Deadnaming, misgendering and more: A trans and nonbinary community grapples with end-of-life complexities

CHICAGO — When COVID-19 first hit Chicago in 2020, essential worker Elias Renaud texted his sister and a good friend from the bus on his way home from his job at a grocery store. “If something happens to me, this is where I want things to go, this is what I want done,” Renaud, who uses the pronouns he/him, remembers telling them. The 44-year-old transgender man, from Chicago’s Edgewater neighborhood, drew up a living will with the cautious hope that when he dies, his body would be treated with dignity. “I think by the time I die, there will be a lot of people doing death work that will have ha…

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