‘Dead to me’: Transgender Alberta teen takes action after his name appears in yearbook

Remi Laboucane says the memories of the bullying eventually faded, and the memories were so horrific that he changed schools.

He graduated high school this summer and was ready for the next chapter of life. When he opened his yearbook, he saw that he and other transgender students at Foothills Composite High School in Okotoks, Alabama, had lost their first names.

“It was just a nightmare,” the 18-year-old said in an interview.

“I wrote a letter (to our principal) and said, ‘This is not right and it needs to be changed.’

“When I’m addressed by my first name, even accidentally, it’s just weird. It reminds me of the past and it’s not always nice to look back on those memories.”

Deadnaming refers to the name that a transgender person received at birth but no longer uses after gender reassignment surgery.

Merriam-Webster Dictionary named it one of the most searched words in its online dictionary in 2023. Transgender activists say as awareness increases, so does the practice of deadnaming.

Laboucane said that going by his deadname reminded him of difficult times before high school when he was bullied by peers for coming out as nonbinary.

“When I came out as transgender, it only got worse. I just thought, ‘I can’t do this,'” he said.

“I told my mom, ‘I want to change schools,’ and then I enrolled at Foothills.”

When high school began, Laboucane had already chosen his new name and informed the school administration.

His teachers changed his name on their attendance records, and high school went smoothly and “without any problems,” Laboucane said — until the yearbook.

The school and the school management have taken action.

The school said it would reprint the pages with the correct names and make them available to anyone who purchased a yearbook.

The Foothills School Division said it is making changes to its yearbook policies to ensure deadnaming incidents do not occur again.

“We understand how upsetting and hurtful this error is to the students and their families involved, as well as to the entire (school) community,” the department said in a statement.

Kristopher Wells, director of Canada’s research division on public understanding of sexual and gender minority youth, said the concept of deadnaming has been around for years.

He said the issue has gained traction recently, especially on social media, as governments around the world pass laws restricting LGBTQ rights.

“Deadnaming originated colloquially or from the slogan, ‘That is not my identity; that person is dead to me,'” said Wells, a professor at MacEwan University in Edmonton.

When people use their deadname, he said, it is often to make a derogatory point.

“It’s often used in a very discriminatory way,” he said. “(It) is really an attack on their identity.”

“It is based on the idea that gender identity is not real.”

Wells said deadnaming could soon become a bigger problem in Canada because of changes in some provinces.

In Saskatchewan, the government invoked the Charter’s disregard clause last year to pass a law requiring students under 16 to obtain parental consent if they want to change their name or pronouns at school. New Brunswick has also passed a policy requiring parental consent for students under 16.

In Alberta, the government has promised changes so that students under 15 will need their parents’ consent. Students under 16 and 17 will no longer need consent, but their parents must still be notified.

Wells and Laboucane said such policies risk exposing transgender and nonbinary youth to their families and potentially putting them in danger.

“The sad reality is that not all parents support their LGBTQ children,” Wells said.

Laboucane added: “(Politics) makes you feel like the whole world is against you.

“Many people need to understand this.

“It can be very liberating to have a different name.”

— With files from Mickey Djuric in Ottawa and The Associated Press