I Will Give You a New Name

(Disclosure: This piece deals in large part with a major development in my life not just as a person, but as a Christian, because much of my life has been experienced through this, albeit constantly evolving, Christian perspective. Most other blog posts here will vary from personal to professional interests, research topics, more academic stuff, etc., but not necessarily exclusively.)

“‘You are accepted. You are accepted, accepted by that which is greater than you, and the name of which you do not know. Do not ask for the name now; perhaps you will find it later. Do not try to do anything now; perhaps later you will do much. Do not seek for anything; do not perform anything; do not intend anything. Simply accept the fact that you are accepted!’”

- Paul Tillich, “You Are Accepted” (1948)

Abram and Sarai became Abraham and Sarah. Jacob became Israel. Simon became Peter. Saul became Paul.

Name changes in the Bible, always divinely designated, were like promises from God to establish a new identity in the newly named. These were almost always upgrades or at least truer clarifications of who they were, who God was making them to be. Abram means “high father” but Abraham means “father of multitudes.” Sarai means “my princess” but Sarah means “mother of nations.” Jacob means “supplanter” but Israel means “having power with God.” In the Old Testament, a new name meant a new and improved, greater, grander purpose. In the New Testament, the high profile name changes we have recorded didn't necessarily feel like these upgrades, but they still reworked the identity of the named, who they were and what they would do. Simon means “God has heard,” while Peter means “rock.” Doesn't seem like such an improvement (unless you consider the Greek derivation meaning “snub-nosed”), but Jesus told Peter he would be the rock upon which he build his Church. Saul means “asked for” or “prayed for,” while Paul means “small” or “humble.” Definitely feels like a downgrade, but a major point of Paul's ministry is that, in the words of John the Baptist before him, he “must decrease” so Jesus could “increase.” In all these examples and others, biblical names reveal something deeper and more true about the named, and name changes are God's way of revealing something new about or to someone, what new thing God can or will do through them. The name my parents chose for me, first and middle, is biblical through and through. Caleb means “dog,” or maybe “whole heart,” or “devotion to God.” The odds vary pretty widely there. I like to think that “devotion to God” describes me best, but I always felt more like the “dog.” Andrew means “strong and manly.” And while I'd like to take pride in being associated with strength, the “manly” part is what hovers overhead, reminding me of all the ways I was never able to be manly enough, always failing at it or feeling like a fraud. The name was a good one, my parents did well in choosing it, and there is truth to it. But it never quite fit. Its ill fit began to represent for me my constant striving and failing, “working like a dog” to be more devoted to God with my whole heart, trying to be more strong and manly, and never living up to who I supposedly was or to be. I prayed for a truer clarification, a new promise and purpose.

And now Caleb Andrew becomes Chloe Anna.

So here it is: I am a transgender woman. For anyone that needs the primer as simply as I can summarize it, being trans means that even though I was assigned male at birth due to certain biological factors and understood to be a boy that grew up to be a man, my internal sense of self, my innate gender identity, is female, despite how long it took me to realize it. There are also trans men who were assigned female at birth but have innately male gender identities, and nonbinary people whose sense of self doesn’t conform to “one gender or the other” (there are more than two genders). Trans people typically experience gender dysphoria, which means the feeling of discomfort or distress that results from incongruence between one’s sex assigned at birth and one’s gender identity. This is a psychological reality for myself and many others that deserves medically gender-affirming care such as hormone replacement therapy (in my case, medication that inhibits the testosterone in my body and slowly replaces it with estrogen) and appropriate surgeries, which no one has to get in order to “fully” transition. These facts are officially confirmed by every major medical and mental health organization in the world (despite the scourge of misinformation readily available online in way too many places; in other words, if you want to disagree with me, you will quickly find other sources that reaffirm what you want to think). Not to mention, not everyone who is trans takes, or has access to, the medical route, and their identities, their transition stories, are just as valid.

I finally accepted this hard-fought realization about myself last September. It turned out to be a very long time coming, the revelation wrestled against and for, like Jacob vs. the angel. And as sacrilegious as this may sound to the tradition(s) that trained me up, allowing myself to be trans, so to speak, is an answer to prayer. The wounding blessing I fought for. It’s what a new name reveals. 

