The Sin of Mocking a Name: Cisgender Leaders, Get with the Times
When I was little, I was selective about whom I allowed to call me “Nikki.” My Dad called me “Nick”; younger relatives who could not pronounce my name occasionally called me “Coley”; when I was in trouble it was the dreaded “Nicole Lyn!”; my sisters and my best friend called me “Nikki.” At school, though? It was Nicole, thank you very much. Formal, armored. Nikki was for when I could let my hair down, so to speak. For talking too much and singing too loudly. For playclothes (rather than the ugly brown plaid uniform of the Catholic school I attended). For not having to worry about how other people viewed me. For not having to be the perfect straight-A good (straight) girl.
As I transitioned from my small, Catholic high school to a huge Ivy-league college, I saw an opportunity to shed some of that armor: I sported an “edgy” asymmetrical short haircut; I wore thrifted clothes, often from the “men’s side”; I came out to my sisters and some close friends; I wrote a thinly veiled valedictorian speech about the “quilt of diversity” that the United States is when we’re at our best (read: The whole school already knows I’m an ardent feminist and a total weirdo, and most of you think I am gay… Well, I am totally queer but I am afraid to say it directly. Here’s a speech about how homogeneity sucks.).
