Where are you from? 

I'm from Seattle, Washington. 

Where do you live now? 

I live in Brooklyn, New York.

What is your name?

My name is Colby Lampson-Gordon. 

What is the meaning behind your name? 

It's my mom's, it's either my mom's or my grandma's maiden name. Yeah, that's where my name comes from. It's just like a family name on my mom's side.

Have you ever changed your name or have you ever changed the way people call you? 

I haven't. I've thought about it as an adopted person. My middle name is actually like the name I was given, I guess, at the orphanage. I have some friends who are also adopted and they've decided to start going by the names that they were given before their families gave them their names. That's not something that feels right to me right now, but I think it's a really cool flexibility kind of. I do feel proud of my middle name, I feel like. At least there's ways that I've thought about, maybe when I make my portfolio website, maybe I want to include it there because I think I have been more private about that.

What's your relationship with the name Colby? 

Yeah. I think on a daily basis, I feel glad that it's my name, I guess. I feel like it's gender affirming to me because it's very gender neutral. If anything, it's a more masculine name. It's traditionally a boy's name. Sometimes I feel like because my last name is also white, it's just like if people see me on paper or something, they'll expect me to be a white man and then I'm not. So sometimes I feel like that's a fun surprise. Sometimes I do feel like it's not reflected racially, I guess, who I am as a person with my name and is very representative of the trans experience, not as gender trans, but transracial, transnational experience of just completely getting removed from a place and put in another one. 

How have you been navigating naming yourself in the digital world? 

My digital name is just like Colby LG. It's just like the first letters of my last name, LG. But I think I've never thought of using too much of something completely separate from my name.

Why were you thinking about using your middle name in spaces like your website? 

Because then that's like a different form of you existing, coexisting with the other side of you as well. I view my personal website as a more intimate space, I guess digitally than like Instagram, because I think Instagram is so public, I don't think everyone needs to know my full middle name, like first, middle, last name. And I don't even share my last name on Instagram, it's just like LG. So it's pretty, like, watered down, I would say. In order to like, know me more as a person or to like to see my work, which is also deeply personal, I am okay with actually having like my middle name there or like, having more openness or kind of like directness about what it is.