My Story on National Coming Out Day
On this day one year ago I was writing a very different article.
I was lamenting the fact that I hadn’t yet come out. I was calling myself a coward. I had planned to come out socially, planned to come out to my parents, start living my life as the woman I’m meant to be. I had been taking hormones for about 3 months, been on blockers about 5 months, and needed to take the next step. I couldn’t do it though, and instead it took me nearly another full year to build up the confidence to come out.
October 11th happens to be National Coming Out Day, a day meant to give a voice to the silence that that closeted LGBT+ are forced to live with. It’s a day to give closeted people an opportunity to be seen and be heard and to show that there is community beyond coming out, that things hopefully get better afterward and that they have family even if their own family doesn’t accept them.
I felt that this year I needed to write an empowering article. One that shows young LGBT+ kids that even if they’re getting bullied, even if they don’t know what’s happening in their life now, even if they’re scared, it will get better.
Recently in the news there was the story of a boy who was outed by his classmates, and in fear, committed suicide. Too many people suffer the same fate, they fear the bullying and persecution.
When you’re young and LGBT+, it’s hard to face the world. Everything that we do is held under a microscope, we’re constantly analyzing ourselves to make sure that we’re showing just enough of ourselves to be individuals but not enough of ourselves to be outed. Because being outed means the end of our lives as we know it. It means taking the power out of our hands and putting it into the hands of someone who may abuse it.
Something I’ve realized over the past year and a bit as I’ve been transitioning is that as LGBT+ people, we need to embrace our narratives. We need to show the world that we’re not afraid to exist because even if we’re bullied, even if we don’t know what to do next, we have huge communities behind us. The internet has given us so much power to connect with other people who are going through the same experiences as we are, and we’re stronger because of it.
My narrative was one that was like so many other trans people I’ve heard. It’s something people have spoken to me about since my coming out. There’s solidarity in commonality. Even if someone isn’t trans, isn’t queer, isn’t whatever we identify as, they may sympathize with some of our stories and our narratives, and that’s why we need to share them, especially on days like today.
I’ve known almost my whole life I was different, and I’ve known for most of that time that the different part was that I was Trans. When I was younger, around the time I started High School, I came across a show on different gender variants from across the world one night and immediately saw myself in the experiences of others I was seeing on TV. From there I spent years hiding, doing research in secret when my parents weren’t around, stealing pieces of my mom’s clothing to try on, crying at night and wishing for my life to change.
This lasted until three years ago, when my life went to hell, but when I met some of the most amazing people I’ve ever known and realizing that I needed to start taking control and doing things that make me happy.
What happened for me is that people in my life, people I considered my best friends, decided to spread horrible rumours about me. Tried to use their influence to ruin my life. They tried to get me fired from my job, tried to get me expelled from school, tried to ostracize me from my peers. In many ways they succeeded in some of their goals. I was ostracized, I was blamed by professors for the rumours going around about me, but thankfully many people knew better, knew the person that I was.
Thankfully for me, though, life going to hell didn’t mean somebody outing me for being transgender. So while the rest of my life went to hell because of bullying, I was able to seek help. I went to see a therapist for the first time in my life, I worked through my anxiety and depression, and I opened up to someone for the first time about being transgender.
I took my identity into my own hands. I decided that before someone could use it against me, I was going to use it to empower myself. I was going to embrace a part of me that I had hidden away for so long out of fear and I was going to live the life that I was meant to live.
What’s followed are the happiest two years of my life, the best friends I’ve ever had, and a life I never knew I could have.
By embracing my identity, I’ve been able to connect to so many people, I’ve been able to serve as an inspiration to people who are looking to go down a similar journey to the one I’m taking.
I guess what I’m trying to say is, on National Coming Out Day, we need to take a stand, we need to show that it is possible to be trans, be queer, be anything on the LGBT+ spectrum and be happy. We need to show that life goes on after the initial fear, and that despite how bad things may seem, love will always trump hate.
I truly wish that there was a way that we could show more LGBT+ people that we love them before it’s too late. I wish that we were raising money to support the happiness of people in our communities, rather than to commemorate their deaths.
I hope that by sharing positivity, we can get to that point. We can make a difference if we all take a stand against hatred.