permission to come to the forefront. Suddenly the he/him pronouns I said were fine seem wrong. The "it's just a name change" defense I was going to use my parents feels like a lie. I find myself looking up where I can learn about HRT near me. And, thankfully, it's happening alongside a grace with myself I'd never previously had.
Seeing how I can just be Aria and how good that feels even in my existing body has made all the pressure and locked doors I'd put in front of myself before melt away. If I just am a woman in my soul regardless of the external then I haven't failed if I don't look like some cute anime girl. I haven't failed if I'm not yet brave enough to ask people to call me she/her. I haven't failed whether I do HRT or like the results. I haven't failed if I never "pass". Because if I'm already a woman now there is nothing to fail at.