Pass Word

Pass Word. A game. Warning: this game discusses gender dysphoria. [[Start.|1]]

(set: $Name1 to (prompt: "What's your name?", "Your name")) No, no. I don't think you're following. [[Maybe I should clarify.|3]]

This could be a computer, not a door, and you need to stroke the keys in that particular order. This could be the [[legal passage|3b]], where this password is necessary to the process. This could be a grand abstraction of the whole thing; the door isn't real, and the corridor is some lofty allegory for existence. It's all unclear, but you have to [[get through this|3]], I suppose.

Is this a legal fiction, then? One of those jokes? Where the language is more about the [[game of language|3c]] we play than the reality? After all, this name is just wrong, right? A disgusting set of syllables. [[Such a sick joke.|3a]]

I'll be honest: this was a trick question. I'd ask you to remember that you're in a corridor right now. This might be a literal corridor. This might be a [[metaphor|3a]]. The main thing is: you need to pass through. To pass through, you must recall the password. The password is a part of your past. And this particular iota of your past that you must recall is outside of your control. It is a sharp part of your memory. We are out of control of so many things. We are out of control of our names, and the bodies we are. They are "assigned" to us. [[We are "assigned" our genders at birth|3e]]. In European languages, we can predict with a striking accuracy the gender of someone based on their name. A name, in this way, usually carries a weight to it; it speaks to sex. [[There are a thousand things to say about names, and I cannot say them all.|4]]

That bittersweet wine, with the snapping gulp as it descends your throat; the clap of laughter as you close your eyes, but you are still able to see the sunlight through them; the sweet fig jam on an English muffin, and the smudge of it on the corner of your lips; the water inoculated with rose and pears passed to you across the table; the texture of the wood, under the sole of your feet, a perfect rough, the slightest callous to match those on your toes; the amber sip of tea and the scent of apples; sunset; sunset; sunset; [[the ending of an evening of love|1]]; sunset.

//"If you marry, you will regret it; if you do not marry, you will also regret it; if you marry or if you do not marry, you will regret both; whether you marry or you do not marry, you will regret both. Laugh at the world’s follies, you will regret it; weep over them, you will also regret it; if you laugh at the world’s follies or if you weep over them, you will regret both; whether you laugh at the world’s follies or you weep over them, you will regret both. Believe a girl, you will regret it; if you do not believe her, you will also regret it; if you believe a girl or you do not believe her, you will regret both; whether you believe a girl or you do not believe her, you will regret both. If you hang yourself, you will regret it; if you do not hang yourself, you will regret it; if you hang yourself or you do not hang yourself, you will regret both; whether you hang yourself or you do not hang yourself, you will regret both. This, gentlemen, is the sum of all practical wisdom... I see it all perfectly; there are two possible situations - one can either do this or that. My honest opinion and my friendly advice is this: do it or do not do it - you will regret both."// Søren Kierkegaard, //Either/Or// [[For whatever that's worth.|1]]

I'd ask you to walk along this corridor. I'd ask you to to get to the end, and notice the halt in your breath as you get to the door. You're supposed to go through this door. I'd ask you to spend a moment looking back at how you got here. We are bound to our past; our past circumstances are uneroding and unwavering, the sturdy rhinestones. There are probably parts of your past you look back fondly on. [[Nostalgia|1a]] might fill you. I don't know what these moments were few you, but the feeling is a warmth, a slight smile on your lips. I'm glad you have these memories. There are probably parts of your past you regret. Everyone makes mistakes, and you are no different. It's okay. We all do this. [[They are part of life.|1b]] I'm not asking you to dwell on this. I'm sorry. It's okay. There are probably parts of your past, though, that you have no control over. Truthfully, this is the majority of your past. It's easy for us to forget that the majority of things in our life are completely [[out of our control|1c]]. It's somewhat ironic, considering the majority of the human experience (at least, in the realm of action) is about making choices. But we don't decide the weather. We don't decide our medical conditions. We don't decide how others act. That's all out of our hands. I think sometimes we don't like admitting this. I also think sometimes it's a comfort to remember this, and sometimes a comfort that isn't deserved. That being said, when we look at the little biography that comes on our dust jackets, some of the first things we want to know about people are circumstantial. Where you were born, when you were born, what your name is. [[And what about you?|2]]

