My story of coming out has been a long and arduous journey, full of pitfalls and dark passages through the depths of human emotion... It has taken me eleven months, many bottles of pills and liquor, gallons of ice cream, countless hours poured into video games and films, moving houses, severing certain family ties, sleepless, tear filled nights, and two suicide attempts... But I've made it.
Nearly a year ago my perception of my gender began to fall apart. I'd been falling down the rabbit hole since my first breakup in 2010, with a genderqueer FAAB person. In the middle of April 2011 I began experimenting with my mom's makeup, and just 2 weeks after coming out as pansexual, I noticed something wasn't quite right, and that thing that wasn't right is in my pants. I called myself androgynous for a short period of time, and when being called "sir" or "young man" at work, my mind surged with electric pain and confusion. My mother got me that job, and when I told her I was androgynous, she freaked out and I got kicked out for a night. I thought I was going to be homeless forever, but she called me later the next day and, since I didn't have the confidence to make it on my own, and I didn't want to freeload off my friend's parents, I agreed to come back into my mother's house. She told me she didn't want to speak about the incident again, and I felt like there was nothing I could do. My father's side of the family was awesome with it, and I may have been fine at that point, but they live all across the USA, and their supportive instant messages were heartwarming, yet still too distant to give me much strength.
Each day, I sat in waiting, for I knew I had to get away from her as fast as I could. I almost moved to another province, but I decided to just go on vacation then move out on my own, and stay in my hometown. I spent December 2011 drinking and working and crying, and by January I had had enough. I made the move to take care of myself. Little by little, I started to write again, and in creating, I built up another world for myself and I hoped one day others would join me in my own trans-haven. My courage grew, and in Febuary 2012 I came out to my mother's side of the family.
It started with a long bus ride across town to my mother's house, and my former jail. I sat down with her in the living room and told her straight up that I was going to be changing my name and I would be full time in a matter of months. She brushed it off and said that I'm free to do whatever I want. I grew frustrated with her, given her lack of understanding of what I had to go through in her house, and we don't speak anymore. I emailed the rest of the family and over the course of the week, responses poured in from my aunts, uncles, and cousins across portions of Canada and the US, all supporting me and
acknowledging my struggle. The last step was to land another job and come out, and after 4 weeks, I'm now out at work. I'm now free. My boss and the coworkers that were present were all understanding about it, though my boss was kinda shocked
Just thought I'd share my story with y'all and let ya know that on this side of the fence, the grass ain't just greener, it's got like trees on it that can sprout mass amounts of chocolate, and there's unicorns running around pooping out glitter.