I prayed for a long time after coming out to myself what new name I should choose for myself. I set one poetic constraint for myself, to keep the initials of my deadname, which I liked. And arriving at both first and middle names this time felt much like accepting myself for who I really am. It felt like, of course it’s this name, why did you ever fight it? Chloe means “a young green shoot,” or “blooming,” just like I have been blooming into who I truly am over the past year. Transition is a journey of growth, in many ways, of rebirth, and I am still becoming, a young green shoot turning into a healthier flowering plant. And Anna means “full of grace,” something I am still working to be, after years of having little to no grace for myself as a result of clinical depression and anxiety telling my brain how worthless I am. Plus, Anna is what my parents would have named me had I been born a cisgender girl. This is my new name. My true name. It’s God’s promise to me for a new purpose, of who God is making me into. 

But before I became Chloe Anna, I second guessed myself hundreds of times. I knew a Chloe in college, and I was perhaps irrationally worried that my best friends from college (most of whom I’m still very close to) would just think I was copying or would always associate me with her. One of my niece’s middle names is Ann, named in memory of a late family friend, and I worried (less irrationally, if you know them) my family would think I was encroaching on her name or the memory of her namesake with this too-similar choice. But I’ve learned that one common trait among trans people, particularly those who take longer to come out than expected, is the constant deferral or your wants and needs in the interest of everyone else’s. This behavior is especially exacerbated in Christian circles where putting “Jesus first, yourself last, and others in between (JOY)” is a virtue that often mistranslates into never advocating for oneself at best and never taking care of yourself to the point of your own peril at worst. But even in nonpartisan context, for trans people, deferring our own needs to be ourselves is often due to the fear of familial rejection, social exile, legal vulnerability, and even physical danger. Eventually, it becomes up to you to decide that transition is worth it anyway. You have to put yourself first against the wishes of what feels like literally everybody else. I had to learn that for myself in coming out initially, and then relearn it over and over again in all the ways this internalized lack of self-worth was holding me back at various points as I have begun transition. Choosing the name(s) I prayed for was yet another example. Because, as you’ve probably figured out by now, “what’s in a name” is of course so much more than just a name--this whole thing, my transition, why I’m writing about it, is about more than a new name. What this new name represents is the “everything else” here.

Coming out for me was the culmination of years of wondering if I might be trans, wishing I could be trans, doubting I was or could ever be trans, and then repeating the cycle over and over again, each time with a little bit more clarity and then each time with ever more stringent denial and rationalization. The wondering and the wishing was always undercut by the doubt that I didn’t feel like I had any of the signs of the textbook trans person according to media representations of what transness as a medicalized condition has to look like in order to “count.” I did not know I was a girl from a young age. I didn’t go around telling everyone I’m a girl. I didn’t feel like I was “born in the wrong body” in any recognizable way. Puberty didn’t make that feeling miserably worse for me. I was not suicidal from the constant feeling of bodily incongruence. I didn’t crossdress. I am not attracted to men (this one may seem random or unfair even, but for many years only trans women who were attracted to men were considered “truly” trans; anyone else was labeled an “autogynephiliac,” a flawed and ultimately unscientific “diagnosis” at best, who was just turned on by the thought of themselves as a woman). I couldn’t be trans, since I wasn’t sure beyond the shadow of a doubt and then miserably suicidal enough about it. This is what “the trans experience” is, the only kind there is, according to the only kind that was ever publicized for wider (mis)understanding. And to be clear, any or all of these facets of other people’s gender dysphoria is/are so valid, and I don’t want to denigrate their stories. Some of these details eventually became part of my own, as by the time I came out I had thought about killing myself many times, but always had a reason not to, never a serious compulsion to act on it. After coming out and before starting hormone therapy, in the deepest throes of my acutely realized gender dysphoria, I came the closest I ever had to following through but texted my wife, called a hotline, and distracted myself until the feeling passed; I haven’t felt suicidal like that since. But even so, one of my trans friends who I first came out to wisely told me, “if you’ve met one trans person...then you’ve met one trans person.” Many of us have many different stories, different experiences of gender dysphoria that all deserve to be recognized. But for a wider cisgender world, only the most extreme version is ever validated, and in the process, so many are erased.

