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Getting my coworkers to stop calling me by a nickname
I am transgender, and I semi-recently changed my name to one I love — it’s old-fashioned and stately. For the purposes of anonymity, I’ll say Josiah. Before I legally changed my name, I went by a more gender-neutral nickname (let’s say Jo) among friends.
I have introduced myself as Josiah to every single employee at my organization. My name on my email and Zoom is Josiah. Unfortunately, I knew a few of my coworkers before I started working here, and they knew me as Jo, and somehow the nickname has caught on among all 100+ people who work here. I briefly correct people (“actually, I prefer Josiah in a professional context”) on an individual basis, but nobody seems to remember the correction even five minutes after we have the conversation. It feels weird to have my coworkers call me by the same affectionate nickname that my partner uses, but it would feel weirder to send out a mass email to correct people for calling me by something that is, technically, my name!
Is it reasonable that being called by my more gender-neutral nickname instead of my more obviously masculine full name raises my hackles, or am I being over-sensitive to nonexistent transphobia? Should I keep correcting people briefly and individually and assuming they won’t remember? Do I just have to deal with this?
Answer:
You shouldn’t have to deal with this; you should be called the name you’ve asked to be called. It sounds like the problem might be the people who knew you as Jo before you started; if other people hear them calling you Jo, they’ll assume it’s a nickname you use. (I realize this doesn’t explain the people you’ve corrected who don’t seem to be able to retain the correction, but it’s got to be playing a role.) Can you talk to the people you knew before you started, explain the situation, and ask them to be more mindful that you do not use Jo anymore?
I wouldn’t say “I prefer Josiah in a professional context” since that’s probably inadvertently reinforcing that you do use Jo in other contexts … which is likely muddying things. Stick with a clear, firm “Josiah, not Jo, please” or “It’s Josiah” every time someone messes up and it’s likely that people will get it in time.
I have introduced myself as Josiah to every single employee at my organization. My name on my email and Zoom is Josiah. Unfortunately, I knew a few of my coworkers before I started working here, and they knew me as Jo, and somehow the nickname has caught on among all 100+ people who work here. I briefly correct people (“actually, I prefer Josiah in a professional context”) on an individual basis, but nobody seems to remember the correction even five minutes after we have the conversation. It feels weird to have my coworkers call me by the same affectionate nickname that my partner uses, but it would feel weirder to send out a mass email to correct people for calling me by something that is, technically, my name!
Is it reasonable that being called by my more gender-neutral nickname instead of my more obviously masculine full name raises my hackles, or am I being over-sensitive to nonexistent transphobia? Should I keep correcting people briefly and individually and assuming they won’t remember? Do I just have to deal with this?
Answer:
You shouldn’t have to deal with this; you should be called the name you’ve asked to be called. It sounds like the problem might be the people who knew you as Jo before you started; if other people hear them calling you Jo, they’ll assume it’s a nickname you use. (I realize this doesn’t explain the people you’ve corrected who don’t seem to be able to retain the correction, but it’s got to be playing a role.) Can you talk to the people you knew before you started, explain the situation, and ask them to be more mindful that you do not use Jo anymore?
I wouldn’t say “I prefer Josiah in a professional context” since that’s probably inadvertently reinforcing that you do use Jo in other contexts … which is likely muddying things. Stick with a clear, firm “Josiah, not Jo, please” or “It’s Josiah” every time someone messes up and it’s likely that people will get it in time.
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My full name is 10 letters long, not common and not easy to spell. As a kid I went but initials until 2nd grade when someone shortened and cutened my name with a final e sound. Think Antoninette and people calling me Tony. In 6th grade I decided I liked my full name and started trying to use it everywhere. I did this every beginning of the school year right thru grad school. People called me the cutened version Or just by the first syllable of my name. I went to a new college, a new state, I moved for work. People still kept doing it. I have been in this job for 20 years and I finally FINALLY got them to do it. But it means spelling out my full entire name on every email. But..in person they still call me the shortened first syllable. Sometimes they say the full name but in person in conversations it is always the first syllable.
So I am curious how people would react to this question. I think just repeating "It's Josiah" every time is the only way to go. But wanted to hear other people's thoughts.
Also? I have never once gone by the cutened version of my name since high school. Where I live random people hear my full name and immediately try to cuten it. I have stopped everyone from doing it but my neighbor (who I actually like). South Philly is full of nicknames and there is a Butter and a Junior on every block. So I do understand why, but yeah I feel for this person. If they live anywhere around me it will be a full uphill battle.
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It's honestly really presumptuous.
I go by a self-chosen nickname -- Andi -- because I got so tired of people mispronouncing my given name of "Andrea" (I have one of the less-common pronunciations), so of course people misspell it as "Andy," even though my name is in my e-mail .sig line, it's the name I use on FB, etc.
The difference is that it's not a racial, sexual, or gender-based microaggression, and I *really* feel for the OP here.
