Naveen Kundanmal (now Farrani!) talks about legal name changes, a spooky encounter at a taco place, and following in their mom’s footsteps by changing their whole entire name. You can find more of Naveen's work on Instagram @HotTubTimeNaveen. You can learn more about Equality Texas's work at equalitytexas.org or across social media platforms @EqualityTexas. You can find us on Instagram @namedroppingpod or send us an email at namedropping@defector.com. Namedropping is hosted by Giri Nathan and Samer Kalaf, and produced by Ozzy Llinas Goodman. Our editor is Justin Ellis, and our supervising producer is Alex Sujong Laughlin. Our production assistant is Jae Towle Vieira. Defector Media is a collectively owned, subscriber-based media company. If you love this podcast and want to support us, subscribe at defector.com.
Naveen Kundanmal (now Farrani!) talks about legal name changes, a spooky encounter at a taco place, and following in their mom’s footsteps by changing their whole entire name. Episode transcript available here.
You can find more of Naveen's work on Instagram @HotTubTimeNaveen. You can learn more about Equality Texas's work at equalitytexas.org or across social media platforms @EqualityTexas. You can find us on Instagram @namedroppingpod or send us an email at namedropping@defector.com.
Namedropping is hosted by Giri Nathan and Samer Kalaf, and produced by Ozzy Llinas Goodman. Our editor is Justin Ellis, and our supervising producer is Alex Sujong Laughlin. Our production assistant is Jae Towle Vieira.
Defector Media is a collectively owned, subscriber-based media company. If you love this podcast and want to support us, subscribe at defector.com.
Naveen Farrani: Typically when people hear that somebody changed their name after getting married, they're thinking last name only, but nothing like too out of left field and this is like fully out of bounds left field for most people when I tell them.
[music]
Giri Nathan: I'm Giri Nathan.
Samer Kalaf: I'm Samer Kalaf.
Giri: And this is Namedropping, the show about embracing chance when choosing a new name.
Samer: In this episode, we talked to Naveen Kundanmal. Although as we'll explore the episode, their name is actually different now.
Giri: Naveen first got on our radar because they sent us an email to our tips line, which is namedropping@defector.com. And we were just really struck by their story, which is just another reminder to email us if you have an interesting story about your name.
Samer: Naveen also works for Equality Texas. So they spent time thinking about legal name changes in both a personal and professional context.
Giri: They had written an essay about not just their name, but also their mother's name, which has changed in every component. So her first, middle, and last name all changed after marriage. So there's an interesting family history to names and name changes there that Naveen was riffing on in in their essay.
Samer: We also talked to Naveen about the legal process, the logistics behind actually changing a name. So Naveen had been using their first name for a while, but with their partner, they decided to come up with a new surname. And so they talked to us a little bit about the process behind that and how they came up with something that felt like it was uniquely theirs.
Giri: Yeah, I think Naveen was an interesting guest in that you have this family history of name changes, but also, they were changing their name in a way that was still kind of fresh and different for the family. And there ends up being a lot of interesting family dynamics there.
Samer: Yeah, it was clear to us that Nuveen had thought a lot about their name. And it had been a big part of their life and their family's lives.
[music fades]
Naveen: My name is Naveen Kundanmal. It'll be slightly different once I file some paperwork and wait like a couple months, but for now, that's what it is. So the name I go by now, Naveen is a chosen name. But the name that I was given when I was born was Alysha, spelled A L Y S H A. And if you know an Alysha, they probably don't spell it that way. It's a more distinctly Indian spelling of it. And that's my ethnic cultural background is Indian. So when I was a little brown kid growing up in the US in largely white neighborhoods, my I think most distinct memory about my name was feeling like kind of annoyed about the uncommon spelling. And I would tell my parents, I'd be like, oh, I want to change the spelling of my name. I want it to be spelled the normal way. There's like heavy air quotes around normal. Because like substitute teachers, or anytime like, a new school year started or in a dance class, or whatever everyone would say, Alisha, because it looks—it's one letter off from Alyssa. And so I hate it that
Giri: You've written about having this almost like spooky experience where people just kind of intuited that your name was Alysha, can you tell us about that?