All I knew was I always felt off as someone assigned male at birth, but just stuck that way because “God doesn’t make mistakes.” I always wished I was a girl, sometimes more subconsciously and over time very consciously. The first time I ever recognized this feeling was in second grade, when our class watched Alfonso Cuarón’s A Little Princess (1995), and I remember wanting to be Sarah Crewe so badly, and feeling so sad at her “all girls are princesses” speech, because I was stuck being a boy and didn’t feel very princely about it. But after consciously thinking this thought, I repressed whatever it meant for as long as possible. I have always been incredibly sensitive and highly emotional, even more so over time as I stopped overcompensating for the masculinity I felt like I always failed at and gained more humble self awareness. I longed for what felt like the harbor of femininity, where I could express emotion, be soft, enjoy “girly” things, not be challenged or mocked when I said I don’t like/am bad at sports, and so much more (understanding full well that in so many ways it is arguably much harder to be a woman in this world, but at least I’d face those struggles as my authentic self). Even after unlearning toxic masculinity within myself and trying to make peace with who I was as a “sensitive guy,” it always felt like there was still some sort of gender-shaped hole in me.

The “signs” in me also manifested in more secretive and shameful ways too. I was obsessed with any kind of story involving body and gender swapping (for example, remember that part in Scooby Doo [2002] where Fred and Daphne switch bodies? I do, and no one even remembers that movie at all). From that fascination, I was drawn to pornography, which was/is unfortunately one of the first places most people would find anyone who looks trans (unfortunately always in regressively exploitative ways) when our existence is considered taboo and “for adults only” instead of more widely discussed as the normal thing it is. This detail (if a little embarrassing to announce) is important to delve into because it was here I finally “learned” about trans people in a different context other than ridicule. But it was also where I convinced myself I had to be a pervert for thinking these things, in any way entertaining thoughts of being transgender. I learned a reductively sensationalized, always sexualized version of transness that obscured the reality that trans people are just people, and in that double-edged fantasy also lay the punishment that I thought I could never be one. I don’t mean to sound dismissive or discriminatory to sex work and/or workers (that’s a touchy topic for another blog post another time, let’s talk about it). I’m just describing the shame I carried from my porn habits for so long, especially in a Christian context that demonized porn “addiction” obsessively. These experiences delayed my acceptance of myself for years.

I didn’t say anything about even wondering if I was trans when I was younger because I probably didn’t know what a trans person was until probably high school, if not college. I didn’t have the language for this kind of realization. Growing up in a very evangelical Pentecostal Holiness Christian home in the 1990s and early 2000s, I learned very quickly what not to even consider saying or doing. Especially when all I knew about anything or anyone gender nonconforming were subjects made into punchlines or religious anathema. All I knew was mama’s boy Norman Bates in Psycho (1960), “sweet transvestite” Dr. Frank-N-Furter in Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975), villain Lois Einhorn/Ray Finkle in Ace Ventura (1994), Chandler’s dad Charles Bing/Helena Handbasket in Friends (1994 - 2004), etc., etc. These were characters mined for horror and revulsion or transphobic humor, or all of the above. If I had Jamie Clayton’s Nomi from Sense8 (2015 - 2018) as an adolescent, this may be a different story altogether. (Watching Sense8 and identifying with her character so much were huge steps toward finally coming out for me.) On top of everything outside of church, I was also taught within church in very binary ways what was right and God ordained and what was wrong and therefore disgusting both implicitly and explicitly.

Many or most church circles are incredibly traditionally gendered in every level of experience, from men’s ministries vs. women’s ministries to the “Billy Graham Rule” to, in some traditions, who is allowed to preach and who isn’t (not a theological problem I actually experienced in the Pentecostal Holiness church, interestingly and progressively enough). So with these norms in place, it’s pretty clear what’s considered abnormal: it wasn’t even acceptable to be gay or bisexual in these traditions, let alone transgender, and still isn’t. So of course it’s no surprise I heard condemnations of homosexuality preached from the pulpit and constantly discussed in casual and deeper theological discussion. This rhetoric has considerably softened over the years as wider acceptance of LGBTQ rights has put more pressure on churches to contend with their “PR problem.” But while the tone and diction may be a lot nicer, the conclusions are still the same. After just recently coming out to the Vineyard church we were attending, we were told that, while we were still welcome to be part of the church, we were no longer allowed to serve in any kind of leadership role due to “the lifestyle we’ve chosen.” No more children’s church duty for my wife, no more playing drums on the worship teams for me. This “soft rejection” is a classic evangelical tactic that we fully expected, but that doesn’t make it hurt any less. That is of course one of the most painful parts of coming out, the fact that my very existence is an issue for so many Christian denominations more than it is an identity for me, in their eyes. I knew this for decades, about other people, when I thought I was a straight cisgender male and held to “traditional” non-LGBTQ affirming theological position as well as when I became open and affirming and grieved this kind of conditional love thinking. And I know it for myself now, more painfully than ever.

