Advice on coming out as genderfluid

[Mx London]

Hi everyone,

I've been doing a lot of thinking and I have decided I'd like to come out as genderfluid to my friends and family but I have no idea if it's "worth it" given the most change anybody will see is a new name, though I might ultimately do some type of transition.

How much of this should I try to figure out before talking to anybody?

I hope to have a conversation with my partner in the next week to make sure he is comfortable with supporting we when people use the wrong name etc. He is already aware I am genderfluid and is generally really awesome but I still worry that I'd be putting him through a lot by doing this "for no reason".

How do you decide if the time is right?

I have been thinking about it every day without fail for the last 4 months, regardless of how my gender is manifested and how strong or weak my dysphoria is. Before that point it was only really on my mind when dysphoria struck.

My family will likely disown me, they're super religious, but I do not depend on them for anything or seeing them regularly so while it would hurt, it doesn't impact my life.

Is it worth hurting them? Or have others in my position used a dead name with family on social occasions and lived as themselves otherwise?


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[KathyLauren]

I am sorry that your post hasn't had any replies so far.

Coming out is always hard.  It may be harder for someone who is genderfluid, since few people, including trans people (i.e. me), really understand it.  I hope you can get some support from others in a similar situation.

You ask how you decide if the time is right.  You do it when you have to do it.  For me, it was looking ahead at the remaining 1/3 of my life.  (I am 64, so living another 32 years would be optimistic.)  I could see that my senior years would be a steady downhill slide into depression if I didn't come out.  I knew what I wanted, and I knew I wanted it now.  So I had to come out, and accept whatever consequences were associated with that.

It is a risk-management process.  Are the bad stuff and the good stuff together that might or might not happen from coming out worse than the bad stuff and the good stuff that might or might not happen from not coming out?  Yes, it is a difficult assessment to make, especially since you are trying to predict the future and are therefore guessing.

Still, take your best guesses.  What are the bad and good possibilities in each case?  The more accurately you can identify them, the better your assessment will be.

[Charlie Nicki]

I think being super honest and explaining things in the easiest way possible is the best way to do it. Gender fluidity is very complex and a lot of people don't get it (heck, they barely get binary trans people), so prepare to be patient, very patient.

[Mx London]

I am sorry that your post hasn't had any replies so far.

Coming out is always hard.  It may be harder for someone who is genderfluid, since few people, including trans people (i.e. me), really understand it.  I hope you can get some support from others in a similar situation.

You ask how you decide if the time is right.  You do it when you have to do it.  For me, it was looking ahead at the remaining 1/3 of my life.  (I am 64, so living another 32 years would be optimistic.)  I could see that my senior years would be a steady downhill slide into depression if I didn't come out.  I knew what I wanted, and I knew I wanted it now.  So I had to come out, and accept whatever consequences were associated with that.

It is a risk-management process.  Are the bad stuff and the good stuff together that might or might not happen from coming out worse than the bad stuff and the good stuff that might or might not happen from not coming out?  Yes, it is a difficult assessment to make, especially since you are trying to predict the future and are therefore guessing.

Still, take your best guesses.  What are the bad and good possibilities in each case?  The more accurately you can identify them, the better your assessment will be.

Thank you for taking the time to answer, I really appreciate it.

I think you make an excellent point on the good and bad possibilities of each - I went through a similar decision when deciding who to tell about being pansexual and whether it was worth devastating my very religious mother given that I was in a long term relationship with a man. In this scenario I decided it wasn't worth saying anything to her, but that my friends should as they are a bigger part of my day to day life.

Where gender identity differs is that I want to change my name legally and be used by the new one, even if I didn't tell her the reason for the change (do came with no pronoun change or anything else). She has my name tattooed on her. I know she couldn't accept me as anything other than her daughter and I don't know if it's fair to "bother" her with my situation. I used to think I was a trans man growing up (but always felt it never quite sat right) and once spoke to her about what she thought of trans issues and told me it was a mental illness, and that "those people" should be studied. It really hurt.

My mother is barely in my life now as she is so toxic but I have a few siblings who still live at home for financial reasons and I don't want to lose them over it.

I don't think I'm strong enough yet to tell my family.

My friends are where I think I might be able to come out, most are pretty liberal and genuinely good but I think they will still have a hard time with it. Hell, *I* have a hard time with it and I understand what it means to be genderfluid heh.

I have no friends within the LGBTQIA+ community (the few I had were older gay men who aren't particularly understanding of trans issues) so I don't feel like there is anybody I can talk to who will understand.

Why is this all so complicated?

I think being super honest and explaining things in the easiest way possible is the best way to do it. Gender fluidity is very complex and a lot of people don't get it (heck, they barely get binary trans people), so prepare to be patient, very patient.

I can see the need for education- I train adults for a part of my job so that is something I'm comfortable with, it's just I don't feel I can speak with any authority as I'm the only gender queer person I know.


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