I'm planning to come out to the school on the first day of it, in one week. I'm going to have to come out to my parents before that. I had it mostly figured out, but now that it's so close, I feel doubt. I know ,y parents will accept me, provided they take me seriously, but it's so hard to talk to them about anything, I'm considering not coming out to them yet, even though I want to and would hate if they found out another way. I was fine with the whole school knowing I'm pan, I even wanted it, but now I worry that people will have misconceptions about pansexuality (we love everyone, we are attracted to children, objects, corpses, animals, we are polyamorous) and I can't possibly explain it to everyone, or even worse, people who think gender is binary will be confused and tell me I'm bisexual, so part of me wants to just tell them I'm bisexual to begin with... I'm really worried, this is probably the biggest, most stressful thing I've had to do in my entire life so far, and I'm worried it's going to make my life hell.
I would suggest telling your parents before telling anyone too publicly. You don't want them hearing from anyone else but you. You should wait until you're ready to tell your parents to tell people who will tell others. Also, once you've told you're closest friends, you can tell more people if you feel like they need to know. Just remember that you don't need to make an announcement to the entire school. You can just stop hiding it, and tell people when it comes up, if you feel comfortable. There's no need to tell every single person. Also, pansexuality can be a hard concept to grasp, especially for younger teens. You might want to consider just telling people about pansexuality if you want to explain to them what pansexuality is. You should wait to tell people when you are sure that it's something you want to do. Don't feel pressured to come out just because you set a goal. Just be sure that you really want to. Your coming out should be about you being comfortable. Good luck, buddy.
I think, even though it's not the same, I might choose "bisexual" to describe it to parents/friends rather than "pansexual" as that's a concept that will require a lot of extra explanation. If you don't mind making the explanation each time, then of course going for the more accurate term makes sense. Also, I can't stress this enough: As soon as you tell more than one or two people (and sometimes just that), the entire school will know within a day or two. That sort of gossip is something people just can't keep to themselves. As long as you're ready for that, then no problem, just make sure you don't tell your close friends expecting it to stay between them and you.
I'm fine with everyone in the school knowing, in fact I want that, but I'm worried they'll misunderstand who I am. I'm starting sophomore year next year, and I'd like to kick it off by coming out. My hope is that people who don't understand it will come to me and ask, which I'm fine with, but I'm worried they'll just gossip about it instead.
Are you planning on making a big announcement about it to everyone? I'm sorry, I'm just a little confused. And I think it would be hard for you to let everyone in your school know without expecting it to get back to your parents.
As Chip said after telling a few people it'll spread relatively rapidly. It did when I came out and from what I can see he knows the consequences of not coming out to his parents he's just feeling nervous which is understandable.
