From Twitter 10-10-2010

( Tweets. Scintillating, innit. )

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The obligatory Coming Out Day post

I don’t remember what I was doing, or planning to do, but I do remember my grandmother sitting on the steps of the house my family lived in until my freshman year of high school and her trying to dissuade me by saying, “But people will think that you’re queer.”

“That’s fine, because I am.”

Now, I suspect that she didn’t mean it in the sense that I meant it. I certainly recall other relatives asking me not to try and push the issue of coming out (and I’ve had several of those along the way) at my poor, ancient grandmother. Even so, I like to look back and think that this was a coming out of sorts. That it arose like it did, and that I can remember it as I do is a little gift.

Plus, I like the word queer. It’s how I identify. It describes my never-straightness and my not-binary desires more concisely than long paragraphs ever could.

~*~

When I began my transition, I initially tried very hard to be what’s called “stealth.” Being stealth entails not only being recognized as one’s gender identity, but being recognized as such entirely seamlessly with no indication of one’s transgender status.

Being stealth is appealing mostly because it (at least theoretically) does away with a lot of the crap that comes along with being transgender — the speculation, the awkward questions, the friends who try to be hip, the way people give lip service to who without treating you as your proper gender, transphobia and its associated violence, etc.

The problem for me in being stealth was that a) it was an incomplete story about who I am, and b) it made me feel like I was keeping things hard, not just for myself but for other transfolk.

When I was hiding, I had few avenues to express what I was actually feeling. Any fear or frustration, any misstep or failure in presentation might give me away. It was the very worst kind of loneliness because not only did I spend a lot of time feeling like I was the only person who felt the way I did, but I was fulfilling that prophecy by making it impossible to share my experience with others. Others who, if likewise in secret, would never recognize me for what I was and vice versa.

Being out about my transness has helped me own who I am more effectively, and there are people around me who’ve now had an opportunity to think about the lives of transpeople in a concrete way.

It’s still hard a lot of the time — I have to be my own role model more often than not, and I spend a lot of time feeling not-quite human, or frustrated because I feel like I’m not allowed to engage sexuality like other queer men (or, you know, ever), or like I’ll always be a disappointment — but for me it’s worth the trade-off.

~*~

Tonight, in ASL class, our sign teacher taught us the sign for “coming out of the closet.” I tried to explain to my mom what it was. I’m not sure she got it, or understood why that sign wasn’t for her.

There was another group meeting at the LGBTQ center where our class meets, and on the way out she asked what it was. I didn’t know how to sign or say effectively enough to convey that it was a group of people in a safe space, and that I wasn’t comfortable discussing it, or outing the participants to her. Instead, I just didn’t answer.

Coming out is a constant thing. Every new associate means a new disclosure. Sometimes old associates need reminding. Sometimes strangers ask about a wife or girlfriend. Sometimes these things happen in the middle of the night on a cross-country bus and there’s no way in hell I’m going to say, “Well, actually…” Other times I’m a lot more open.

Being out is personal. It’s a privilege to be sure — I’m lucky in so many ways — but it’s also one of the best things that ever happened to me. It’s kept me alive.

This post has been mirrored from Christian A. Young's Dimlight Archive. To see it in its original format, visit dimlightarchive.com