Naveen: Yeah, that was weird. Um, I went into a taco place. And I was by myself. I was just ordering some food to take with me to musical theater rehearsal. And the guy behind the counter is just trying to like make conversation or whatever. And so I look at his nametag and its name is Kailyn. And I was like, okay, like, thanks, Kailyn. And he's like, Oh, that's not my name. And I was like, okay. He's like, Yeah, we just like mess around. I like take my coworker's nametag, so I'm like, okay, well, what is your name? I want to just say thank you and they get my food and leave. And he's like, What if you like, why don't you guess what my name is? What do you mean, you're giving me nothing to go off? So I'm just like, Okay, I'm gonna just choose like a generic white man name. I don't know, Alex, Andrew, something. But I was way off. And then I was like, Okay, well, I guess now that I'm here, like, why don't you guess my name? I guess we're doing—it's weird now if I just leave!
Giri: [laughing] Just grab the food and go, yeah
Naveen: And he looked at me. And he was he like kind of squinted for a second. And he was like, Alicia, and like, I was so shocked, visibly. And so I start, like, kind of like mentally running through like a checklist of like what I'm wearing. I had a necklace that said Alysha that I wear a lot when I was growing up. So I'm like, I'm not wearing that, I didn't pay with a card. Like I had cash on me. So I was like, it wasn't my debit card. So I'm just like, literally what's happening right now. And so I was like, how did you know that? And he's like, um, I don't know. You just kind of look like an Alicia and like, what does that mean?
Samer: [laughing] Maybe he's an aspiring street magician.
Giri: Yeah
Naveen: Maybe, um, but it was very strange. And so then I left obviously feeling perturbed in several ways.
Giri: You should have had him spell it too. That would have been really perturbing, if he got that right
Naveen: Yeah, I didn't go so far is that I was like, we're just going to stop it here because I'm already losing my marbles. And I just I need to go and try to act normal at a play rehearsal right now
Giri: Could you explain how your mother came to take on an entirely new name when she got married at 25? And talk to us a bit about how that affected her life and attitude towards naming.
Naveen: Yeah. So my mom changed her first middle and last name when she got married. So she was born, given the name Kalpana Gobind Daswani when she was born, and her middle name, Gobind, was her dad's first name. So in certain regions and certain traditions within Indian cultures, when children are born, they take their father's first name as their middle name. Girls will grow up with their father's first name as their middle name. But then when they get married, they will take their husband's first name as their middle name, almost as if it's to signal you know, whose, whose property you are. So those two parts of her names changed for those reasons. And then she changed her first name because both my parents were raised Hindu. I was raised Hindu lite, I guess mostly in name, my family, my parents aren't particularly religious, but my grandparents are. So when my parents got married, they had basically an astrologer do a birth chart reading. So astrology is kind of baked into a lot of Hinduism. And so the Hindu priest called a pandit, he did a birth chart reading for both of my parents and kind of compared their charts and went to my mom and was like, hey, if you pick a new name, starting with the letter R, your marriage will be much more harmonious. So my grandma, her mother in law, was actually the one who came up with the name Riya. And she, my mom was like, yeah, sounds good. Let's go with that. So she went from Kalpana Gobind Daswani to Riya Kumar Kundanmal. I grew up knowing this and have been telling people this story since I was a kid. It's always so fun, though, to tell people because it is shocking to the vast majority of people. Typically when people hear that somebody changed their name after getting married, they're thinking last name only, but nothing like too out of left field. And this is like fully out of bounds left field, for most people when I tell them.
Giri: That—my family also has a astrology-informed naming practice, like I'm pretty sure I was named in accordance with what the astrologer said and then I know one of my cousins had like an A introduced and then like later taken out of his name—
Naveen: Ooh, interesting
Samer: As like a single letter?
Giri: Yeah, yeah, maybe, maybe even two letters, but the one I remember was the a and I also get periodic updates from my grandma, on how my astrology is looking. Usually just, hey, you, you are going to have something really great happen to you soon.
Naveen: Okay.
Samer: That's nice
Giri: Usually positive stuff. Yeah. I wonder if she's hiding all the more concerning stuff. But I like only getting the good parts
Samer: Selective astrology?
Giri: Yeah, exactly.
Samer: Nice.
Giri: So if you had to like fill out a form at school where you listed your parents names, which one would you put down?
Naveen: Oh, I've only ever known my mom as Riya
Giri: Right
Naveen: I guess like, security questions when they're like, what's your mother's maiden name? I have always had to be like, well, the full thing? Just the last name?
Giri: [laughing] How much time do you have?