//"Throughout the Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein returns, again and again, to the concept of language-games to make clear his lines of thought concerning language. Primitive language-games are scrutinized for the insights they afford on this or that characteristic of language. Thus, the builders’ language-game (PI 2), in which a builder and his assistant use exactly four terms (block, pillar, slab, beam), is utilized to illustrate that part of the Augustinian picture of language which might be correct but which is, nevertheless, strictly limited. ‘Regular’ language-games, such as the astonishing list provided in PI 23 (which includes, e.g., reporting an event, speculating about an event, forming and testing a hypothesis, making up a story, reading it, play-acting, singing catches, guessing riddles, making a joke, translating, asking, thanking, and so on), bring out the openness of our possibilities in using language and in describing it. ...The concept of language-games points at the rule-governed character of language. This does not entail strict and definite systems of rules for each and every language-game, but points to the conventional nature of this sort of human activity. Still, just as we cannot give a final, essential definition of ‘game’, so we cannot find “what is common to all these activities and what makes them into language or parts of language” (PI 65)."// From //The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy//, on Ludwig Wittgenstein and "Language-games" [[For whatever that's worth.|3b]]

Locus of Control (LOC). A concept developed by Julian B. Rotter in the 1950s. Locus means "place", as in, "location". How much do you believe you are in control of your life? An internal locus of control would have you believe you can influence events and their outcomes. An external locus, on the other hand, would have you place the blame and responsibility on outside forces for everything. I would doubt anyone has a total belief in either of these frameworks. But that's me. [[For whatever that's worth.|1]]

A terminology used frequently to those with "typically male/female" bodies is "assigned male/female at birth" or "determined male/female at birth". [[For whatever that's worth.|3]]

I'd like to focus, instead, on the pronunciation of the name. When we say a name, when it's syllables clip against our soft pallate, it carries an overtone. When a transgender person is born, they are often given a gendered name. [[Names mean nothing|4a]]; they are only a tool. In the same way you assigned "$Name1" to the variable "Name1" just a moment ago, this nomenclature is utilitarian, [[right|5]]?

A "deadname" is a name a transgender person used to be called by. When they change their name, it is extremely unkind to call them by their deadname. [[For whatever that's worth.|5]]

To pass through this door you are being asked to return to a painful part of your past. This door is no [[Maxwell's Demon|6a]]. It cuts. How dare this door have the gall to ask you to return to this memory? Disgusting. Unbelievable. To [[pass through this door|6b]], to have to have a reflux from the gut once again. Who would ever ask another human being to relive this pain again? It is necessarily cruel. [[But is it necessarily so?|7]]

"//If we conceive of a being whose faculties are so sharpened that he can follow every molecule in its course, such a being, whose attributes are as essentially finite as our own, would be able to do what is impossible to us. For we have seen that molecules in a vessel full of air at uniform temperature are moving with velocities by no means uniform, though the mean velocity of any great number of them, arbitrarily selected, is almost exactly uniform. Now let us suppose that such a vessel is divided into two portions, A and B, by a division in which there is a small hole, and that a being, who can see the individual molecules, opens and closes this hole, so as to allow only the swifter molecules to pass from A to B, and only the slower molecules to pass from B to A. He will thus, without expenditure of work, raise the temperature of B and lower that of A, in contradiction to the second law of thermodynamics.//" James Clerk Maxwell [[For whatever that's worth.|6]]

Maybe not. Using this name drudges up their sex, and their [[history|5b]] of pain. That overtone rings in their ears when it is said. Names, unlike biological sex, can be [[changed|5a]], and usually will be. After all, if the goal of a name is to call something by a name, than has this name not failed? Shouldn't a [[name|5c]] represent identity, even in the slightest possible way? [[So what about this door?|6]]

//That burnt photograph Isn't it a strange way of cropping? And why not?// An unfinished poem I found on my computer, that can be framed as an English "haiku" [[For whatever that's worth.|5]]

''Juliet:'' //O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo? Deny thy father and refuse thy name; Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love, And I'll no longer be a Capulet.// ''Romeo:'' //Shall I hear more, or shall I speak at this?// ''Juliet:'' //'Tis but thy name that is my enemy; Thou art thyself, though not a Montague. What's Montague? It is nor hand, nor foot, Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part Belonging to a man. O, be some other name! What's in a name? that which we call a rose By any other word would smell as sweet; So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call'd, Retain that dear perfection which he owes Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name, And for that name which is no part of thee Take all myself.// ''Romeo:'' //I take thee at thy word: Call me but love, and I'll be new baptized; Henceforth I never will be Romeo.// //Romeo and Juliet//, Act II, Scene II, by William Shakespeare [[For whatever that's worth.|4]] This isn't the most "correct" version, but if you care, you're already groaning.

