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Coming out. You strangers first and then what?

Discussion in 'Coming Out Advice' started by HunterInPlaid, Aug 3, 2015.

  1. HunterInPlaid

    Regular Member

    Joined:
    Aug 3, 2015
    Messages:
    15
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    Location:
    Banbury
    Sexual Orientation:
    Straight
    Out Status:
    A few people
    I'm going to start with a random anecdote about realising my gender identity, because I joined this forum because I don't know any trans people in real life and I feel like even if I was out, I'd still feel alone and I want to tell people who might understand more. Really it’s the main thing I want to do by posting this, but advice would also be welcome. My school has a debate club, full of the cool people (unbigoted and pro-equality. Not those twenty people with the same hair cut that somehow got the "cool" label. I'm not saying they're all evil, but you know who I mean). At the beginning of the year we had a discussion on equal job opportunities and wages for women and everyone was getting insanely passionate until the teacher in charge pointed out that genders are genders and there are lines at some point and that we wouldn’t want fully integrated public toilets. That’s when everyone sat back and was like; yeah, okay, got a bit carried a way for a minute. I, however, just sat there like; hell yeah, that sounds awesome! All of life’s problems sorted!


    It didn’t occur to me that this sort of stuff made me trans. It didn’t occur to me when I was four and a girl in my reception class pushed me against the wall and told me I will like princesses, I was a girl, I had to. It didn’t occur to me when I made paper trophies so I could play football with the boys because going out of my way to be a girl was getting too exhausting. I’m not saying that girls have to like princesses or boys with football, I just didn’t know that my gender didn’t match my sex from a young age like it seems other people have – at least not consciously, I basically just panicked for thirteen years. This was all largely down to a lack of my own understanding, I thought I understood the transgender community but a few months ago I saw/read about the wider range of non-binary genders and I started to make so much more sense, I know I’m agender now, and it’s like breathing the right air. (Too poetic? I can’t stop it, I write.)


    I want to come out and I know I could have worse people to come out to. My mum’s family is pretty prejudice but she’s mostly better than them, she’s just really uneducated on this sort of stuff; I’ve brought up transgender before but she doesn’t really understand how there are more genders than just identifying as man or woman. My dad is okay with my step brother and cousin being gay but when it comes to trans I’m not so sure. He really wants me to do more feminine things and he makes way to much of a big deal out of it when I wear anything vaguely feminine (and I mean vaguely) he has also said, and I quote “Even if you grow up and decide to be a trans man, you’ll always be my little girl”.


    I’ve already tried coming out to my friends, who also go to that debate club, but I’m prone to random outburst and I think they just dismissed it as that. We did get into a conversation once but we’re feminists – actual feminism, and they understand you don’t have to be a girl to be a feminist – so they took the conversation somewhere completely different and started saying the sort of things cisgender people say to show they really don’t understand how being trans feels. So even if I did get them to listen I’m not sure they’d get it. :bang:
     
  2. Mike64

    Regular Member

    Joined:
    Jul 15, 2015
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    Location:
    New york
    Sexual Orientation:
    Lesbian
    I think I get where you are coming from. Since I was a little kid I have spent my life really trying to be more girlie. I kept telling myself that I could do it if I tried hard enough, just like I told myself that I could like being with guys if I tried hard enough. Neither one works. I am not sure where I will feel the right fit physically because my insurance wont cover anything trans related so I feel stuck in the body I am in for now. So far I have posted on this forum, told one friend on Facebook, told my therapist, and told my wife. My wife is a little wigged out but trying to deal. Now I am wondering where I go from here. I think a local support group once I can get the courage to show up in person. Lots of different reasons for feeling afraid. I guess I am just taking it day by day because for me I am still getting used to it being perfectly fine and dandy that I am trans. I have to accept myself better I think before sharing this with anyone else I am close to. I am picking and choosing carefully at the moment.