When I was 12 years old my family moved from Salem to Tualatin, Oregon. I was scared, going from elementary school to middle school with no friends, but I saw an opportunity to reinvent myself. So I changed my name from Rachael to Rae.

At the beginning of every class on the first day of school, the teacher would ask if we had a nickname or another name we went by. That year I told them Rae. After a few years no one in school even remembered or cared that my real name was Rachael.

But there was at least one teacher who had a problem with my name change, Mr. Foote. He even went so far as to roll his eyes to my Dad at a teacher conference when he corrected himself from “Rachael” to “Rae.” It became a running joke between my Dad and I. We would laughingly roll our eyes and say “Rae” sarcastically for years.

I never understood why it was so hard for some people to call me Rae. It was simple. “Hi, I was born Rachael but now I’m Rae.” That should be the end of it.

My experience was not the same as the horrific experience trans people go through just to live their truth and be who they are. It is a sample, a taste of the weird control people want to enact on others. Trans rights are human rights.