To change, is reliving the past necessary? We are made by our experiences, after all. And in order to change, we need to know what is being changed. So, in ways, to transfigure, we must also know that figure we are changing. To revise, we must also read the text. And does to change this mean to burn it? Does evolution require the immolation of the past? Must I become a new person to become myself? When my identity begins to solidify, and become clear to me, does my past then become a foggy unreality, a memory behind stained glass? Am I not allowed to have a bittersweet hate for the past? Why, in being transgender, am I so often expected to [[lay my life down|7a]]? My identity is not only in spite of my biology, but also influenced against it. This name is more than a set of phonemes, but [[a memory of those before me|7b]], too. And one, ten, one hundred years from now, am I not still [[bound to this past|8]]?

The term "going stealth" as a transgender person means to change one's name, and go out into the world with as little connections to one's past life as possible. It means to "pass" in all ways; to go into life without feeling the burden of biological sex determining how you are percieved, and to live without the fear of someone knowing about it. In recent times, I feel, the desire to "go stealth" is dissappearing. Being transgender is (albeit slowly) becoming less of something to be ashamed about, particularly in public American discourse. But that's me. [[For whatever that's worth.|7]]

Still, this memory is painful. Reliving this experience should not be brought on by anyone. Who has the right? Not even myself. And certainly no damned door. There isn't a clear moral or message to little parable. I don't really know how to end it. I don't even really know what this game is about. The past of my name is multifaceted. It's ugly, complex, and covered in cobwebs. I associate the pronunciation of my dead name both with the loving voices of my friends and family and the hateful society that breathes it in between moments. I also know that this is singular to me. Transgender people are more often than not filled with disgust for their dead names. I would never ask them to relive those moments. And so, this door. To pass through this door, I have to remember my name. In passing, I have to feel those pains once again, even if, after all, it is to move forward. To change my name is to reclaim the noun. I have yet to change my name. And so I cannot go through this door.

I mean this in several ways. In the Jewish tradition, children are named after deceased relatives. I'm named after my great grandmother. My sister is named after a great grandmother, and our aunt. I am also named by my parents, who named me with love. They meant nothing by this name but love. And in ways, I love my name. I think I would feel a pang of regret in the erasure of my name. I think, after all this, I would still [[return|7]] to it.

"Gatekeeping" refers to many hurdles in the path to transitioning that trans people have to go over. A "gatekeeper" sometimes refers to psychiatrists or psychologists with overt dismissal of transgender people and have the ulterior motive of blocking transgender people from access to transitioning. [[For whatever that's worth.|6]]

"//The Naming of Cats is a difficult matter, It isn't just one of your holiday games; You may think at first I'm as mad as a hatter When I tell you, a cat must have different names. First of all, there's the name that the family use daily, Such as Peter, Augustus, Alonzo or James, Such as Victor or Jonathan, George or Bill Bailey— All of them sensible everyday names. There are fancier names if you think they sound sweeter, Some for the gentlemen, some for the dames: Such as Plato, Admetus, Electra, Demeter— But all of them sensible everyday names. But I tell you, a cat needs a name that's particular, A name that's peculiar, and more dignified, Else how can he keep up his tail perpendicular, Or spread out his whiskers, or cherish his pride? Of names of this kind, I can give you a quorum, Such as Munkustrap, Quaxo, or Coricopat, Such as Bombalurina, or else Jellylorum- Names that never belong to more than one cat. But above and beyond there's still one name left over, And that is the name that you never will guess; The name that no human research can discover— But the cat himself knows, and will never confess. When you notice a cat in profound meditation, The reason, I tell you, is always the same: His mind is engaged in a rapt contemplation Of the thought, of the thought, of the thought of his name: His ineffable effable Effanineffable Deep and inscrutable singular Name.//" T.S. Eliot, The Naming of Cats [[For whatever that's worth.|5]]