A coming-out story

How joy and support helped me find how I fit in

I appreciate you! I also appreciate my partner, friends, family, clients, and Kokikai Aikido classmates. (Some of you are reading this, hello!) You give me a lot of love and support and I couldn’t do it without you.

I want to briefly express how heartbroken I am about the recent death of Nex Benedict, a 16-year-old non-binary teen in Oklahoma. They were bullied for months, and died the night after an altercation with bullies in a school bathroom. I am so sad and angry, for Nex, and their family.

I’ve been practicing telling a 5-minute story, since I attended a speaker training last fall with SpeakOUT Boston, the nation’s oldest LGBTQ+ speakers bureau conducting peer-led training programs since 1972.

I’m learning to tell a coming out story, to give audiences—schools, companies, community organizations, etc—a sense of what it’s like to be LGBTQ+. Yesterday, I attended another speaker training workshop and had the opportunity to share my story with a room full of LGBTQ+ folks. It was a lovely experience to share and to hear others’ stories.

I crafted my story to be one of trans joy. You can find many trans stories that inspire rage, frustration, and grief, but I believe it’s important to realize what’s possible when trans people are loved and supported. This is not the only story I could tell, but I hope I’ve chosen a beneficial one.

Here’s my story:

I was scared to come out as trans.

I thought being trans would:

1. Break up my relationship

2. Be unprofessional / stigmatized at work

3. Mean my friends and family would stop speaking to me when they realized I was trans

These fears were subconscious, ingrained in me from our culture.

So, I tried hard to fit in as a woman.

I wore dresses and makeup.

I used my old, feminine name for everything: email addresses, usernames, websites.

I attended women’s events in my industry.

On the outside, I looked like a happy, successful woman in my 20’s.

But on the inside, I felt bad.

I’m 33 years old now. I grew up in the ‘90s, with zero representation of transmasculine or non-binary people who looked like me.

I didn’t have the words or concepts to express how I felt: I was uncomfortable being a girl.

If this picture had sound, it would be, “HISSSSSSSS.” And no, we did not provoke these large swans, other than sitting on the dock near them.

The first time I met a trans man, in my 20’s, he looked so masculine to me that I assumed I could never change my name and appearance like he had.

When I met a non-binary person who wore dresses and makeup sometimes like I did, they blew my mind. We became friends. I saw myself in their fashion choices but also in their discomfort if someone referred to them as “she” or “a woman,” which was wrong.

I started trying on new clothes and new names to try to find a better fit.

But I was worried what my transness would mean in my relationship with my partner. We had been in a close relationship for a few years.

I tried to warn him, “Something is wrong with my gender,” but I didn’t know how to explain any further at the time.

One day, my partner asked me what I see when I look in the mirror: what identities are important to me.

I answered honestly, “When I look in the mirror, I see myself as male. I see a men’s haircut, even though it’s not. [I had longer hair back then.] I see a version of myself no one else sees.”

My partner was not angry or upset. He was curious.

He asked, “What does that mean, you see yourself as male?”

I said, “I don’t want to change my body, but I don’t think I can pass as a guy.”

He asked, “How about with a beard?”

I laughed, because growing facial hair was so far outside anything I had considered. But I felt a big relief at my partner’s open curiosity and support.

The next time we went to the beach together, instead of wearing a bikini I wore a binder (like a tight tank top) and swim trunks.

My partner looked at me and said, “Wow, you look so hot!”

I felt very happy—loved and supported—and more comfortable in my own skin.

Free to expand into a self that fit me better.

I chose a new, gender-neutral name: Rey.

I actually came out at work with my new name and identity before I came out to a lot of my friends and family, but that’s another story.

Thanks so much for reading! Let me know what you think in the comments.

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Take care,

Rey