Today is 14 April 2025, and it marks the fifth anniversary of maybe the single scariest thing I've ever done in my life. Five years ago, I came out as trans to the world, a process that was dreadful in the most literal sense and grudging and generally demoralizing, but necessary for my own sanity. It was in many ways an investment in my own future, in that it only made me feel worse in the immediate aftermath but now I couldn't be more thankful that I did follow through w/ it.
I realized I was trans in the summer of 2019, after years of emotional meltdowns punctuated by despairing that I wished I'd been born a girl. This was something I'd sort of always known about myself, but I was able to rationalize by claiming that I just didn't care all that much about gender and that I'd never transition because it seemed like too much work. It wasn't until that summer, when I was sixteen, that I was essentially forced to confront the fact that this purported apathy was no match for the abject misery I was constantly feeling about my voice and appearance and inability to express myself in a way I felt was authentic to my actual self. I had been lying to myself.
Over the course of my senior year of high school I came out to a few close friends one by one, being unable to withstand the pressure of thinking about my gender at every waking moment and being unable to tell anyone. To my relief, they were kind and understanding, and perhaps more importantly did not (to my knowledge) out me to anyone else. I had no intention of coming out before graduation; even living in a relatively left-leaning part of the country, high schoolers will be high schoolers (i.e. cruel and assholeish) and even one of the aforementioned friends I'd already come out to had said homophobic and transphobic stuff in the past and I just didn't want to deal w/ that from everybody. I knew everything would be easier for me if I just kept quiet. I wouldn't have come out until at least June if not for
Spring 2020 - COVID-19 hit and school went entirely remote for weeks as lockdown went into effect. The pandemic continued to spread and things got worse and the projected end date of lockdown kept moving further and further back until in April when it became clear we weren't coming back before graduation. It was a relief to know that I'd never see most of my classmates again, and so I wouldn't have to stay in the closet any longer if I didn't want to, but the idea of coming out was still terrifying. I was essentially waiting for the day when I knew I couldn't take it any longer. When I finally did tell my family, they were surprised, moreso than I would have expected, and it honestly sucks knowing most trans people have a much worse experience coming out to their respective families than I did, because the first few weeks after coming out were genuinely agonizing. My parents were and continue to be compassionate and supportive, but at first my mom kept forgetting to stop calling me by my deadname, which upset me greatly and frustrated her, and both of them insisted that I tell my grandparents before coming out to the rest of the world, which was something I had no desire to do and honestly even in hindsight was totally not their place to make me do. Both of them also wanted to kind of interview me one-on-one to try and get me to explain the thought process that had led me to conclude I was a girl, and I was both unprepared and extremely reluctant to go along w/ that as well. I love my parents and they've been generally wonderful to me but their inexperience w/ dealing w/ trans people made the first little while after coming out of the closet extremely challenging, and I was too naïve at the time to recognize that no-one is owed an explanation when it comes to my gender identity and it is not my (or any trans person's) responsibility to make people understand.
This was probably the most emotionally turbulent point in my life; I felt like I'd sealed my own fate. By exiting the closet I was ringing a bell I could not un-ring and I was miserable. I lost contact w/ most of my friends on purpose and others by accident, for which I blamed myself. My relationship w/ my brother grew fraught. Running into people I'd not seen since before coming out filled me w/ dread. I didn't want to be seen by anyone. I couldn't stop thinking about gender and gender dysphoria and expression and everything else and I was worried that I'd be stuck fretting about those things for the rest of my days.
However, now five years later, a lot has changed and I am pleased to report that It, in fact, truly Gets Better. I've been on hormones for two years, legally changed my name, and become much more comfortable in my own body and interacting w/ the world. Even my voice, always my greatest source of dysphoria and frustration, doesn't bother me so much anymore for the most part. I feel especially fortunate to have amassed quite a formidable support network of queer and allied friends to whom I owe a debt of utmost gratitude. I embrace my queer identity now completely and totally and I love being trans. Even when it sucks to be trans (which I don't need to tell you is most of the time in this fucking country - nay, planet) it's fucking great to be trans and I won't hear otherwise. The people in my life have on the whole been more supportive of me being who I am than I have been to myself most of the time, and if you're one of those people reading this, I thank you from the bottom of my heart.
(I wish I could make this section longer given how negative the emotions for most of this piece were, but it's kind of easier to write about those emotions than positive ones. And also I don't want to go on for paragraphs patting myself on the back for my courage, but damn it, it was a brave thing to do and I'm damned proud of it, and I admire each and every trans person on this Earth who has come out, even to just one other person. It's something that takes so much trust and mettle to do.)
To this inexhaustive list of the trans/NB/GNC people who have been in my life at one point or another even in only a modest capacity, thank you: Cassandra, Kate, Nel, Sky, Lee, Simon, Bella, Roxy, Andria, Red, Vappy, Zovi, Rin, Hayley, Pyre, Imogen, Han, HB, Grace, Rae, Liam, Bella, Alex, Artemis, Apple, Ava, Kah, Octa, Cloot, Cobie, Isaac, Izzy, Victoria, Corey, Adam, Lyla, Liz, Leah and anyone else I forgot
