5. Inviting In

Coming out is hard.

The last few posts I have made are more general “this is what I’ve been thinking about, this is what I’ve been doing,” posts, but today I am going to be a bit more focused on where I am at right now.

It’s thanksgiving weekend, and I am at home. Or, more specifically, I am at my childhood home, spending the weekend with family and friends. I’m very fortunate in that everyone I know is very progressive, accepting, and, for better or worse, astute. My mother, who I am staying with (my parents have been separated since I was in high school), is one of the more socially apt people I know, and the grace she navigates the world with is paralleled by kindness that I see lacking in many people’s parents. My father (who I will be seeing later today) is one of the most emotionally intelligent and articulate people I know, whose empathy outpaces even my mother’s. I’m also lucky because I happened to surround myself with friends during my childhood — some starting as early as age four — who happened to be, despite outward signs of cis- and hetero-normativity, be wonderfully kind and general paragons of good character. Sometimes I feel guilty for not taking the time to unambiguously tell them all how much they have meant — and continue to mean — to me, and express how grateful I am that we still find ourselves in each other’s company several times a year despite having grown up, moved away, and started families of our own. This is all to say that these people matter to me. Their continued presence is a gift, and I see how most people do not have what I have in this regard.

However, none of them know that I am trans. At least, not yet. I have been considering coming out to them (some or all) this weekend, but despite having what seems to be the best community of (straight) people with whom to navigate that conversation, I am terrified to do so. In many ways, it feels like some self-preservation mechanism, borrowed from a deep-seated injury-aversion instinct, pushing back on me whenever I feel like (or imagine) getting close. “Pull your hand back from the fire, you’ll get burned!” or “step back from that ledge, you might fall!” It also feels a bit like some sort of social conditioning at work, the same of which internally discourages non-sequitur interjections from plunging a conversation into an awkward pit: “anyway, did you know that a termite queen can live for fifty years, and lays a new egg ever second or so her whole life???” … “what the hell are you talking about? What does this have to do with anything?” Perhaps it is the social side of that same self-preservation mechanism, one that sees awkwardness and embarrassment as things as harmful as burns or falls.

So, what am I to do? It is hard to imagine a conversation naturally meandering its way into territory close to “so, who all here has a queer identity? Let’s share them all!” Should I force the issue? That feels like the last thing I would ever want to do. However, at some point my transition is going to become so undeniably apparent that it would take a fool to not see that something was changing. I’ve imagined that when I see my friends — incidentally, this afternoon at 4PM, which is the first time I will have seen any of them since I began HRT — I may hear one of them say “hey, you look different!” to which I could humorously respond “yEaH! iT’s tHiS nEw MeDiCaTiOn i’M oN…!” and perhaps use that as some chaotic foray into the subject.

The ironic thing is that I KNOW these conversations are all likely going to go just fine. My friends are all queer supporting and involved in various aspects of public service: one is a public interest lobbyist working to reduce gun deaths in Chicago; one is an emergency room physician; one is an attorney who has spent time as a public defender; one, a social worker who helps troubled youth (many of whom are queer), actually was integrally involved in skirting Ohio’s terrible trans-care labyrinth for a patient who needed a letter that somehow convinced the powers-that-be that they were in enough mental distress to qualify for treatment, but not so much mental distress as to be disqualified from treatment (I am so glad I don’t live in a red state…). My one partner (the one who originally posed the impetus question) even suggested to me “have you considered that they may be excited and proud to have a trans friend?”

But still. It’s haaarrrdd…!

We’ll see. I’ll be with my mother for much of the rest of the morning and during the middle of the day, so maybe an opportunity will come up then. I’ll be seeing my father during the late morning, although his terminally ill wife’s condition makes me feel a bit like making a visit about me in any small way would be grossly tone deaf. I’ll be spending the evening with my friends and their families, although the chaos of a house full of 2-to-8-year-olds might make any meaningful conversation hard. But I know that the clock is ticking. As some point, whether I take action or not, I’ll be outing myself.

And that brings me to an interesting passage I read in the book “He/She/They”:

“‘I am no longer coming out […] From now on, I am only inviting others in.’ […] It takes great vulnerability and courage to share that we are transgender or queer with others, especially in a world that disenfranchises so many of us. If someone is coming out to you — understand that they are inviting you in to their truth, to a piece of their heart. They are trusting you with intimate information that you are not entitled to.”

This idea of “inviting others in” resonates with me. Perhaps that is the framing that will eventually push me over the edge, or get me to pass my hand through the proverbial flame. I am letting people in on a clandestine but exciting truth: they get to be a part of something new. Perhaps this, in a strange twist, is a crack in the door I can take as an invitation to show them, through bringing them into this conversation, how much they have meant — and continue to mean — to me.

And, if any of them happen to read this someday, yes: I’m talking about you.