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I’m “AHN-dree-uh,” not “AND-ree-uh” or “Ahn-DRAY-ah.” (I suspect that your sister is the last one.)
I was born in France (to US parents), and they didn’t quite give me the French pronunciation (more like “OHN-ray-ah,” with almost no audible “d”), but mine is definitely not one of the top two US pronunciations.
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Granted it goes the other way as well. My aunt's name is Judy. Legal name. Judy. She knows it isn't someone who knows her when they ask for Judith. She tells them Judith isn't here and she ignores them. I have had a similar experience. Teachers called me "Tony" and then when they wanted my attention would call me "Antonia" and that wasn't my name or even the cutened version and I wouldn't reply bc I really would not hear it.
Maybe that is another answer for LW. Stop responding to it? like if someone calls out for you and they aren't using the name you want just don't respond? the harder part is Jo was their name for awhile and they already respond to it.
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In 2014 I decided to start going by Kate instead of Katie, and I figured it wouldn't be too bad since my friends and family called me Kate half the time anyway (who needs extra syllables)? Somehow, this has turned into an 8 year battle where people who previously called me Kate all the time now "slip" and call me Katie. And then they get annoyed when I remind them that my name is Kate.
I really feel for this LW.
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[Disclaimer: all my examples are about anglo names; variants of the same problem occur with non-anglo names that have different diminutive rules. Though a lot of languages have stricter rules about who can use a diminutive by default (Russian, for example).]
the thing is, even if this only inadvertently has a transphobic microagressive side effect, it's unprofessional no matter what. I have been sometimes called by a diminiutive of my name (eg. Jadie, I suppose), and I haven't answered to that diminutive by anyone other than a tiny subset of blood relatives since I was 14 years old.
I just tell people "my name is Jade, thanks; I don't answer to Jadie" and it works with almost everyone.
That being said shortenings rather than diminutives, especially common ones, are harder to remember. I can always recall who doesn't want to be a Becky or a Johnny, but I often after to correct myself on Jess/Jessica and Mike/Michael. We're so used to standard name shortenings that the speaker often doesn't think of them as a nickname.
Just firmly and politely repeat "My name is Josiah, thanks". If people persist after repeated asks it might be transphobia, but it's hard to tell out of context.
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Even if others aren’t being INTENTIONALLY transphobic, the impact is still there — OP has to wonder, every time someone calls him by something other than his chosen name, if the person is just being inconsiderate or is doing it on purpose to invalidate his gender.
That constant state of limbo and motive-guessing is, frankly, exhausting.
The end result is a series of microaggressions, even if the people around OP are just being sloppy and rude.
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It's not clear whether this situation is about gender neutrality or just nicknames; if they were David, people would probably call them Dave. But at the same time I can see why the gender thing makes it more ouchy.
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If co-workers are getting his pronouns right, he might want to look at explanations other than transphobia in at least some cases. If they're not, then I agree that transphobia is certainly the problem.
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Online I basically use this screenname for everything and never mention a nickname/preferred short version, but I've joined fandom communities where people calling me by a shortened version of my screenname made me feel like I was a real part of the community at last, and I've joined fandom communities where people calling me a shortened version of my screenname gave me the heebie-jeebies, and I can't really tell you how I knew the difference except, just, ~vibes~ But I do think that if you walk the world believing that anybody who isn't super careful to only call you one known specific preferred name is being disrespectful, you're going to miss out on a lot of stuff. So I don't really like that answer.
For LW, I'd say step one is to pay attention to how your other coworkers are named: is this an environment where calling people by shortened names is very common? Does calling someone by the full name they use in correspondence stand out? Are they using short names as a marker of the level of formality of a conversation or the relationship you have? Are there any coworkers you're comfortable with to actually bring this up on a deeper level than just 'Please call me Josiah'? (i.e., 'Everyone here calls me by [name] even though I always correct them. Is this a work culture thing here? Does that happen to other people?' isn't an odd thing to ask a coworker at the water cooler. I've had that discussion. Repeatedly, usually after a coworker learns work is literally the only place I use the name I use there.) Sometimes the use of shortenings for complicated ingroup reasons really is so ingrained that the easiest thing is to redirect to a nickname you hate less.
On the other hand if it's just you, there might be an underlying transphobia thing. If you're the only one, it might be worth at least mentioning it to a supervisor and asking their advice - even if it's not helpful it'll at least give you the temperature of the management on this issue.
Or it might just be a weird thing where a nickname sticks despite everyone's effort, that just happens to some people sometime. Step one is to ask your supervisor and then everyone you know well to please make a special effort to avoid Jo at work, and step two is to stop answering at all with anything but a correction (and if Josiah is new but you've been using Jo for a long time, and it's still what you're commonly called outside work, people might be cuing to your subconscious signals that you answer to it faster, so you can also work on deliberately putting out body language that Jo is not you.)
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