Please don’t deadname people
It’s a bit difficult in a case like this, as it does add context and acknowledges their new identity so as to link what was a well known video to an existing person. I’d struggle to know who this was otherwise. I don’t think there’s any malintent here.
I think the preferred way to arrange the headline would have been “TIL Cara Cunningham, formerly known as Chris Cocker…” The way it’s currently worded implies that “Chris Cocker” is their current and/or valid name. I’m sure that wasn’t OP’s intent at all and they were just leading with the more widely-recognized name, but I can also see where Blaze is coming from.
Here, naming the well-known person first helps clarify (though I’ve never heard of either).
The way it’s currently worded implies that “Chris Cocker” is their current and/or valid name.
Calling bullshit here, the first sentence is informing everyone of the transition. "…who is now…"nare the next words after the name. This is the shite that bigots get to hold over progressive people, difficult and pedantic bullshit that creates a mindfield for people trying to do thenright thing.
Does it add any useful context, though? I don’t know either name but I do remember the “Leave Britney alone” video being a thing (and the fact that the person in the video turned out to be right all along when the truth about Britney’s situation came out years later), so the added context that she’s trans and what her dead name was is meaningless to me other than to say, “She used to be a man. She’s a woman now, but she was a man before. Did you know that? That she was once a man? Because she was. Here’s what her name was.”
As a trans woman, whose safety is so dependent on being able to go stealth in society, if I found out people were going around talking about me like this, I’d take a rusty icepick and make sure that they never think in words ever again. Lack of malicious intent doesn’t mean that no harm was caused. Your threat index is not universal.
This could have very easily been left at “Trans woman X got into porn after her viral video Y” and there would be all the context needed to figure out who they were and what video they were in without using their dead name. Hell, you probably wouldn’t even have to point out that she’s trans for people to figure it out. Cis people treat the privacy of trans people the same way that the paparazzi treats the privacy of celebrities.
Wtf? You think a rusty icepick is a valid response if someone calls you by wrong name and gender? Y’all need Jesus or some shit like that. Damn…
if I found out people were going around talking about me like this, I’d take a rusty icepick and make sure that they never think in words ever again.
That seems like a perfectly appropriate reaction.
So your response to feeling possibly in danger by someone calling you by the wrong name is to murder them? That’s totally normal and not at all unhinged.
It’s completely fine to deadname people in the case that you’re telling someone that a trans person goes by a new name. Otherwise you’re playing “Guess who’s trans!” for a painfully awkward five minutes while they list anecdotes about people that you weren’t actually present to witness.
Otherwise you’re playing “Guess who’s trans!”
I’m just imagining the classic Hasbro game Guess Who except it’s the most fucked up version there is.
Except that’s not at all what’s happening here. We’re not talking about somebody we know personally with their permission or anything, we’re talking about an actress who got into pornography after having an emotional video go viral many years ago. Her dead name has nothing to do with that, and if you had even left out the fact that she’s trans, most people probably could’ve figured it out if they even bothered to go check out the original video. Abd if they didn’t? It wouldn’t make a difference in their knowledge of the subject. They’d still know that a woman who had an emotional video go viral years ago later became a porn actress. All her dead name adds to this is a possibly paparazzi style invasion of her privacy.
Chris Crocker might’ve been a recognizable name a while back when the video was made
“It’s completely fine” by who? Most trans people do not want to be referred to by their deadname - especially in the way this title phrases it. Most people wouldn’t know the deadname anyway, everyone just knew her from the “Leave Britney alone” video. To clarify, the title could easily have mentioned she’s trans but to just throw out the deadname especially phrased in such a way is just ignorant and harmful, regardless of intent.
This thread is already “guess who’s trans” and is the definition of deadnaming.
Well yes, that’s why I referred to it as deadnaming. This is the one circumstance where its reasonable to do. Otherwise it leads to unwittingly deadnaming someone to others (or god forbid, to their face).
It was there for context. No one knows Cara, so it wouldn’t have made sense without knowing their former name. Maybe it could’ve been phrased better, but it is relevant information for context.
It’s funny how it seems totally acceptable to be a complete asshole towards other people, especially on social media, but we’re somehow supposed to accept deadnaming as being off the limits.
It’s a daily occurance on Lemmy as well. It just flies under the radar because for the most part it’s directed at people we don’t like to begin with.
Shit on people for what they do, not for what they are.
jonathan majors is (allegedly?) a domestic abusing piece of shit. Yet I didn’t see a massive swarm of people insisting we need to start calling him the n-word.
Yet when a trans person is in the media (also I am not sure how Cara is an asshole in this situation, but I have not followed her in the slightest), everyone suddenly decides it is their civic duty to be as transphobic as possible.
Which mostly just says a lot about them.
