Coming Out as Trans

Six years ago I had a well meaning therapist try to point out to me that I should take a look within myself and see how I feel about my gender orientation. He said this due to a year of me unloading all of my issues and insecurities onto him and a pattern that he recognized within my stories that I personally did not, and would not for another four years.

At that time I was dealing with being newly diagnosed as bipolar, severe depression, the fallout of having a miscarriage, anxiety, and the beginning of agoraphobia. 2020 was a rough year, for most people not only me, and I didn't have the time or energy to take him seriously about reflecting on my gender at that time. I wish I could find him now to tell him he was right.

Personally, I had to deal, manage, or solve all of my other issues before I was able to sit down and have a heart to heart with myself over how I felt about being a girl. It took more therapy, being painfully honest with myself, and looking at my own misconceptions on what was required to be 'trans'. I had subconsciously convinced myself that I couldn't be trans due to not being self aware enough to recognize it when I was a kid like many of my trans friends were able to do. Therapy admittedly helped with a lot of this.

Even so, I wasn't ready to admit or fully commit to wanting to be a guy. I came out in May of 2024, at the age of 26, as non-binary because I believed that due to my lack of severe dysphoria with a lot of what is labeled as feminine that I better fit on the binary spectrum rather than at one end or another. I think I needed this step to heal a lot of past restraints I had placed on myself trying to fit in as well as my beliefs on femininity and masculinity. I also continued to go to therapy, so much therapy.

I started HRT July 5th, 2024 injecting small weekly amounts of testosterone. I was worried, as I think most trans people are, that I would start HRT and hate the changes. But with every dose, every change, I fell more and more in love with myself again. My confidence grew and I've never regretted a signal change or shot.

I count myself as lucky, because my family has always been endlessly supportive of me and my journey, and I know a lot of people who cannot come out safely like I was able to. It wasn't all sunshine and rainbows though. I lost my long time best friend of over ten years due to his transphobia. I was targeted at my job for coming out as trans. But I still don't regret it, because I am happier than I have ever been.

I am a year and a half into taking testosterone, I have had no surgeries yet, and I am still learning and growing into what it means to be a guy trapped in a girls body. I have connected with my local LGBTQIA2S+ community, I have friends that constantly push me to step outside my boundaries while defending me, my identity, and my pronouns to any and every one around us, strangers and friends alike.

Find your happy, even if its terrifying and challenges everything you thought you knew. Go to therapy, take what they say and sit with it, take the time to reflect on yourself. It is worth it to be happy. It is worth it to be authentically you. Whether it is your gender, your mental health, your sexuality, or your passions find it, accept the journey is going to have ups and downs, that it is going to require a lot of hard work and tough skin.

You are worth it.