Naveen: The way that that is my answer to so many questions. Um, so growing up, my mom's siblings and her parents, and basically, everyone that she knew prior to getting married, still called her Kalpana. And that's a really interesting difference between the traditions that informed my mom's name change. And myself. And most of the people I know, were changing their names for trans reasons. Where ideally, nobody calls them the name that they are no longer going by. So at any given time, there would be, there could be potentially like multiple people in my home, calling my mom different names. And she would just happily respond to either. And then as I got older and kind of more curious at different points in time, I would ask her like, was that weird changing your name? Because she and my dad dated for three years before they got married. And my dad was calling her Kalpana this whole time while they were dating. And then like, on a dime, made the switch. And my mom said that because it was this kind of communal occasion and event that everyone was doing it at the same time, it made it a little easier. Because she wasn't trying to just like navigate it herself. It was like, oh, okay, well, everyone's calling me Riya now. I am also calling myself Riya, this is just the new reality. And then when I started going by Naveen, and and, you know, was telling my parents, hey, this is what I go by now, at first, I gave them a lot of I guess leniency, because I wasn't really sure how much I wanted to, to push them at that point in time, because their framework for first name changes was like my mom's or my aunt's, or who other extended family members were like, well, if you change your name, we still get to call you your original name
Giri: Right, right.
Naveen: And over time, my sister was just like, well, I'm going to start calling you Naveen. Because everyone else calls you Naveen and it clearly seems like you prefer this. And then she started kind of advocating on my behalf in like conversations with my parents that I was not in. And then my dad kind of had the same thought was like, you know, if you say like, you prefer this name, like, I will do my best and kind of retrain my brain. And I was like, yeah, and Dad, you know, you've done this before.
Giri: Right
Naveen: You called mom Kalpana for three years. And then we're successfully changed to calling her Riya and like, in the time that I've been alive, you've, I never heard you call her Kalpana. Like, by accident or anything. And he was like, ooh, that's a good point. And my mom was kind of like the last holdout. I like tried not to just like be mean about it, and like, give her the grace and space to like, work through her thoughts, feelings, at cetera. But then my sister, like, did decide to be a little bit more mean about it. And was like, look, everyone else is calling them Naveen. You are like the only person left who isn't doing this. Why do you feel entitled to do this? And like challenged her that way. And it was nice that I didn't have to be the one to do that.
Giri: It's nice to have a sibling be an enforcer, sometimes
Samer: Yeah
Naveen: Right! And like I didn't ask my sister to do that either. Which was really really nice. And so like, yeah, it, my mom took a little bit more time but then like, came around and like, calls me Naveen. And so that's all, all well and good now.
Samer: I know you said you're in the process of legally changing your name, do you still have or do you plan to have your father's first name as your middle name?
Naveen: Okay, great question because I had to, like make this decision when I was filling out paperwork last week. What I ultimately decided was, I'm going to have Alysha as my middle name now. And part of it for me is like, a lot of trans people will refer to their birth name as their dead name, because they just will categorically like be like, Nope, don't call me that, we're instead it's buried, forget you ever knew this name, erase it, delete it from the doc. And I respect that and other people's feelings surrounding surrounding that. But the more that I've thought about it, the less that that feels applicable to me personally, because I'm like, I don't really have like beef with the name Alysha. I liked that name. I still like it. I was just like, it doesn't, I just don't want it to be as gendered on paper. And I was thinking about it. And I'm like, I don't want—I don't want it to feel like I've put this disconnect or divide between myself and this name. I don't want to feel like alienated from the things that say Alysha on them still.
Giri: Yeah.
Naveen: And so okay. What if I just like integrated into my name in a way that doesn't come up on, you know, nine times out of 10?
Giri: Yeah.
Samer: To kind of move into where you are now, how did you find the name Naveen? And what drew you to that specifically?
