A friend of mine, who goes by the handle Aeoles, wrote an amazing LGBT-positive story called “The Name Taker” on DeviantArt which I share here for your reading enjoyment:
It’s short and very sweet. I am happy I read it.
Yes; some of the writing’s a bit awkward, but it’s a neat story, and the author handles the central idea well.
Okay, I know it’s a fantasy, but giving your name away, even to a magical being, is somehow not going to hold up in court.
I got the feeling that it was not just the name that was taken, but the actual identity. I mean, there’re a lot of Charleses out there.
I liked it. Could use a good edit, but the story is solid, and the idea is intriguing.
It might, in a world that actually had magical beings in it. Presumably courts in such a world would take account of magical behavior.
I thought that at first, too. But then the trans part made it make sense. Giving your name to the fairy is just taking on a new name. So these criminals aren’t hoping it will hold up in court. They’re just running away and taking on a new identity, so no one could find them.
I don’t see why it would. It wouldn’t actually work to deter crime if you can get out all legal consequences by giving up your name. It’s not like legally changing your name in our world results in the cops being unable to prosecute you for your past crimes.
No, but it results in legally changing your name. So courts in that world might well recognize the name change, at least.
Or they might, in that world, recognize that you were now a different person. That person might well not have rights to anything the previous person had rights to – residence, citizenship, ownership of good, legal relationships such as marriage – which would be enough to deter most people from taking that route. In the story, until the trans people started showing up, it’s clear that having one’s name taken was seen as a disadvantage.
Or it might be a world, as ours was through most of its history, where one could change one’s name and leave town and usually the cops would just never catch up with you. It’s really only pretty recently that that’s got little chance of working, especially for people who didn’t leave a trail of major crimes behind them in multiple places.
And the people in the story don’t seem to be trying to evade a criminal history.
Author here, glad you all enjoyed the story. I can write pretty well, but I suck at editing, if anyone wants to they are more than welcome to submit an edited version of it to me on DA. I will credit your work on the edit of it lol. But yes, thank you all for taking the time to read it and give discourse on the subject matter, I actually feel kind of nervous when I submit a new story, and reading this has helped me feel a little bit better.