The Ballad of Neko and Niko

[matsushima]

Everyone wanted to know about my name when I came out. There are some who had no idea I ever had a first name, because calling me by my last name—my family name—had become ubiquitous. I was scared for the first time to lose it.

When I first came out, I struggled to land on a name, initially choosing a new one that didn’t work for me. I was trying to please other people in building a new life and clumsily made a new name that incorporated parts of the old. It worked only as a piece of worn tape holding old lives and new ones together. When it all started to fall apart and I knew I needed to find my own, I thought long and hard about the women who helped build me here.

-The Ballad of Neko and Niko, by Niko Stratis for The Walrus (2025/05/17)

Comments

[matsushima]

I loved this article and the book it's excerpted from - The Dad Rock that Made me a Woman - has an A+ title.