Naveen: This is, this is my favorite thing to tell people. When I was first trying to come up with a new name, in looking through all of these names, I was like, trying to, I guess my mental filter for a lot of these was just like, okay, let's like find gender neutral names, like whatever that means. Lots of these will be like, tagged with like, unisex names. And so I was like looking through them. And I'm like, okay, there are a couple of these that I'm like, okay, I could, I could like that, on paper that looks fine. But none of them sounded right, or like looked right with my, my face. I was like, yeah, it's because these are all like white people names. And that was like, the thing that I realized was giving me pause about all of them. And I was like, okay, well, if I'm renaming myself, I get the joy and the privilege of choosing a name for myself. I'm not about to, like, enact colonial violence by giving myself like a white Anglo name. So then I was like, Okay, we're gonna look at things like South Asian names specifically, which primarily have like Sanskrit origins. So I'm like filtering it and narrowing it more and more. And there were a couple of names that I liked that started with K. But I was like, oh, no, I simply cannot do that. That would make my initials K. K. K. Mayday, danger, like, abort, shutting it down before I even get slightly attached to any of them. Like I can't do it. What could have been, I don't know, we can't really go there. And so then I was like, hang on, what if we, what if we think in this direction, so back to back to births, birth charts, and and astrology. When I was born, there's a naming ceremony, like a Hindu naming ceremony called a chaati ceremony, which is when the astrologer will look at your chart and give your parents a, a letter or like a letter sound for which to name you. And the way that I will explain it to people is like, for Catholics, it's kind of like a confirmation name. Like, it's this name that you choose that, you know, serves this like very specific purpose, but it's like not tied to your name legally at all. It's just kind of floating in the ether.
Giri: Yeah
Naveen: So the astrologer gave my parents the letter, like, I guess it's a Hindi letter like na, so it's like a sound in English, but so they went with Natasha. And then I was like, Okay, wait, what if I look for a name that starts with na. Like, let's maybe let's just follow the astrologer's advice, like, maybe this is what my name should start with. And then I was like, okay, Naveen. It wasn't like, immediately, like balloons and confetti when I saw it. But it was like, um, this warrants more, like more serious consideration. So it like kind of hung out in the back of my head for a while, and I was still looking through names and filtering the options in different ways for like, a lot, like several more weeks or whatever. And then I was like, okay, let's like, look in more into like, name meanings. Do I want to go with, go that route and kind of reverse engineer the name and like, choose something that I want it to mean? And then work backwards. And Naveen literally means new, fresh. And I was like, wait, okay. This is when there were the confetti and fireworks moment in my head.
Giri: Yeah
Naveen: I was like, you can't choose a better chosen name than something that's like, literally new, at least like to me, I was like, this is this feels so right on so many levels. And on paper, to a largely American audience, in the context that I'm operating in, people aren't going to know like, aren't going to, like have strong gender feelings about it. My associations of it, were always like, okay, this is a quote, boy name. And I found that that's true, primarily for, like, Hindus, but it's used as a, quote, girl name in Muslim communities. And I was like, oh, okay, great. Even better. Now, it's like, extra extra ambiguous, gender wise. Um, so then I just ran with that. And I was really excited about it. And other people gave me really, really good feedback on it when I started telling my friends, like my close friends and stuff like that. And now, people that have only known me, as Naveen, many people have been like, that name fits you really well. And that feels really nice to be like, Okay, I think I picked, I picked well, and like other people have affirmed this without me ever, like soliciting a kind of affirmation from them.
Giri: Right. I also really like how the cultural unfamiliarity gives you this kind of ambiguity that you're looking for. It's like one of the nice byproducts of people not just being totally familiar with where you're coming from, or where your family's coming from, you get this little kind of murky area to operate in. With your naming.
Samer: Yeah, let's see, some fast food cashier try to guess that.
[music/ad break]
Giri: One thing I was thinking about, as I learned about your naming process is the sense that you were kind of navigating traditions in an interesting way, you were, on the one hand rejecting like a traditional gender binary. But on the other hand, you were honoring, kind of the South Asian or in this case, Sanskrit naming traditions that your parents had, and maybe a lot of other people in your family have. Did you feel like you were doing kind of a balancing act in your head? Or do you see it that way at all?
Naveen: Yeah, totally. I think a lot of it comes down to like, intention. For me, I don't make decisions particularly lightly. And so when I'm making a big decision, I really spend way too much time thinking about it, to like make sure that I feel really, really confident and really, really sure of it because I hate making mistakes. And it really is—it comes from a place of like not wanting to be wrong. So if there's so if there's something that like, a decision that has like has and holds a lot of weight, I think about it way, way, way too intensely before I like, kind of go public with it. And I sit with the reasoning and the intention behind my choices so that I feel confident and grounded in the decision that I'm making. It's like, I just am sometimes a control freak about things. And one of those things is, how can I not be wrong? If I can help it?
Giri: Yeah, can you picture like, an alternate way this plays out where friends or people you really trust give you the feedback that like oh, actually, this name is kind of misaligned with your personality, would you, would you go back to the drawing board? Would that feel like a wrong choice? Or—?
