As others have said, that this used to be Ellen Paige is the story here, so there's no way to talk about it and not mention that. It's not like this is some random reference to a high profile trans person and the old name is being dropped in for no reason.
Yeah all this pearl-clutching over "deadnaming" is ridiculous. It would be like never mentioning that Caitlyn Jenner used to be called Bruce Jenner when covering that story. Especially when it's a new development, you just can't expect people to forget what the person used to be called overnight. It takes some time to get used to a change like that. Also there's something weirdly revisionist about saying something like "
Caitlyn Jenner won the men's decathalon when
she was 25, then
she posed for Playgirl magazine." Like obviously when that stuff happened, everyone knew "her" as a man named Bruce, so it's just odd to read stuff like that. Nothing wrong with referring to someone the way they want to be called from now on, but you can't change the past.