Even still, my Christian faith clearly remains very important to me. But I do have to hold in tension the fact that the version of Christianity I was raised within taught me to pity people who I thought were different than me and call it love. And then it taught me to hate myself when I began to see that kind of difference inside of me. In that tension, I mourn the fact that this (and often only this, or this and worse like hypocrisy, bigotry, Christian Nationalism, etc.) is what the Church writ large represents for so many people, particularly in the LGBTQ community. But I have learned over time that the true Gospel story is one of unlearning, knowing better, and then making more room at the table. Christianity was only for Jewish believers until God gave Peter his dream of the giant sheet unfurled from heaven covered with “unclean” animals that God told Peter he could now eat. And then Gentiles were invited to the table. Unfortunately the human element of the Gospel often tries to rewrite the story back to its earlier drafts, as exclusion of Gentiles did still persist in some sects. And then ironically, once Christianity became a religion of Gentiles, antisemitism became rampant in Church teaching for almost two thousand years, and still rears its ugly head in smaller ways even now. This is the same plot today in regards to LGBTQ affirmation and inclusion, as many Christians continue working to exclude whom God has already accepted. But I learned over time to make more room for LGBTQ people exactly as they are, and if I hadn’t, I would never have been able to tell myself I was still invited to the Lord’s Supper. I went from thinking not only was homosexuality a sin, it was disgusting, to being able to understand gay Christians as a valid thing but drawing the line at transness because I still believed in the logic of the gotcha phrase, “God doesn’t make mistakes.” And then I went from full LGBTQ affirmation and inclusion for others to accepting within myself that that means me too, because it turns out I’m trans. Getting here took allowing myself to give my body permission to unlearn the internalized transphobic revulsion I had for myself. Because it’s not just that God has reconciled everything, including me, to Godself, and They see no fault in me for being trans, it’s that I finally believe that about me. I am invited too.

I had read plenty of material arguing for open affirmation in the last ten years since starting to feel like anti-LGBTQ theologies didn’t add up for me. Websites, articles, blog posts, anything I could find. But of course I always found a rebuttal somewhere else online. I would gain confidence in the arguments that supported affirmation and inclusion for LGBTQ identities and then lose all confidence when I’d read opposing arguments, torturing myself all the while with what felt most lovingly aligned with the Gospel vs. what sounded right Scripturally even if it sounded wrong to me. The back and forth is interminable as long as everyone can hermeneutically argue why they’re right. But over the past year, I read every book I could find on the topic, mostly in favor of affirmation but a few against as well (I recommend Kathy Baldock’s Walking the Bridgeless Canyon [2014] and Austen Hartke’s Transforming [2018]; I don’t recommend anything by Robert Gagnon or, worst of all, Preston Sprinkle, who is very good at looking like he really cares about LGBTQ people but always draws the same damning conclusions about them, only more nicely). But I’m not writing any of this to rehash all of the arguments and all of the rereadings of the “Clobber Passages” that finally convinced me because I can’t constantly live a defensive faith only concerned with justifying my existence and why I deserve acceptance. All I’ll say here is in brief response to Romans 1: 18 - 32, which remains the most compelling case against for many non-affirming Christians. Verses 26 and 27 particularly discuss how men exchanged “natural relations with women” in favor of same-sex activity. To the idea of what Paul, or more often than not, whoever is misinterpreting the passage out of its original context, considers “natural” I would quote Kala from, again, Sense8 (I really love that show): “let us remember that cancer is also natural, so naturalness in itself should not be considered a virtue.” I am beyond mere apologetics by now, because my life and how I live it, including my faith and how I practice it, is about so much more than allowing me through the door, so to speak. It’s about everything else after once I’m in, or in fact once I realize I was never out, no matter what exclusionary boundaries people insist upon enforcing or what goalposts they work to keep moving, etc. I am accepted, now what’s next?

