I Came Out — Twice
No, it wasn’t easier the second time around
--
If you look at my name as well as maybe a quick scan of my profile picture, most people wouldn’t think that I was born anything other than a male. Though as it turns out, I wasn’t. I was born a girl or ‘designated female at birth’ as the phrase goes.
When I was a kid, I didn’t think much of unconventional relationships, I’d thank my pretty liberal parents for that. In fact, my first ever boyfriend was a black African boy from my Scout group, whilst I am white but with Indian heritage. We were dared one night to kiss, and then a further dare ‘forced’ us to be a couple for at least a week. It turns out it lasted a bit longer than that; we even went to Disneyland Paris together with the group as a couple. Bearing in mind, we were about 12 at the time.
As I got older though, towards the end of high school, I’d realised that I wasn’t (at the time) sexually attracted to boys. I was really into other girls, and it wasn’t until I’d fallen for a girl in my last year of school that I had to say anything about it. Luckily for me, she felt the same way, and we became a couple. At first, I tried to hide it from my family and peers, while my close friends all knew about it. Though we all know how fast a rumour travels in high school.
The word was out. I was the only ‘out’ lesbian in the school. Technically I was found out, but at that point, I stopped being paranoid about it. After all, bullies will bully.
Out of my family, my sister was the first to find out about my sexuality. Though again, not of my own volition, she had read my diary and wrote me a note about it explaining how I didn’t need to hide it and that it was pretty chill, no need to worry. After that my family were ‘informed’, by that I mean, I told a few influential family members that I had a girlfriend, then that news spread to the rest of the family.
Coming out the first time was insanely nerve-wracking even with a liberal family. As time went on, I came to know that ‘gay’ didn’t paint the whole picture of who I was. It felt as though I was just playing a part for everyone else. It wasn’t until I discovered the term ‘transgender’ that the pieces began to fall into place.
