Transgender Awareness Week

A guest post

Today kicks off transgender awareness week, which occurs from November 13-19 every year. Over the last year, my first out, something that has hit me over and over again is that because I’m publicly trans, I end up speaking for more than just myself. I’m speaking for teens who won’t be listened to. I’m speaking for folks who are erasing themselves for safety reasons. I’m speaking for folks who aren’t out.

So often, we hear people comment on trans folks like this is some new fad. It’s not new or a fad. Lots of trans adults aren’t out publicly and in 2024 America, it should be clear to everyone what some are in the position of not being public. That got me to thinking if I could lend my platform to someone, at the start of trans awareness week, and let them share about themself. People who are trans and not out are just as much a part of the trans community as those who are public. They also deserve a platform but don’t typically have a way to speak for themselves. So today’s article is a guest post, from someone who is not public about their trans identity.

Note 1: This article was written before the election.

Note 2: In the trans community, when someone is talking about their egg cracking, that is symbolic for realizing they are trans.

Veronica

Genderfluid Flag

“I am selfish, I am wrong

I am right, I swear I’m right

I swear I knew it all along”

— Dashboard Confessional

To me, those words sum up the dichotomy I live with every day. It’s a new feeling, one that replaced many years of self-loathing. It’s an attempt to learn to love myself, while a reminder that I’m still not fully there. It’s an admission that it’s OK to be all of me, while simultaneously feeling like it’s not.

It’s being told that you’re brave by the people you trust, yet feeling like a coward because of the people you don’t. It’s knowing that you know what you don’t know when it comes to your situation, and losing the confidence to speak up because of it, even if you think you’re right.

It’s all of those things and more, because it’s my reality. To some, it’s a symbol of bravery; to others, selfishness. To some, I’m joining an oppressed class and making my life harder; to others, I want it both ways. To some, I belong here and I always did; to others, I’m on the outside looking in at them.

And my answer to all of that is: Yes.

I am a trans genderfluid person. I’m brave enough to admit that to myself but not brave enough to come out publicly. Maybe I’ll get there someday. Maybe I never will. Maybe I’ll feel comfortable presenting, but only at Pride events and other LGBTQ+ activities. Maybe I’ll never feel comfortable presenting outside my own home. But I know that I can’t and won’t hide it from myself, and I don’t want to hide it from the people I care most about.

In many cases, I’m very lucky. I have come out to roughly 30 people, and I have never had a bad experience. When it’s been a cis person, they ask me what I need from them, tell me how much they love me no matter what my gender is and tell me how happy they are for me that I don’t have to hide this from them anymore. They tell me that they’re with me whether I feel masculine or feminine, and it’s true.

When it’s a non-trans LGBTQ+ person, same thing. These people have been amazing, telling me that I’m brave for coming out to them, asking pronouns immediately, using my feminine name as often as my masculine name. I genuinely connect with both my names and both sets of pronouns, so I tell people they can use either for me. It works for me, and it’s only deepened my connections to these people to be part of the rainbow with them.

And then my community: the trans community has been nothing short of incredible to me. Every trans person I’ve come out to has been incredibly supportive, happy to welcome me into the community and always willing to talk through my feelings. When I try a new piece of female clothing or take a small gender affirming action, such as painting my nails, they’re always there to celebrate it with me.

Even before my egg cracked, I loved this community because I have met so many wonderful people who have shared their stories with me. And now that I have my own story, they’re happy to hear it and compare it with their own experiences. Having each trans person tell me in their own words, “You’re one of us and you always have been; this is where you always belonged” has meant so much to me and made it so much easier to accept and learn to love all of myself. After so many years of burying my feelings, to begin to love my female self as well as my male self is a wonderful feeling.

But that doesn’t mean this is easy.

Getting my egg cracked meant a whole new reality for me. I’m fortunate that I work for myself and thus don’t have to worry about my company deciding to get rid of me for being genderfluid. And I’m even more fortunate that a couple of my main clients are strongly pro-LGBTQ+. But it might mean fewer opportunities for me elsewhere if other clients decide they don’t want to work with someone who’s LGBTQ+. That’s one reason for staying closeted.

I also haven’t come out to a single family member yet, outside of my spouse. I’m afraid of what might happen and how I might blow up my life if I do. Our families might surprise us, but neither is likely to be all that supportive of this. And maybe I’ll get there someday. But until then, I have to hold this secret inside.

And while I held my secret of being genderfluid inside for decades, the truth is that I didn’t know I was holding a secret. I thought I just had some feminine characteristics and desires, but they were fantasies, the same as being a professional athlete might be a fantasy. But that’s the problem with fantasies: when they become realistic, they don’t seem fantasy anymore.

Nobody will ever confuse me with LeBron James or Patrick Mahomes. Being a professional athlete was not realistic for me, which only became more apparent as I grew older. But presenting female? That was possible. And as I got to know members of the trans community — my community — I started to see that the feelings I had were something many of them had struggled with their entire lives.

I also started to see that these were truly incredible people. When you grow up in an intense Christian family, you don’t always get exposed to different types of people and their experiences. And all my life, I was the only one who I knew of who had these desires to sometimes wear a pretty dress or a cute sweater. And those led to feelings of shame that I didn’t know how to express or explore.

Which, of course, is nonsense. Being trans is something you’re born as, and there’s no right or wrong way to be trans. Some people are trans binary. Some are nonbinary. Some are genderfluid. Not all genderfluid people identify as trans. All of these people are valid.

They’re also far more common than most people think. How many times have you played a board game and rolled a pair of sixes? It’s probably happened plenty of times, right? Well, the odds of a person being trans are a little better than rolling a pair of sixes. It’s somewhere between 3% and 5.5% according to a recent CDC study of US High School students, so around 1 out of every 25 people is trans. That’s fairly common, and perfectly normal.

And when my egg cracked, I realized I had nothing to be ashamed of and nothing to hide anymore. I was normal; I was just trans and genderfluid. And that doesn’t mean that I needed to come out to the world right away. I have my safety and my earning potential to think about. But it also means that my home needed to be a safe place for me to explore myself. I needed to be able to honestly explore my true self and learn to love all of me.

I’m a long way from getting to that point. But I’m moving in that direction as I embrace myself and work on letting myself be free. And one thing I can tell you is that no matter how long it takes you, no matter when you come out or if you come out, there will be people waiting for you who are ready to love you for who you are.

But the only one who can and should decide when it’s time is you. Whenever you make that decision, I hope you know that your feelings are valid and your true self is beautiful. You deserve to be happy, you deserve to love yourself and you deserve to be free.

xoxo