A lot of people don’t want to come out as trans because they think it will make their lives harder. This is really similar to being concerned if your kid or partner comes out as trans to you. Many parents or partners are immediately concerned that life is going to get a lot harder. But let’s examine this for a minute: what does life getting harder mean for trans people?
It can be hard and stressful to not know whether you are trans or not. It can feel like, on the one hand, you are safe as long as you do not admit to anyone, including yourself, that you have feelings about your gender. But, you may find yourself thinking about it for hours at a time, reading all the articles or watching all the videos or listening to all the podcasts, all while thinking, “that’s definitely not me.”
My question is, having gone through this myself, is that an easy life? I’m not sure.
The universe has a lot of one-way processes. Cooking food. Burning a fire. Making art. Growing plants from seeds. You can’t put the materials back to the way they were when you started.
Coming out as trans to oneself can feel like one of those one-way processes. You can’t unlearn other people’s experiences that you resonate with. You can’t forget your increased awareness of your thoughts and feelings.
So you slow it down. You delay. And that’s fine. But you can’t ever put time back to where you started.
A lot of trans people go through a stage where they overcompensate and conform to femininity or masculinity in an attempt to fit in, but perhaps, they find this does not make them happy or feel like they are doing the right thing. In his published diaries (We Both Laughed In Pleasure: The Selected Diaries of Lou Sullivan), Lou Sullivan, trans man and activist, describes wearing dresses for years to make his boyfriend happy and to try to fit in, do the right thing, perform womanhood appropriately.
This struggle to be okay with conforming resonates with my trans story. I also wore dresses for years. I enjoyed wearing dresses sometimes. I felt like I was dressing up in a costume. Eventually, once I gave myself permission to explore other clothing styles, I realized I was more comfortable wearing mostly men’s clothes.
