Don't make the mistake of assuming the stances they take and the words they use are genuine arguments given in good faith. They will manipulate language and make claims just to achieve their own ends. They don't care about consistency. There is no goalpost they won't move. You can't convince them they are wrong using words.

Its okay to have a different name as long as your conservative.

Just ask Rafael Edward Cruz, famous Texas Magician who disappears everytime things go bad for his constituents.

Historically they didn't give a fuck about a lot of things until they are searching for reasons to hate someone or a group of people.

Take drag performance... drag is an ANCIENT tradition in Western theater that goes back into Ancient Greece. Name a comedian active in the black and white film era and I will show you a drag performance they made. Laurel and Hardy, the Three Stooges, they all did it, and exactly no one told them it was wrong.

Going back a ways bigots had a problem with both Muhammad Ali (Cassius Clay) and Kareem Abdul Jabbar (Lew Alcindor) but were fine with John Wayne (Marion Morrison).

The name is never the problem, it's that the person with the name exists that people get so butt hurt about

They don't seem to mind that JD Vance has had a bunch of different names.

Actors and actresses have to register their name with a guild and sometimes change it because it is too close to another previous actor's name or they don't want to show their nepo roots or whatever reason.

So to just skip that problem they make up a registered stage name. Not that it lends any more authenticity but rather there is a structural professional reason that they do that.

And I have no problem with people using any name as long as they don't mock me for needing help spelling it.

Change your name to make yourself more palatable to a wider audience? Good.

Change your name to make yourself more palatable for yourself? Bad, apparently.

I think the issue is people getting hung up on the gender identity, not the name. I have known lots of people who go by preferred names, whether chosen themselves or given to them by friends as nicknames. Hell, there are a few people I knew for years only by their preferred name/nickname without realizing it wasn't their given name.

And stage names make a lot of sense from a practical standpoint. Being famous by your given name can make it hard to separate professional life from personal life.

All businesses choose a fake name to suit their identity. All business managers choose job titles to suit their identity.

Those who have a problem with transgender people are arrogant egotistical full-of-themselves narcicists who see others as lower class animals that exist only to be managed.

this dint start until conservatives,right wing groups started pushing the anti-trans narrative. which was pretty recent, like within 5-10years. nobody gave a poop about it til trumps 1st term. Now everyone is either afraid, or freaks out over names that should be ONE sex or the other, or gendered, plus this also applies to characther names in movies and shows. there was one trek show that made it forced and wierd, like that is making statement.

I feel silly now for not realizing that was a stage name.

I straight up thought her actual name was "Whoopi".

JD Vance isn't a real name, and that's cool. Apparently.

And it's not something new or anything like that. There are lots of cultures through history in which people choose their own names or alternate names throughout their life for a variety of reasons.

I was only ok with the fake name of Guynan.

Whoopi suck. Guyana, helped picard saved humanity.

If you know anyone who is anti trans but goes by a nickname, start calling them by their given name. Doug, you're Douglas. Alex, you're Alexander or Alexis or whatever. Bill: William. Ted: Rafael (might only apply to one Senator).

I think having a cute stage name is something people accept after you're famous.

I'm gonna come in with maybe an unpopular hot take. I have no problems people being trans or choosing a name that suits your preferred gender, but--perhaps because of the repression earlier in life--it seems there is often an... aggressively creative search for names?

I know about 8 MtF people (0 FtM for some reason?), and they are not picking mainstream names like Mary, Samantha, or Norah for example. Eris, Athena, Cybelle, Malice, and Laika are 5 of the 8 names chosen. It's not a problem, you pick it and I will use it, but it IS jarring. I'm not making excuses for transphobia because that's stupid, but it is strange to me to ostensibly want to blend in with everybody else, but then choose a name that obviously marks you out? It's like the line between choosing a name for your heroine DND character and for yourself is suddenly completely erased and it's absolutely your right, but as an outsider it's honestly kinda weird.

I support a parents right to pick names for their kids, but aeslyn and breeleigh and brandaeden are weird names. Same for people who pick their own names regardless of gender identity. If you pick a name that is kinda weird... well it's kinda weird.