As a kid I never liked the name “Robert”.
I despised my full name, but that’s for a different post.
While my family lived on Canadian Forces Base Shearwater in Nova Scotia people like Bill Parker or my uncle Al always referred to me as Bob, Bobby, or Robbie.
No matter how much I preferred Bob or Bobby my father and my grandmother were always of the opinion that my birth name was Robert and that’s what I would be called.
It wasn’t until my infamous August 2006 telephone call with my father that I became determined to change my name.
The telephone call was the first time that I had an inkling that my father knew more about the events on Canadian Forces Base Namao than what he had ever admitted to.
In the aftermath of the telephone calls I had decided that I was going to seriously look at changing my name and possibly going through hormone therapy.
So, I decided that I wanted to work on my name first.
I tried different first names, but I always came back to Bobby, or more specifically Bobbie. What I really liked about Bobbie is that it is a unisex name. Bobby is generally a male name. Bobbi is generally a female name. And Bobbie is gender neutral. Tracing the history of Bobbie through the years it has gone back and forth between being a male name and a female name.
Nothing fancy about the name Bobby / Bobbie / Bobbi. They’re all the diminutive spelling of Robert / Roberta.
And the plan was that once I underwent hormone therapy that I would simply drop the “e” and go with Bobbi.
But then I had to do a stupid thing and I went on to pick a fight with the Canadian Armed Forces and the Department of National Defence.
The fight was going to be inevitable. There’s no way that the shit from 1978 through 1980 was going to stay hidden and buried in the past.
So, 17 years after my name I’m still Bobbie.
At least I’m on Estradiol and I’m sprouting beewbs……….
Beeshive 