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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.
Except they aren't particularly well known. I am not even sure how many people even remember "Leave Britney alone" anymore. Let alone the name of the person who was in the video (if they ever knew). If you were to look up whatever Scumbag Steve's legal name was, I would stare at you and be confused. If you say "Scumbag Steve" I instantly remember that picture.
So, in this case, "Cara Cunningham went into pornography after her viral Leave Britney Alone" video would be the non-transphobic version of that headline. It conveys all the information required.
A good example is Elliot Page where things get murky and there often is a need to acknowledge he transitioned because, otherwise, it makes portrayals like Juno and Shadowcat and the like confusing. So the common phrase I hear, when it is relevant, is "Elliot Page, in work prior to his transition, portrayed a teenager who made the mistake of letting Michael Cera stick it in her..."
But here? It adds nothing.
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...
A lobotomy with a rusty ice pick, at that. I don't know of any situation in which torture could ever be conceived by anyone as an appropriate response, yet here we are
Did you miss the part about how my safety is dependent on going stealth? I moved somewhere where nobody knew me after transitioning for a reason. A stranger going around and telling random people my dead name would be like a stranger going around telling random people that a person is in witness protection and what their real name is. Again, your threat index isn't universal.
The first rule of self-defense is that a battle not fought is a battle won. The second rule is if you have to hurt a man, you hurt him so bad that you need never fear his vengeance. If he can stand up, he can come right back at you.
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.
Vibes based guess who is actually a blast.
I will second this. So much fun trying to figure out, "Are they a man child?" or "High school teacher who is burnt out from teaching?" or "Would you want to run into this person in a dark alleyway?"
"Does your person have a penis?"
"Uhh..."
This thread is already "guess who's trans" and is the definition of deadnaming.
No it isn't, because her old name is in the title. That is not what deadnaming is.
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).
The one circumstance where it is okay is when you want to deadname someone?
The only interesting fact here is that someone transitioned into who they actually are.
Alright, there's no way we're actually opposed people here. How do you tell others that someone has transitioned?
I don't because it is not my place to tell.
That said: porn star Cara Cunningham was the star of the leave Britney alone meme.
Dude what are you talking about, yes it is. If they're publicly out, and you're not endangering them by doing so, and they havent asked you not to for some reason, it's absolutely your place to let people know. You're not stealing their thunder, you're sparing them from being deadnamed/misgendered by everyone in their social circles and them having to explain it over and over and over. I get where you're coming from, but have you had any close friends come out publicly as trans? It's fucking scary and emotionally exhausting, so anything you can do to take some of the load off is incredibly important.
That really isn't a good blanket policy. Bigots aren't idiots (well yes they are, but you know what I mean), and they're perfectly capable of noticing that you're using nonbinary pronouns for someone and drawing the correct conclusion. Outing someone by omission is still outing them, even if your intentions were as pure as possible, and nobody stays in the closet without a good reason.
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
No fucking way that's true. Nobody learns these people's names. They were the Leave Britney Alone guy. That's all the name they were known by. Anyone who says they bothered to learn their name is a liar.
I was in highschool when that video went viral. Everyone knew the name Chris cocker.
"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.
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.
Then put the dead name after the current name, parenthetically
As I said, it could have been phrased better. But the take away I was trying to communicate is that they aren't intending to offend by including the deadname. It's just there for context and not something to be offended at.
That's not what deadnaming is.
So brave
Deadnaming her would be calling her "Chris Cocker" and ignoring her new name. They are just saying what her identity was before she became Cara Cunningham. Makes it easier to understand the story.
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.
Is it acceptable? In 4chan maybe
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.
I think criticizing people for what they do (eg: calling some politicians "murderers" because they allow genocide) is different than calling names just to hurt, which is what dead naming usually is.
I don't think anyone should be okay with racism or that kind of attacks, even on people they hate. Kim Jong Un may be a piece of shit (or not), but calling him a racial slur is unproductive and definitely crossing the line.
Here, the deadnaming comes from ignorance, not hate; and it's true that it might help clarify who someone is, but in this case everybody knows her for being the "leave Britney alone" person, not for her deadname. So it's really unnecessary.
Sure, but I was mostly highlighting the naivety of coming to an online forum and effectively saying "please be nice and considerate of other people's feelings" as if that's going to achieve anything else but to make them look like a virtue signaling fool. It's the internet we're talking about after all. I agree with the intention, but see it as a wasted effort. Deadnaming is not going to become the next n-word.
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.
I'm going to do it even harder now