For those that don't know - "Mx" is a title. Y'know, the bit that goes in front of your name, like, "Mx Sebastienne Stardust". I often explain it by analogy to "Ms" - much as Ms was created to get rid of the shitty situation where a woman was forced to disclose her marital status (or, to *appear as if* she was revealing her marital status) through her choice of Miss or Mrs; so Mx was created to get rid of the shitty situation where a person is forced to gender themself through the title they use. (More on Mx:
from Ganymede on the Lashings blog.)
I have set myself a goal of becoming a Mx by the end of the calendar year. Now, this really should be
easy - titles have no legal standing in UK law (unless they are tied to particular qualifications, eg, Dr) and when I stopped being Miss Sebastienne Stardust and started being Ms Sebastienne Stardust, nobody batted an eyelid or asked for a deed poll.
But - as many genderqueer people and their friends reading this will already know - it ain't always that easy.
There are systems problems - "computer says no". Places that *require you* to use a title from their drop-down list, which might include "Wing Commander" but almost certainly won't include "Mx".
There are human problems - "that's not a real title", "I'll need to see a deed poll".
(A "deed poll", of course, having about as much legal standing as a title, ie, not very much. But already, I'm starting to think that I may need to get one if I'm going to make this work.)
A few weeks ago, I contacted my bank to discuss this change. (This is the same bank that moved me from "Miss" to "Ms" without too much faff, about five years ago.) They flat-out could not help, and continued to address me as "Ms Stardust" throughout the conversation. Eventually I got them to agree that they could remove the title from my bank cards, but their internal systems? Not even that.
(And I've had other customer service problems with them recently - they very nearly cost me a job through failing to provide a bank statement that I repeatedly requested - AND they've just been bought out by hedge fund managers. So.)
Yesterday, I visited two banks to enquire about moving my current account.
The
Coventry Building Society was perfectly happy to put "Mx" on my record, as long as I could provide a deed poll; but they needed me to deposit a certain amount every month, which in the current economic climate, could be difficult to commit to.
Nationwide Building Society said that there was no way they could put Mx, even with a deed poll (computer says no), but they could remove my title altogether (this could be a good workaround if my primary goal was to not be gendered; but actually, my primary goal is to increase the visibility of Mx). They offered an account that suited my needs quite well, so I am considering finding an address and writing a letter to see if I can get Mx on their systems.
(I should also do some more reading about "Ms" - after all, that was a new, created title and feminist activists succeeded in getting it into the mainstream. What tactics did they use, and how can those be mirrored today?)
( notes on politics )![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
