Olivia Duncanina Lowell Rukavina

My daughter, who just turned 24, has been “Olivia” since she came out in May of 2021. Truth be told, she’s been Olivia, in her heart, for a lot longer than that.

When Olivia first came out—to my assembled family, on Zoom, without any preamble—I am not proud to say that my first reaction was “Fuck! I can’t take ANOTHER THING.” That was close-minded, selfish, rooted in fear. But it’s where I stood at that point.

In the years since, as I’ve seen Olivia soften into herself, become more confident in her gender expression, and be less burdened by the conflict between her gender assignment at birth and how she feels internally, as I’ve educated myself about gender and sexuality, met other parents, other trans people, I have been able to embrace her transition as a lovely, miraculous, positive thing. 

The most recent chapter in her transition has been to have her request for a change of name formally approved. 

She started the process, as I wrote earlier in the year, back in June; it took the summer for the paperwork to make its way through the system, and she finally received a formal certificate, along with an updated birth certificate, a few weeks ago. The process is still more cumbersome and expensive than I believe it needs to be, but the public servants involved in the process were kind, efficient, and gender-affirming without exception.

One of the things that needs to happen as part of the process is publication of the change of name in the Royal Gazette, and this appeared in the September 14, 2024 issue:

From this point Olivia is now free of the yoke of needing to officially go by one name, and otherwise by her chosen name: she can get new ID, a new library card, a new passport, and to be Olivia everywhere.

I am so proud of Olivia. I love her dearly.