psa: hmu by my middle name

here’s a soft life memo on a topic that’s time has come for social channels.

around 5 years ago i started testing the waters using my middle name, Francis. i would use it for less consequential stuff like takeout or coffee orders, or online accounts, just to sit in this identity and mull over the vibes. i liked it enough after that trial period and began to introduce myself as such to new people. amidst moving out to Detroit and finding new social and artistic circles, there was space to wear this name organically, without committing to the oblique ask of my longer-time friends to pivot. so i just sort of left things to their natural pace, while making space for permission to change my mind should i need it.

anyway, at this point most everyone i’ve met after 2020 knows me as Francis, and i’ve come to prefer this. i like it for a lot of reasons. while it’s maybe not something as severe as overwriting a deadname, as i feel more and more distant from any sort of masculine-gendered social archetype, i feel a palpable poetic beauty of having had an inherently androgynous, gender-neutral name that’s been right there on my birth certificate all along. so if you know me as Adam, i invite you to hmu with Francis some time when we’re hanging out or communicating. i will notice and i will appreciate you for it.

Francis Gibney was my eponymous grandparent who departed this plane long before i was born. i don’t know much about him, except that he was the only other person in my family with any actualized musical aptitude. so for a number of symbolic reasons, Francis just feels correct. at this point, it feels like the name i’m going to prefer socially going forward. planning to still use all three names for artistic credits, as i’ve been for a while now. and i’m retaining both domain name registries lol. anyway, nonbinary/genderfluid pride & visibility✌🏻✨🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍🌈

francis