Survivor Literacy

Would Protyus by any other name smell as sweet?

When I became a public content creator it was immediately apparent that I would need a pen name. Despite having moved many times, several of my exes continued to find me to threaten and terrify me. In choosing not to be silenced, I also needed to be smart.

I thought of many stage names, and indeed have named many of my characters, (some of which are in development but I’ll still include them here), like Esther of da Nort, Pearl Clutchins, and Rhonda Santis. While these names are appropriate for individual characters, none of them could carry the weight of my greater body of work.

I create a lot of different types of stuff, but from the comedy to the poetry, to the drag, to the music, to the blog there are endless themes of social justice, intersectionality, and humanity.

I hope you can see why Pear Clutchins wouldn’t be able to handle that.

So, I settled on Protyus A. Gendher. It was NOT already taken, and judging from how many times I’ve had to explain it, it seems quite original. It shouts back to Greek mythology, as Proteus, the Old Man of the Sea was a shape shifter who could tell the future. I felt like this spoke to my intuition, and pattern fluency. “Protean” describes versatility.

Proteus is also a type of bacteria, one of the smallest and most fundamental life forms. It reminds me that we are constantly changing, and always connected in ways that run deeper than the contributions of humankind.

I changed the “e” to a “y” to modernize the spelling, and carry the essence while making it my own.

A. Gendher is my gender identity. I’m agender, and that nonbinary viewpoint is central to my perspective. I’ve always liked using my middle initial so isolating the “A” seemed quite natural. That left Gendher which which is an underlying and primary focus of my advocacy.

You might notice I spelled it weird.

I love silent “H”s and the languages they show up in. I love languages. Deeper than that, is that this particular “H” creates the phrase “end her” in the last name, which is a nod to my personal transition, and my original body of poetry “The Woman Left Behind.”

Of course, all of this makes perfect sense inside my own head, but I understand that the rest of the world is probably guessing. That’s probably why even when I try to search Protyus A. Gendher, search engines routinely tell me I’ve spelled it wrong and bring me only unrelated results.

Bummer.

I’ve also noticed something peculiar about my interactions from this blog.

I’ve been attempting to reach more readers, and in doing so I’ve started to spend time on the WordPress Reader. As an anthropologist, I was really excited to find that although my reach is small, it seems to be global. That’s really cool.

I also started to notice that many of my views, and many of the blogs I’m presented in the reader are from South Asia.

Curious.

As an anthropologist, I’ve studied indigenous cultures of North and South America, Europe, Africa, and Polynesia. I know less about this region, so it was especially curious to me.

I noticed that the spellings of names seemed similar to my stage name, and did a little digging.

Protyusha is a name in Hindi meaning “the first light of dawn.” It is associated with light, enlightenment, strength, and independence.

Learning this is like a gifted meaning from the universe, although it never was my intention to appropriate a name from a culture I know so little about.

My screen name is a home for my identity, and changing it feels unthinkable. This leads to 2 imperatives.

1) Learn as much as I can about South Asia, so I can carry respect and honor within the name, and

2) Figure out how to convince WordPress to show my content to American audiences as well, as so much of my content focuses on American policies and social change.

I am ABSOLUTELY open to suggestions.