Experiences of trans and gender diverse young people
Coming out
For many trans and gender diverse young people we spoke to, ‘coming out’ and choosing to share their identity with others was a complicated process. It could be gratifying, relieving, challenging and difficult and, for many, it was a repetitive process. It involved negotiating different responses that could be affirming and positive, frightening, and/or confusing. This page covers the following topics:
- Responses from friends and family
- Coming out multiple times
- Responding to an event or incident
- Choosing the time and place
- Choosing not to come out
- Navigating family fears, norms and traditions
- Being made homeless
- Support from friends and the queer community
Responses from friends and family
For the young people we spoke with coming out to friends, family and others often involved anticipating different responses which were sometimes unexpected. Freya came out to friends in a group chat. She said ‘when it came to coming out, I was very prepared to just sod everyone off [and] if you don’t like it, who cares’. She was surprised by the response and ‘within five minutes some of them we’re putting in the chat like, cool, good for you.’
Some family responses encouraged young people to come out. PJ said his aunt took him aside and said “I know that you want to change,” ‘so she got the ball rolling with me coming out’. Young people sometimes thought particular groups, such as older relatives, would be less accepting. Ezio said he worried about his grandmother’. ‘I explained it to her and it took her about five minutes and she was like, “okay yeah”. He continued ‘I’ve been called pretty much every name [and] it’s actually rare she gets my name actually right but she’s never called me by my old name since like coming out which has been pretty nice’. Rosa said that their friends ‘didn’t really have much of a [positive or negative] reaction’, their brother ‘didn’t react well’ and their grandma has been ‘especially supportive’.
M says that with their family things ‘aren’t always smooth but there is a ‘foundation of love’.
M says that with their family things ‘aren’t always smooth but there is a ‘foundation of love’.
My friends were quite supportive for the most part and have been like as accepting as they can be, of course like different friends will understand things at different levels, that kind of stuff so it’s just been a process but so long as that friend like the friendship is strong and the love that grounds that friendship is there then has always been like a very supportive space for me to go to. And with my family things of course have, aren’t always smooth but again that, that foundation of love has allowed things to like for me to feel like supported and feel able to share my transition, my experience and so on with the people that love me.
Sally says ‘if [mum] had been not supportive, I don’t think I would have had the courage and strength to continue’.
Sally says ‘if [mum] had been not supportive, I don’t think I would have had the courage and strength to continue’.
I think my Mum, like offhandedly mentioned like being a transsexual, or changing your sex, and I was like “I want to do that.” And she was like, very seriously, like very, very earnestly and seriously, “well if that’s what you want to do, I will support you doing that.” And then there was like a whole conversation where I was like, “Yeah I know I want it; I want to do that.” So, yeah in that case it was, it was very easy. My Mum has been like if I did not have my Mum I probably wouldn’t have transitioned, if we’re being honest. If she had been not supportive, I don’t think I would have had the, the courage and the strength to continue.
Some young people we spoke to found acceptance and support along their journey from friends, partners and families. Acceptance and support was experienced through correct use of name and pronouns, correcting their misgendering and supporting changes to appearance and role. Cas said his mum is ‘very understanding and very accepting… she is finally calling me her son.’ Loges said most of his family were accepting although ‘some of them were a bit confused …it just took a lot of explaining’.
Evelyn said she told her mum who then told her dad. She said ‘at first they were shocked… but at the same time they accepted me’. Jack said he has been ‘very fortunate that overall I’ve had a good response and people have been very accepting’. For some young people support and reassurance took time to appear. A said how they came out to their girlfriend first and describes how she ‘kind of thought about it for a little while but then was like okay with it and was really supportive’.
Coming out multiple times
Many young people we spoke to talked about the process of coming out multiple times to different groups of people. This could be because of changing circumstances such as new relationships and jobs. Jacob described how he had to come out to parents, family, girlfriend and friends. Some young people also experience multiple coming outs with regards to their sexuality. Rosa said that she ‘found coming out to people every time exhausting and very difficult’.
Erion says ‘I ended up coming out like three times, maybe’ and talks about the ‘constant coming out’ process.
Erion says ‘I ended up coming out like three times, maybe’ and talks about the ‘constant coming out’ process.
I think a lot of especially a lot of trans youths, depending on the time that they come out kind of have probably already tried other identities and I was one of those people and a lot of people I then have consequently spoken to have been those people as well where you maybe come out as like gay or bi first because you’re either kind of going okay, so from a sexuality point of view, there’s something going on [laughs]. You kind of go with that one first. And then you kind of get the vocabulary, but you are kind of testing it out and so I think I ended up coming out like three times, maybe, I think. Because I think the first time I was like, I am a lesbian. I am a very butch lesbian. And then I was like, oh no, no, I am not, I am just very bisexual. And then finally it was like, I am bisexual and I’m trans. And so for, because I just live with my mum like she was really the only person I cared about to come out to and you know from sort of a family perspective because she has the nuance that any time we need to do news in our family, she is the one who will pass it on in a respectful way and get everybody on board with it. So when I had initially come out as, yeah, being gay she was like, okay, that’s gonna take a minute for me to work around because she has her own sort of ingrained religious biases, really, and it was quite a hard concept for her to grasp.