Naveen: Well, I think in the in the like name searching process, I did have some of those conversations like with—
Giri: Got it
Naveen: —you know, kind of my counsel of trusted advisors, people that I'm who I'm who I have let into the, the unsure space or that I'm just trying things out. But if somebody really like evil shows up with the name Naveen, or like, it gets it develops this like really, really terrible or negative or some like, nefarious association. I want to be like, well, I it was my name first. Like maybe this person is older than me. But like, I've aren't, I—I'm not changing it now.
Giri: Or you could just become evil too. The Naveen Identity.
Naveen: Or I could just become evil. Well, at that point, I would take it as a challenge to just be like, well, now I have to be the more famous Naveen
Samer: Yeah, sometimes I have that irrational fear with Samer. There aren't really that many famous Samers. But I do expect one day there'll be like a unsavory Samer.
Giri: We can't live in fear of unsavory Samers
Samer: I just try to own it.
Giri: Yeah.
Samer: What's been your own experience so far with changing your name legally?
Naveen: Yeah. So this is a process that I just started like a week ago. And like many administrative things, it is just very unnecessarily confusing. And just feels daunting because of that. And so there is this trans like legal aid name change clinic. And so I signed up for a spot and there was like a nice little Zoom call, they give you a lot of like, a nice packet of information. And then you meet with a volunteer lawyer who's doing this work pro bono. And you go through the paperwork together, and they like fill it out for you. And then they, that's kind of where their their work ends, they give you all of the steps of what to do next. So then once you file your paperwork, then it's just a waiting game. They said roughly eight weeks. It can happen in as soon as four, or the most they've heard of is 12 weeks. And then once the judge grants the name change, the first thing you have to do is go to Texas DPS, Department of Public Safety, and get a new license. And the court order is your ticket to getting a license with a different name on it, then 30 days after that, or within a 30 day window from that, then you have to go change your social security card. And then after that everything else is on your own time and your own timeline, which was comforting to know because I was like, okay, I only need to really find the executive function to do two things on somebody else's timeline. But the really daunting part after that is just like, I feel like the the list of places that I will need to change my name will simply never end. Especially somebody who lives—like spends a lot of time on the internet. My name is just in a lot of places. And so I imagine that I will just encounter it in its various past forms as well. That I will just need to change.
Samer: Was there a specific impetus for you wanting to change it officially? Was it a procedural thing? Or was it more a stronger motivation than that, I guess?
Naveen: Yeah. So I've been going by the name Naveen since 2020. And have held off on changing it legally, up until this point, because my partner and I, because we've been legally married since 2020, as well but didn't touch our names at all. But we're like, hey, when we have like a wedding or some sort of celebration party at some point, maybe like let's use that as our kind of time stamp point of origin to change our last names. Because we liked the idea of sharing a last name. But neither of us feels strong enough about our existing last names that we want the other person to take it. And so we're like, okay, well, what if we just make up a whole brand new name that feels distinctly us and like, is uniquely for us, by us, of us. And the last name that we came up with—the region of India that my all of my family is from my grandparents are all from and that's you can trace like my ancestral lineage to this province—that region is called Sindh and people from there are Sindhi. And the vast majority of Sindhi last names like their naming convention ends in the letters A N I, which I think roughly translates to like descendant of. Like I mentioned earlier, my mom's last name when she was growing up was Daswani. So I've always like part of me in the back of my mind has always like wanted an A N I last name. And my dad's side of the family did have one like a couple of generations back. My great grandfather ended up changing it and like, gave his children and their successive children his first name as their last name, which is where Kundanmal comes from. It started off as his first name. And he had a business that had some good like clout and recognition. And so he wanted his kids to have that clout and recognition. So he got rid of the A N I last name, which was Nanwani. So I was like, hey, what if we take your last name and like—your being my partner, Camille—and like, Sindhi-fy it. So their last name is Farrar, F A R R A R. And so the last name we came up with was Farrani, F A R R A N I, which, one, sounded really good to both of us. And we came up with it, is uniquely ours. And then we're like, okay, let's Google it. Let's see if this name shows up anywhere else if there are nefarious people with this name. And the only thing that comes up when you Google Farrani is the taxonomic name for this sea slug called Amphorina farrani.
Giri: That's wonderful.
Naveen: And so now I'm going to make a family crest and incorporate a little sea slug into it, and it's gonna be cute and fun. This little sea slug is just gonna be like my mascot forever now.
Giri: Aw, I love it.
Samer: Just as a broader question, considering the process that you've gone through so far. Do you have any advice for people who are searching for a new name?
