As a transgender person what is my new name?

Text by Austen Hartke taken from "Transforming: The Bible and the Lives of Transgender Christians"(Transformations. The Bible and lives of transgender Christians), publisher Westminster John Knox Press, 2018, 225 pages), chapter 6.1, freely translated by Diana of Turin, revision of Giovanna di Parma

At my birth towards the late 1980s, my parents decided to give me what they thought was a beautiful and original name: Alison. As we then saw, Alison - or another of the various alternative spellings - was among the first 50 names of girls for that year and for a couple of years following. From the middle school onwards, every time I entered a new class, it seemed that at least two other Alison would appear and we would all be forced to choose nicknames or use our surnames.

I never wanted to shorten my name because I thought Ali was even more feminine than Alison. But then one day my uncle Rick passed from our house to help us mow the lawn, while I was out to play basketball in the home road. My uncle crossed the courtyard towards the house shouting: "Hey, al". I remember looking up and greeted with my hand and thought between me: "Yes!" He was the only person to call me at and, every time he did, he made me feel higher than two inches.

The names are very powerful. Whether it is given or chosen, our name identifies us as individuals and the surname as members of a community. For transgender people, names can take on further meaning and become a way to express their genre. Some transgender people choose to keep the name received at birth, especially if that name is neutral compared to the genre, such as Robin, Taylor or Jamie. Sometimes the name given to us is not suitable, then we decide to choose a new name - which can give others a better sense of who we are.

Ridenomination is as old as language and we have some fascinating examples in the Bible, where a new name is given as a recognition of an identity that one already has or to recognize a change of identity.

In numbers 13 we find an example of someone to whom a new name is given to illustrate a new identity. Moses and the wandering Jewish people find themselves on the threshold of the promised land but do not know what to do, then God says to Moses to send some lights for a reconnaissance and to see that people lived in those places. Moses chooses a leader from every tribe and among them there was a young man named Hoshea, son of Nun.
Versetto 16 tells us: "And Moses gave Hoshea, son of Nun, the name of Giosuè".
We are not explicitly told why Moses changes his name, but Giosuè becomes the second in command and will take his place as the leader to the death of Moses. In the Middle Ages a French rabbi named Samuel Ben Meir - better known as Rashban - suggested that it was customary to give a new name to someone who came to such a high rank, so it is very likely that Moses decided to give a new name and a new title simultaneously giving a new identity to Giosuè.

While most of the names in the Jewish scriptures are donated from one human being to the other or from God to one human, there is only one case in which a person gives a new name to God creator. These are Agar, Schiava di Abraham and Sarah, who is pregnant with Abraham's son and runs away to escape Sarah's mistreatment.

Agar meets the angel of God in the desert in Genesis 16; The angel reassures her that God is with her and with her Son. In Versetto 13 it is said: "Then Agar called the name of the Eternal who had spoken to her, Attaci-Roi, because he said:" I really have really seen here and I remained alive after seeing him? "

One of the most famous changes of name we find it in the New Testament in the Gospel of Matteo:

And he said to them (Jesus to the disciples): And who do you say that I am? Simon Pietro reply said: You are the Christ, the son of the living hydio. And Jesus replicating him said to him: You are blessed, or Simone, son of Jonah, because not meat and blood have revealed this, but my Father who is in the skies. And I also tell you: you are Pietro, and on this stone I will build my church, and the doors of Hades will not be able to win it. (Matthew 16: 15-18).

Usually, when we read this step we immediately realize what Jesus has done. He gave a new name to Simone. But perhaps we escaped that Simone has just renamed Jesus. In the evangelical stories of Matteo, Marco and Luca the idea that Jesus is the Messiah is a bit a secret and in this particular story it is the first time that someone dares to call the Messiah aloud.
What Simone does, when he is asked what the identity of Jesus is, is to give him the name that he recognizes who he is. Simone's declaration does not make Jesus the Messiah, he recognizes him only formally. On the contrary, when Jesus tells Simone: "You are Pietro and on this stone I will build my church" is giving Peter a completely new identity as the foundation of the community.

When a transsexual person changes his name he often acts within these categories: either he takes on a name that highlights something true on his personality and his relationship with others or chooses one who shows the world as he has changed or what aspires.

> Other songs taken from "Transforming. The Bible and lives of transgender Christians"