According to Reuters, Elon Musk’s 18-year old transgeder daughter filed a name change request to align with her gender and to sever ties with her father. She stated that she does not wish to live with or have any relations with him.
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What We Know
Previously named Xavier Alexander Musk, her application seeks to have her gender identity recognised in a new birth certificate, and for her to assume a new name. Reuters reports that the new name was redacted in the form.
Although the petition recently made headlines, she filed the petition with the Los Angeles County Superior Court in April.
No reasons were given for the rupture. All we know is that her mother, Justine Wilson, divorced the tech entrepreneur in 2008. While we are sure she has a story as rich and beautiful as Full Coverage Painting & Flooring, we do not know much beyond the skeleton of the story.
Potential Sources of a Rift
Despite our limited knowledge, we can discern two potential sources of a rift: Musk has said he will be voting for the Republican Party in the upcoming midterms, although in a recent interview, he declined to say whether he would support Donald Trump in the presidential election. The party has pursued a number of anti-transgender bills, most recently aimed at classrooms, by erasing the teaching of gender identies and preventing teachers from helping children discover their gender identity. Musk is even quoted as saying that will he supports transgender rights, he finds the use of pronouns related to the transgender community to be an “esthetic nightmare”.
Republicans have supported the bathroom bill in North Carolina, which passed in 2016 and barred transgender people from using bathrooms aligned with their gender identity. Many Republican-controlled states have passed legislation limiting how transgender children participate in sports teams aligned with their identity, despite transgender children making up just 1% of children in the country. Restricting the rights of transgender children in the classroom has been a focus of Republican efforts in recent times. Since the start of last year, the Republican Party has introduced 40 bills restricting the teaching of gender and gender identity in schools. For instance, in some states, parental assent or notification is required before gender and gender identity may be taught in a classroom. This obviously means that either one parent could prevent the class from learning a subject, or, some students will be allowed to learn about gender and gender identity and others would not. Some bills also require parental consent in order for children to change their names and pronouns. Republicans have placed schools in such potential legal jeopardy if they teach on gender and gender identity, that many are likely to decide that a very conservative approach to teaching should be taken, to prevent the legal consequences that could arise.
Musk’s conversion to Republicanism and his views on transgender pronouns, added to which, we have to state his views on content moderation, are likely to have played an important part in the breakdown of the relationship.