My name is typed, not spoken

My childhood is filled with I must speak this way. I must speak the right way. I must speak properly. I must speak the way I am told.

My childhood is also a childhood of teaching myself to type, by playing on on my mom's computer, before we ever had typing lessons in school. My childhood is getting the internet, and of finding forums.

Like many millenials I grew up both offline and online. We got the internet at home when I was 10. I was told I couldn't let anyone know who I was. By the time I was 13 I had a screenname that I was regularly using.

But, it was growing up on aim, that let me communicate. It was the internet that gave me my voice. It was the internet that was where I was able to say things that weren't being deterimed by other people. It was the internet that was my freedom.

And this was the very simple reason. I could type.

I grew up being taught that my speech needed to work in certain ways. I grew up with speech being the priority the goal the most important thing. And at the same time, not being about me.

The internet was where I could type.

The internet was where rather than focusing on did I say this the right way no I didn't I was wrong I am messing up, I need to try to fix that, I can't get it right. And literally never getting to any content, I could find forums and spend hours typing about lord of the rings and getting to have it be about something and something of my choosing. It was where I could learn to interact, by getting a chance to do so.

.

So, it's no wonder that my name is typed.

Because my name has always been typed.

By which I mean, I was in college when I realized that I would sometimes just not notice when people used my legal name, but would reliably notice if people used my screenname, and over the years as I first became more out as nonbinary, and evaluated my mental name, my screename is what always comes to mind first.

And yet, I always think of it as typed.

My name is typed. Not spoken.

It isn't that you can't speak my name aloud, it is that, it is typing, that is the primary interaction. Typing, that is the first place to go. Speech is secondary if that, and if not lower on the list.

Because it always has been, and because that is me and this is me. My name is typed. It is typed because it always has been growing up finding my own way to type. It is typed because that feels right. It is typed becaues I can neuroqueer my name and have done so throw away your centering of speech and say my name is typed. It is typed because I want it to be.

We might live in a world which prioritizes speech and thinks of speech as the first and formost.

but that isn't the world of my gender

my name belongs to the keyboard