Are You Still On Your Default Name?

Overhead in one of our office Slack channels:

trans people don't say "did you assume my gender"
we say "nice gender did your mom pick it"

and

"extremely funny from someone on their default name"

These were mentions, not uses, but given the speaker I believe it's safe to treat these pronouncements as capturing a certain strand of thought. Its not a sentiment that I recall having been exposed to before and so is worth writing down.

Regarding the first phrase, apparently its a meme (so minus points for originality on the part of the speaker?). The initial read on this is that its a pithy restatement of the idea that gender is assigned at birth. However, the phrase also echoes (deliberately, I assume) "Nice shirt, did your mom pick it?", the implication by analogy being that identifying as the gender you were assigned at birth is not fashionable/stylish.

The "default name" quote doesn't appear to be a meme or anything like that. The implication in the statement is that using the name you were given at birth shows... a lack of reflection, maybe? Or, again, style? In any case, it's grounds for questioning their judgement.

Taken together the quotes above express a certain... aesthetic sensibility, maybe? I find the comment about "default name" to be annoying on the grounds that I don't think names are particularly expressive. There's a big switching cost associated with changing your name and not a whole lot of benefit (outside of certain situations)... but maybe that's the point? Could name changing be a form of costly signaling?

Critiques of (not) choosing your gender, on the other hand, have some facial plausibility, but a lot really rides on the interpretation of "choose". Is "choosing" merely engaging in behaviors not typically associated with your gender, or is "choosing" only choosing if you make some sort of public declaration?

Consider: I've written elsewhere that in some of the places I've lived I've been well outside the mainstream in terms of gender presentation. At the same time, however, I've never identified as gender-nonconformant or trans or anything of that nature and think that it would stretch those terms beyond meaning were I to do so. My point is that I was deviating from expected behavior, so could be said to be "choosing my gender" in that sense. At the same time, however, I never publically identified as anything other than the gender associated with the sex I was assigned at birth, in which case that it can be argued that I wasn't making any sort of choice.

Anyhow, interesting phenomena, worth tucking away for future consideration.