Got deadnamed at the voting booth today despite legally changing my name on everything 2 years ago
The Ontario provincial election is next week so I went to an advanced polling location to vote today. For context, I only changed my legal middle name because my first name is gender neutral, so my full legal name doesn't look super different from my deadname on paper.
The woman that I gave my ID to was clearly confused about something not matching in the database. At first me asked "did you perhaps move recently?" and I gave her a confused "no?". The conversation that followed was:
Her: "Ok, there's someone here with a different middle name. Is that you by chance?"
Me: "Uh, I legally changed my middle name on everything years ago."
Her: "What did you change it from?"
At this point I rolled my eyes but understood why she needed to ask the question to prove I was the same person.
Me: "Uh, it used to be [deadname]."
Her: "Ok, so [deadname] is you?"
Me: "Well, not anymore. I'm [real name] and have been legally."
Her: "Ok, but you are, in fact, [deadname]?"
Me: "I mean... ok, yes."
Judging by her tone of voice and given that my first name hadn't changed, I think she was mostly just confused rather than trying to be rude. I'm not even sure if she'd clocked me. But I'm like... girl, read the room.
I'm not that upset by it, I was mostly just annoyed and frustrated that my name hasn't been changed in that system yet, for some reason, even though I thought I'd changed it on everything years ago.