They wrote the wrong name on my dorm room door.

Months before arriving on campus for my freshman year, I went on BearFacts (R.I.P.) and set my preferred name in the campus system. I applied and was accepted to Unity House, the LGBT theme housing program located in Unit 3. And then I showed up to my room on the queer floor to find that Housing had placed me with two girls and written the wrong name on my door.

Mortally embarrassed, my understanding RA changed the sign by the next day, and no one made a big deal out of the incident. But this kind of negotiation over my name and my gender would become a pattern in my dealings with the Berkeley campus.

I’ve gotten the right name onto my ID and my roll sheets, but I’ve been misgendered by everyone from a postmodernism-literate anthropology GSI to a befuddled work supervisor to this very publication (I’m one of the six “actresses” playing Ariel). Where is this horde of women named Neil?

I set my preferred name over two years ago now, but every time I interact with a new campus service, I don’t even know if they’re even going to have it on file. I pick up books from the library; the hold slips have my birth name on them. I’ve had my birth name called while waiting at Tang to get swabbed for strep. Secure messages from Tang autofill my birth name into the subject line. When completing employment paperwork, I asked if there was a way to indicate my preferred name to the university payroll system. The woman overseeing my little group of new hires seemed baffled, like I was asking the IRS to please bill me by a nickname.

Correcting people in a public setting, such as a classroom, can be terrifying — I have no idea what kind of can of worms I might open, either with other students or with professors and GSIs who have actual power over me. We shouldn’t have to depend on the tolerance of others, either because they had the wrong information or jumped to the wrong conclusions.

Yes, many people are kind, understanding, educated and open to being corrected, but it doesn’t matter if individuals are nice. Housing, healthcare and payroll have inaccurate information about transgender students. The system itself shouldn’t continually put me and others in this situation. Not everybody can laugh it off.

Trans people toss a coin every time they correct somebody about their name and gender. I never know when some asshole is going to get nosy about my genitals. Or have a problem with me and ruin my day. Or grade me harshly for being a problem. Or stonewall my necessary paperwork. Or fire me. Or restrict my access to basic healthcare.

I know I seem like a confrontational hardass, but I get misgendered so often that it’s easier to just breathe out, roll my eyes and let it go.

Maybe you think you have the solution to my problem: get a court date and legally change my name and gender marker. After all, you might think, how can I expect formal institutions like public universities and hospitals to respect my identity if I won’t formalize it?

Listen, smart guy, do you want to pay my court fees? Explain to my grandparents that they need to make out the birthday checks to someone new? For many young trans people, including me, pursuing legal and medical gender transition opens rifts in our personal lives. We’re not independent yet, and taking visible, formal steps toward gender confirmation can alienate us from the people who keep us educated, solvent and cared for.

We’re still in college, and balancing self-expression against financial and emotional security is a battle every time we’re around our families. And that’s not even considering the mandates that trans people demonstrate varying degrees of medical transition in order to change their legal gender markers. Depending on the state, this ranges from doctors’ letters to proof of bottom surgery. Acceptance requires a shocking amount of paperwork.

At this point in my life I expect to be misgendered at the bank and the DMV, and I’ve made an uneasy peace with that. I don’t expect to be misgendered by a university that’s just made a big deal out of adding new gender options to its application. You asked me what I wanted to be called, and I told you. I shouldn’t have to be on the cover of Vanity Fair in a bustier for you to call me by my name.

Neil Lawrence writes the Friday column deconstructing gender and sexuality. Contact him at [email protected] and follow him on Twitter at @tronsgender.