As for how to answer that question, I’ll just say that I am trusting in the fact that there are so many people in my life who love louder than others can hate. I am blessed to remain married to my phenomenally supportive wife, and to be increasingly seen in the eyes of our daughter as one of her moms, her “Maddy” (what she calls me instead of the too-triggering deadname-esque Daddy). I have been overwhelmingly and in nearly every case instantly accepted by the friends we have told. I am privileged to come out to a welcoming workplace that has had my back, from colleague to admin to HR and beyond the entire time, thus far. I told my students in each of the classes I teach this semester and received applause and congratulations and encouragement of how happy they were for me. Every academic venue where I published under my deadname replied swiftly and positively to my request that they correct them in order to feature my new and true name and accurate pronouns. I have not been rejected by my family, who have all reiterated their love for me, and my Mom even told me that “I will always be their child.” I was so impressed she didn’t say “son.” This last point is huge to me, because my parents are incredibly conservative Pentecostal Holiness pastors. They are not okay with this, and I didn’t expect them to be, even if that would be the ideal outcome (I just told them a week ago so everything is very new for them). But they’ve started with love at least, and we’ll see where we go from here. Overall I see proof in so many places that I am loved and accepted.

I wish this love and acceptance for every transgender person, because so many don’t receive it. And the problem is way bigger than just (certain denominations of) the Church; it’s the larger still way too transphobic society as a whole. Trans people lose friends, families, jobs, and lives just for being themselves (especially all too unfortunately trans women of color). Every one of us deserves a better Church if you want it, but all in all, a better life in a better world, both sacred and secular. I hope I can use what small platform I have and am still building to get that message out and help do the hard work to make it happen. Let anyone who has an ear hear this.

To be honest, I hate to say here at the end that I am not entirely sure who I’ve written this letter for besides myself. My audience(s) across the social media platforms I reach include, Christian friends and acquaintances I grew up with who won’t be convinced of anything I say after reading that I’m trans, academic peers I’ve gotten to know on and offline who by and large won’t necessarily care about, or in some cases even like, the whole Christian part of this letter, and then my friends (religious, formerly religious, non-religious, etc.) who already know and love and support me. If this message does reach any LGBTQ person, I would fully understand how much hurt the Church has symbolized in their lives and why they wouldn’t really want to hear a Christian, queer or not, perspective. But nonetheless, may whoever does need to read this find it at the right time. I know I haven’t said everything I probably need to, and what I have I may have said poorly for some people’s purposes. I am just translating the world as I have come to see it, including trauma from a Christian upbringing as well as what truth I still find in the Gospel story. But I hope I have made clear that this composition, this confession, this coming out, is about a lot more than just Church, it’s about my life in a world that arguably doesn’t want me to live the way I am. Or any other trans person. As I said before, outside of the church walls is still a transphobic society who condemns and crucifies and casts out, without a God or sacred text to help them justify it. If you read this, as a friend from a former walk of life, or a colleague from work, or a stranger who found my website, I want you to see me as I am, a transgender woman, and lend your support to not only me but the LGBTQ community I am a part of, in any way you can, even that starts with just doing something as small and revolutionary as changing your mind. If you have any other questions from here, come talk to me.

My name is Chloe Anna Milligan, and I am blooming into fullness of grace. Philosopher and theologian Paul Tillich says that sin should be understood as separation, not only from God, but from others, and even oneself. But, for Tillich this separation is a mindset, a falsehood even, the fiction we tell ourselves to justify our wrongdoings, our prejudices, our petty slights, etc. In this case, the opposite of sin is grace, which he considers to be that which unifies what was separated, alienated, outcast, etc. And grace isn’t earned, that’s why it’s called grace. Grace just is, it’s what God has already done, in Tillich’s words, “the reunion of life with life, the reconciliation of the self with itself. Grace is the acceptance of that which is rejected.” And where sin abounds, grace abounds much more. If sin is the fiction we tell ourselves, then grace is the prerequisite truth. We are already accepted exactly as we are. I am blooming, growing into this truth of acceptance. It’s all right there in my name.