Event Detail

To deadname is to call a trans person by a name they have rejected due to their gender transition. Much like slurring, deadnaming is both psychologically impactful and presumptively blameworthy. I’ll offer an account of these properties in terms of taboo violations and acts of linguistic authority. Linguistic authority, I’ll argue, is a right that is derived from a fundamental interest in authoring one’s own social personas. This kind of social/ethical account of deadnames will be contrasted with a competing semantic account of their behavior.