villainesse:

A note about preferred pronouns and names

I had a boss who’s legal name was Marvin. His middle name was Scott. He asked everyone at work to call him Scott. People who knew him as Marvin slipped up and called him that sometimes, but he preferred to be called Scott. His employees and peers respected that request. HR respected that request and changed his name in our systems and in his email. It became his name because he asked it to be.

People make the argument that they “just can’t” call trans people by anything other than their deadname because that’s how they know them. Still others will go a step further and say that your self-expression infringes on their rights somehow.

It doesn’t. It’s common decency. Sure mistakes happen; but when someone asks to be called by a particular name, we respect that. If you can do it for cis people, you can do it for trans people.