Scarleteen

So, I'm pretty sure y'all can figure it out that my name isn't actually Charlie. We got that past us? Okay. Well, I've recently accepted the fact that I'm genderqueer, or agender. And, well, I want to tell my parents, and I want to change my name to something more... gender-neutral. Like Charlie. I would like to know if you guys can help me break it to my parents. They already know I'm pansexual, and in a relationship, and I'd like them to know this. Please help. It's been bugging me for weeks. Thanks. ~Charlie

Welcome to the boards, Charlie.

(Also, I lived in Minnesota for six years, say hello to it for me! And stay warm! Sure do NOT miss February there!)

Can you first give us a sense of how your parents are in general, like with how they were and are about accepting your pansexuality? Has that gone well? Have they been pretty accepting and supportive? What's your sense of how they are, in general, when it comes to gender fluidity and gender non-conforming identities? They seem educated or informed to some degree, and accepting there?

Too, how would you say your relationship is with them in general? Loving and accepting, or not, or somewhere in he middle...?

Knowing more like that will help us get a better sense of what kind of help you might need and what might work best here. Mind, whether or not they'll go for -- or pay for -- a legal name change might be a separate issue, but that also seems to me to kind of be a second-step thing here. The first step strikes me more as about just working on (if it needs be worked on) acceptance with you being agender and wanting to be called a different name. Make sense?