Naveen: Ooh. It's a good question. Um, I think the advice that I hear most often is just the other people I've heard other people get most often as, like, just try shit. If you are somebody who struggles with making decisions, because putting the choice-pressure on yourself feels like a lot, and you have like four or five that you can't choose between, and you're agonizing over it, flip a coin, spin a wheel, like, if the element of chance is going to help you, kind of take part of, part of the the personal implication out of it in a way that like, you don't get the decision when when your parents are giving you a name. Um, do that! Like there's no right or wrong way to do it. And I think, I think if the stakes of the decision, of making the decision, feel really hard, like, you don't have to make it really, really hard. You can you can let you can let chance kind of help you a little bit.
Giri: You could consult a Hindu pandit
Naveen: You could consult a Hindu pand—you could look into your birth chart. You could approach it from an astrological perspective.
Giri: Maybe we'll just wrap up with this last question. So in your ideal world, what would the name change process look like? And would there even be a legal component to it at all?
Naveen: Ah, well, I don't know. I haven't thought about it for a name perspect—I've thought about it a lot in terms of gender, and like gender markers, because like 99.9% of the time, like, people don't need that information about you. But with a name because they are much more unique than two, maybe three gender marker options. We don't categorize people by names. We don't say like, oh, all of the Abigails are grouped here. All of the Benjamins are over here. Like we don't group people that way, because it's weird. And there are—the proliferation in the amount of names that exist, like would just mean that everyone was like, the vast majority of people are just standing alone. So it's not my my gripes and my like hesitations, and like, where I push back on legal categorizations is, it's it's not grouping anybody, it's not seeking to make assumptions based on how you have categorized somebody, names. So I think it's from a point of just assessing a population in a way and having to navigate through systems, having a legal a legal name, definitely helps in that, in that regard. There are certainly too many hoops to jump through to change it. And I think that there should be fewer, and like that also varies greatly state to state. But yeah, I don't know, there are some contexts where people are so amenable, and so used to using a different name for somebody, that are familiar and common, and we don't bat an eye at them. And there are some instances where the context is different, where people become hostile about it. Like somebody whose name is Christopher legally, but goes by Chris. nobody bats an eye! Nobody gives that kid grief, and everybody just goes on with their day. And I think the argument that I, that gets thrown back at me when I've said this before, is like well, that's like basically just their same name. It's just shortened. And I'm like, okay, what about John's who go by Jack or like Jacks who go by Johns whichever way that one works? What about Peggys? Like why are Margaret's going by Peggy? Nobody's mad about that. Um, and y'all seem really comfortable just being like, okay, cool. We call them Peggy. That's fine. I'm not going to ask, I'm not going to pry, or people that like, I just go by my middle name kind of folks.
Samer: Yeah, I know, a bunch of middle name people
Naveen: Right! And like, nobody is yelling at them. And I say, hey, my legal name is Alysha, actually, but like, I don't go by that, I go by Naveen. And if that person is particularly hostile, because they sense a whiff of transness or gender, gender feelings as part of the this decision or this request, suddenly is very hostile. Not everyone, but there are definitely people who are, and like, wwill make a whole thing about it. And like we'll just patently like refuse. Because it's not my quote, legal name.
Giri: Yeah, all you're asking for is the same courtesy extended to all Peggys who are Margarets
Naveen: Yeah. Also like quick, any Peggys, any Margarets who are listening, no shade, like, love that. Like, love that for you. And I hope that you can perhaps use this to advocate on behalf of trans people. If you have the opportunity and you feel so inclined. I would appreciate it maybe some other trans people would appreciate it. It would just be great if people would simply leave us alone. It's like I'm not prying into the bank teller's business about their what's on their name tag, unless they want me to guess their name because it's a fake name.
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Samer: Thanks for listening to Namedropping. You can find more of Naveen's work on Instagram @hottubtimenaveen. You can learn more about Equality Texas's work at equalitytexas.org or on social media @equalitytexas. You can find us on Instagram @namedroppingpod or send us an email at namedropping@defector.com. Namedropping is hosted by me, Samer Kalaf, and Giri Nathan, and produced by Ozzy Llinas Goodman. Our editor is Justin Ellis and our supervising producer is Alex Sujong Laughlin. Our production assistant is Jae Towle Vieira. Thanks to editor-in-chief Tom Ley and the rest of the Defector staff. If you love this podcast and want to support us, subscribe at defector.com.