Changing your name is a pretty involved legal process exactly because identity is so widely used by other people, so it generates a lot of work to alter it. And

Changing your name is a pretty involved legal process exactly because identity is so widely used by other people, so it generates a lot of work to alter it. And governments in some parts of the world regulate what names you can use, and may refuse to let you change your name if they have reasons for it. I don't personally care much what people want to be called, and would of course be happy to call Robert Bob if that is what he wanted. But that's because I'm a reasonable person and that's a reasonable request. If Robert changed his mind every week about what he wanted to be called, people would stop respecting his wishes because he'd be placing an unreasonable burden on them by doing so. If he decided his new name was 56 characters long and impossible to spell, or some unpronounceable symbol, again, people might reject his wish because it would place an unreasonable burden on them. Perhaps more apropos for Hacker News, many websites don't let you change your username because it's a primary key, or because that's how other users identify you, or for whatever other reasons. They may also ban things like emoji in name fields, or even in some incompetent cases not work if your name is Null. Are these violations of my human rights? Well, no, not really. So whilst I don't wish to get into trans issues here, the claim that identity is a purely personal choice is clearly backwards. Your identity is how other people identify you, by definition, so it requires their consent to have a specific identity. You can ask them nicely but it's ultimately their choice.