DISCLAIMER: I ask this question from a genuine desire to learn, and not to bitch about “wokeness” or set up a gotcha or what have you.
When you’re referring to the accomplishments/activities of a person who has transitioned from their gender assigned at birth before their transition, do you refer to them by their pre-transition name or by their preferred name? As a specific example, when referring to the performer who portrayed the title character in Juno, do I say “Ellen Page turned in a critically-acclaimed performance…”, referring to the name the performer used at the time? Or do I say “Elliot Page turned in a critically-accliamed performance…”, referring to the name he uses now?
I’m not a trans person, so perhaps I don’t have credentials to answer this. But to me, it would make sense to say something like “Elliot Page (at the time known as Ellen Page) turned in a critically-acclaimed performance…”
This works, I think, only in a fairly narrow set of cases, i.e. where the person was in the public eye at the time of the performance, where the gender of the performer at the time (indicated by the given name) may be germane to the discussion, and where the transition is not a secret. For someone whose transition may not be common knowledge, I would use the current name only, e.g. “Elliot Page last received a promotion at this company five years ago,” omitting any mention of name and gender change as it is almost certainly irrelevant in this sort of case. There are probably edge cases between these two that would require further thought.
As one data point, the Wikipedia Manual of Style has some rather intricate rules for such situations, as detailed here. The rule differs depending on whether the person was notable under both names or only became notable under the new name, and on whether the name is used in a biographical article about the person themself, or in another article that is merely refering to the person.
They actually use Page as an example: since they were notable under both names, the biographical article begins “Elliot Page (formerly Ellen Page ; born February 21, 1987) …”. In non-biographical articles, only the current name is used, with some exceptions (if they were in a work credited by the old name, it’s given parenthetically, or if the person themself has expressed a preference to use the old name for their prior work, then that is done).
Is the standard different for transgender people than for people who have changed their names for other reasons (e.g. Cassius Clay becoming Muhammed Ali)?
People changing their names is a lot more common than your example implies. Remember, close to half of the population routinely changes their names.
As an example (because I happen to know that she had three different names), the Wikipedia page for Katherine Johnson refers to her almost everywhere as “Johnson”, even though much of her noteworthy work was done while she was named “Katherine Goble” (for instance, " From 1953 to 1958, Johnson worked as a computer,[23] analyzing topics such as gust alleviation for aircraft.", despite her not marrying Jim Johnson until 1959).
Acting involves the name an actor being used in credits. IMDb includes the credited name in a movie listing, ‘as Ellen Page’ for example. It seems reasonable when referring to a movie to use the credited name. That’s a particular case, not the general rule.
Personal example/non-famous situation … there’s no time I use my child’s former (“dead”) name no matter what situation I’m describing or memory we are reliving. His chosen name reflects who he is and always has been. I’d venture a guess that this is true of many trans folks. I can see that additional clarification might be important in the case of the Ellen/Elliot Page example, if you’re doing a report or what have you, but in general the chosen name seems appropriate to use. Obviously I can’t speak directly for Elliot or anyone else, YMMV, etc.
The general rule should be use the name a person prefers, or some alternative they find acceptable. When people engage in public activity under a name they may have to tolerate future references to that name. In the case of actors and other commercial uses of a name I don’t think that’s unreasonable. If you don’t know a person’s preferred name it should be acceptable to use their legal name.
But without some practical exception use the general rule of using a person’s preferred name. Why they have used more than one name is irrelevant. If you don’t use a person’s preferred name you may deserve to be called another name you won’t like so much.
A few years back I ran across an article on paleontology by Riley Black, who I had never heard of. With some searching she turned out to be a a science writer I was familiar with named Brian Switek who had transitioned. Books are still available under both names
And so are articles:
It seems to fragment the potential audience to not have some acknowledgement both ways.
An interesting example is Pippa York, wiki below. I’m posting on my phone and can’t see the wiki preview, so apologies for any repetition.
York is famous primarily for her cycling career as Robert Millar, so not only does her fame predate transition (or perhaps “did”, as she has become known as a commentator in recent years); her fame was in an exclusively male occupation (men’s road racing). This is how wikipedia handles it.
Caitlyn (formerly Bruce) Jenner is in the same situation (former athlete under a male name, now identifies and is named as female), and is probably a lot more famous.
I was passingly familiar with Jenner, but as non-US I’m not confident about the details of their story. No doubt they are the better example for this board.
This has come up a few times in the “History of Rock Music in 500 Songs” podcast, not only with transgendered people but, say, people who changed their names as part of a religious conversion or other life-changing event. And he absolutely refuses to refer to people by what he calls their “deadnames” (I don’t know if that’s a term he made up or a generally accepted term). I guess if you want to find out what the person’s original name was, go look it up on Wikipedia or something, because he’s not going to tell you.