• cassie 🐺@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    6 months ago

    Generally, using their current preferred name/pronouns (or neutral pronouns) is best. She’s still the same person, so it’s true to say Caitlyn Jenner won the 1976 Olympic Decathlon. If any other facts about the event itself were directly relevant to the conversation, that’d be ok - e.g. it would be accurate and inoffensive imo to say she won the men’s division.

    But name/pronouns change all the time otherwise so it’s more normal to use the current ones. If Ms. Jones gets married and is now Mrs. Smith, it wouldn’t be inaccurate to talk about Mrs. Smith’s car breaking down last summer.

    • then_three_more@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      But name/pronouns change all the time otherwise so it’s more normal to use the current ones. If Ms. Jones gets married and is now Mrs. Smith, it wouldn’t be inaccurate to talk about Mrs. Smith’s car breaking down last summer.

      That’s such a good and clear comparison.

      With a married person who has changed their last name you can use “née” if using a trans persons birth name was for some reason needed (I can’t think of a reason why it would but be though) would something equivalent to "Mrs Smith (née Jones) be appropriate, or largely offensive?

      • cassie 🐺@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        6 months ago

        That’s a good question! It’s definitely very rare that a birth name is entirely necessary to use in conversation, but an occasional situation comes up where I’m talking to an old friend about someone who’s since transitioned and I need to use a deadname to let them know who I’m talking about. Generally I say something like “so I ran into Denise, you knew her as Brett back in the day, etc etc etc” and just use Denise from there on. If the person I’m talking to isn’t caught too off guard by that, it’s a very smooth and natural way to handle that as a matter of circumstance and move on to using the preferred name quickly.