For this look, I wanted to capture the period right before I changed my name. I had been on estrogen for about a year, and I was starting to be “passable”, but I was still carrying around the baggage of my dead name. It became harder to exist as Phillip, and lots of very normal situations became extremely awkward. People started getting kinda confused when I said my name, job applications became awkward, or when asking where the restroom was, they would ask which one I used, so I knew it was becoming time for me to change my name. It's a scary thing, though; not many people have to choose a new name for themselves 20 years into their life.


My previous name was a family name, named after my great-grandfather, Thomas Samuel Phillips, a World War 1 veteran who served in the British cavalry. I knew I wanted to still honor the legacy of my family, so I chose the name Virginia, Gigi for short, after several of the women on my mom’s side of the family. And for my middle name, I got my mother’s blessing to take her middle name, Marie, making me Virginia Marie Greathouse.