Matt

The past couple of years I’ve been going by “matt” and it’s kinda funny I think how that has affected things?

My parents named me “mattison” because they wanted me to have the choice between feminine and masculine nicknames. to me, it feels randomly thoughtful and progressive, but I fuck with it!

My family called me “mattison”– government name in my household for some reason.

When I started school, there was another “madison” in my class, and I remember one of our teachers making us decide which one was going to me “mattison/madison” and which one was going to be “matti/maddie”. I can’t remember which one I got at the moment but I think I remember that she didn’t like me and I didn’t like her (I remember getting in trouble for writing down that she was a bitch. I thought I wrote it down so small no one could read it but me! I was like 7 or something).

By the time I got older, in high school, some people called me “matti”, some people called me “mattison” and my closest friends called me “matt” on occasion, because I told them that I think I do like it when people call me matt (but I wasn’t going to like go around and enforce it).

In college, I started to greet myself with my government name. It usually went like “My name’s mattison. or matti. or matt, whatever”. and people always chose “matti”. Which was fine!

In my junior year of college, someone did actually chose “matt” one time. It was my film teacher, Sarah Stein (she’s really cool). Everyone in the class called me matt! It was weird having a handful of people knowing me as “matt”.

And then like 5 years later or whatever, so like, a couple of years ago, I realized that maybe I should stop letting life happen to me, in some ways, and just maybe be who I want to be?

Reflecting on it over the years, I clearly had a preference for “matt”. Every time someone chose “matti”, I was disappointed. Not at the person. I just felt it. So like, I think that’s telling me that I do have a preference! And it was weird that I was just letting other people tell me what they wanted to refer to me instead of asserting my own preferences.

I had missed the perfect opportunity to rebrand–when I started my job a couple years back. It was just a few months after I started, so it was slightly awkward to be like, “hi I just met everyone! and btw my name is MATT! specifically!!” unlike the previous discussion of dealer’s choice a couple of weeks ago.

I had also just broke off friendships with a group of people, so I guess I was just turning new leaves, as well.

And, I had also been thinking of it for a while because one of my friends (in that group) was thinking of going by a different name at work. She was considering rebranding to her government name instead of her nickname. She said she thought that it felt appropriate with her age or something.

So rebranding at work was on my mind, I like this idea of a worksona! lol.

But when people started calling me “matt” at work, I was like…. okay this is just my name now, it’s not just for my worksona!

It has been weird to stand solid ground on the masculine nickname, especially in this day and age of rampant transphobia. I’ve had some less than solid interactions with people, mostly strangers, when it comes to my name. It’s weird because guysss, it’s just my god given name without a few letters!!! chill!!!

Some people still call me “matti” and that’s okay! I just introduce myself as “matt” and refer to myself as “matt” but I have no problem responding to “matti” or being called it.