A woman has been left in an uncomfortable position after discovering her close friend is planning to name herself after her sister, who passed away in 2017.
The woman explained how her friend is transgender and has recently transitioned, so no longer uses her deadname, and is currently in the process of deciding which female name she would like to use going forward.
This in itself is of course a huge decision for any trans person, and the woman said she’s been there to offer her full support throughout the transition.
However, the friends have recently found themselves in a bitter dispute, after the woman’s friend announced the name she would like to called – which just so happened to be the same name as the woman’s sister, who sadly passed away four years ago.
To add to the difficult situation, the woman and her family are Korean, which she argued makes it even stranger that her friend, who is not Asian, would choose an authentic Asian name.
“I was always teased growing up for having such a weird and hard name to pronounce, Minyeong, and choosing an Asian name does feel a little like cultural appropriation,” the woman wrote on Reddit’s Am I The A**hole forum.
“I would have been fine if my friend chose a Korean name that was common and that she felt comfortable using, but what she chose is something that really rubbed me off the wrong way.”
The woman continued: “In 2017 my sister passed away and it really messed me up for awhile. As kids our father was abusive and I had only my sister to rely on. She was an adult at the time and took me out of the abusive home. My sisters name was Minseo.
“My friend called me one day to tell me the name she had chosen for herself was Minseo. As soon as I heard she had chosen my dead sister’s name I felt really disrespected. My friend knew my sister before she passed and had always made remarks about how ‘pretty’ my sister’s name was. I never thought that she would take up my sister’s name.”
The woman told her friend she felt really uncomfortable with her name choice and politely asked if she would change it, prompting her friend to say she should be ‘grateful’ she’d opted to use her sister’s name.
“Now all of our friends are calling me selfish for not letting her use my sisters name and saying that I was just transphobic even though I chipped in for much of her surgeries and supported her through it all,” the woman added, before asking Reddit users if they thought she was justified in asking her not to use the name.
One Reddit user commented: “Your ‘friend’ is being very disrespectful. It’s especially outrageous after you supported her through her journey and even gave her money for surgery. If she can’t apologise, it’s time to end the friendship and ignore her.”
“I’d say it’s grounds for letting that friend go. It’s insanely ignorant of a non-Korean person to adopt a Korean name belonging to her close friend’s dead sister,” another added.
Meanwhile, several trans people commented on the thread to offer their support to the woman, agreeing that they too think it’s insensitive and disrespectful of her to use the name while knowing how hurtful she finds it.