'Work in Progress' Episode 6 illustrates how deadnaming is transphobic and hampers the transitioning process
From being a wholesome, compassionate comedy to being a constant source of lessons for cis-gendered, heterosexual folk, Showtime’s ‘Work in Progress’ is a complete package. And as far as lessons go, episode 6 is an important one.
The episode sees Abby (Abby McEnany) attend her father’s wedding. While it was a stressful affair for her -- memories of her dead mother, depression and the idea of her father remarrying -- one of the more important takeaways from the episode is a form of transphobia.
Earlier in the season, Abby’s boyfriend Chris (Theo Germaine), a trans man, had told her that he had only one rule: Abby must never ask him his deadname. In episode 6, Abby accidentally broke that rule. While at the wedding, she picked up a bottle of Chris’ prescription pills.
Unfortunately, that bottle had Chris’ deadname. Even though Abby chickens out of telling Chris what she saw, it is only a matter of time before she does blurt it out. And it will then be upon Chris to decide just how big a deal-breaker this really is.
Speculation apart, one has to understand why this is such a big deal. A deadname is the name that a transgender person was given at birth and no longer uses upon transitioning. Much like proper pronouns, a deadname (or the distancing from it) is a very important part of non-binary identity.
Sam Riedel, writing for HuffPost, says, “For transgender people, our relationships to our names are complicated, to say the least. What we’re called has power, and hearing a blatantly masculine or feminine name applied to you when you’re trying to realign your gender in a different direction can be a source of profound, dysphoria-inducing anxiety.”
Riedel adds, in the context of the continued use of deadnames, “Hearing or seeing one’s old name can induce a visceral sense of terror that no matter how much progress one makes in their transition, the person they used to be (or pretended to be) is still there.”
Essentially, the continued use of deadnames, just like the continued use of wrong pronouns for a trans person, is a systematic process of denying trans people their identities.
Intentional or not -- and many do it intentionally; one mustn’t forget the kind of hurdles Caitlyn Jenner had to cross before her new name became properly accepted -- the use of deadnames can be extremely harmful. According to a Healthline report, the use of deadnames can effectively “out” transfolk, which may not be something that they want people to know.
In an impassioned post about deadnaming, actor and trans activist Laverne Cox, most famous for her role in ‘Orange Is the New Black’, wrote: “I have been saying for years that misgendering a trans person is an act of violence. When I say that I am referring to cultural and structural violence.”
Cox, speaking in reference to a 2018 ProPublica report on the practice of deadnaming and the murders of several transgender women in Jacksonville, Florida, said, “Being misgendered and deadnamed in my death felt like it would be the ultimate insult to the psychological and emotional injuries I was experiencing daily as a black trans woman in New York City, the injuries that made me want to take my own life.”
All in all, the Showtime series illustrated a very important aspect of trans identity that many cis-gendered people continue to disregard. Abby, despite being queer, also managed to disregard it.
And her conscience on the show will definitely not sit tight. On the show's part, it did absolute justice to Chris' character -- the viewers were never shown his deadname. Just a bunch of pixels.
‘Work In Progress’ airs every Sunday at 11 pm/10 c only on Showtime.