But you know it took her, it took her a couple of months to be open to the idea that like I may or may not have girlfriend or whatever. Then obviously coming out as bisexual she was like, okay, and that is a real thing, is it? And I am like, well, the acronym includes it [laughs] and so, yes, it is a real thing. I was like and even if it's not in that, you know it's how I am choosing to identify and that deserves respect in any of its forms. You know, whether that is you know, being pansexual instead of bi like it's equally valid and that was quite an interesting thing for her to grasp because, so I think she just hadn't had that much exposure to queer people in general. And so, for her it was a lot of biases about what people with those labels should be and what they should look like. And so then, yeah, I probably came out to her, what year would it be now, four or five years ago as being trans this time, and that I think was definitely the hardest one. Because you know, kind of in the same way I've always done it and I always had that, I think a lot of people do that, irrational theories and even if you are super close with your family.
Even if you know that they are the most like loving people on the planet you still are sort of ingrained from those like horror stories that people are like being kicked out on the spot or that they have had these super negative experiences where their parents just never talk to them again. Things that I was saying like even historically I had had two coming outs that were perfectly fine. It was still like, there was something a bit heavier about this one, and you know so I kind of did it and like I sat there and I was like, what do you think? And she was like, it's gonna be a lot harder for me to deal with, but I will deal with it the best I can. But that might take me a while. And it did for her trying to use different pronouns and trying to use a different name. It was a lot more stressful for her I think because a lot of parents kind of get stuck in their head that you know, it’s the sort of like the death of a child or like you know, especially if they renounce their name or things like that, it’s, you know, they feel like they have lost that kid that they have raised when it's as I’d tried to explain it to my mum it's like, but it's not, it's, you are just getting the kid that you should have had the whole time and that's, I think that's the bit that really sort of brought her around to it and made her a bit more active was that she was like, oh, so, you know, had we had the words, you know, we would have had ten years to deal with this instead of five or there could have been a lot more done, but yeah, it was an interesting experience and I think now that she knows a lot more about the community it's been a lot more it's been a lot easier for her to sort of do that.
I think a lot of trans people do and a lot of parents of trans kids have to do is the constant coming out to people you have not spoken to recently [laughs]. You know, where they’re like, hey, I've not seen your son/daughter/child in a while. She goes ah, they are not my son anymore, they are my daughter, or they’re not my, and so on and so forth. She’s got a lot better with that now having sort of sat there in the months and then like year after me like coming out and going, look, this is the community I am in. This is the vocabulary that we use. This is how I wanna be referred to and I think it became equal parts educational experience and equal parts of you know, a personal journey sort of thing. So yeah, it was a bit scary, but you know, I had the backing of all my friends and all that sort of stuff, so, it's definitely not as bad as it probably could have been. But no, alright.
Bay describes their ongoing process of coming out as non-binary, coming out to friends first and then family.
Bay describes their ongoing process of coming out as non-binary, coming out to friends first and then family.
It was slow initially, I guess, I guess we’re what just over five years on since that first realisation, that there was something going on with my gender for me. Initially it was just all too scary to face I guess, so I sort of had a couple of days of delving into all these stories and experiences and then just kind of shut it into a box again, and was like “Well we’re not going to deal with that, just yet.” And I guess because, because there were parts of trans men’s experiences at that point that just didn’t really seem right for me, I, it was, that was kind of my hook to say oh no it’s probably not that, I’m probably reading too much into it. So sort of tucked it back away again, didn’t really think about it. Or tried not to think about it for a good few months. Perhaps almost the majority of that year really. And then I guess towards, sort of towards the end of that year, the next year I started to sort of just perhaps voice my thoughts to some close friends some people I’d known for a while who’d known how confused I’d been for a long time, and I just sort of thought oh maybe it’s this, I was just trying to start sort of talking it through with other people. And it wasn’t until, when would it have been? It wasn’t until a good two years from that initial point, between two and three years that I actually started to, that I was, that I was certain enough in myself that, that I wanted to tell other people that that was what was going on for me. And yeah I guess late 2017 was when I came out to my family, and I’d already come out to the majority of my friends before that, it was I guess 2017 was the big year where I, where I came out at work, changed my preferred name, and things like that on the systems at work. And yeah, I guess, overall it’s, it’s been a pretty positive experience for me. I haven’t had too much negativity from anyone, I think, I think it was always going to be most difficult to tell my family, and they’ve been great, I guess, like anything there’s a process of adjustment, a process of trying to understand, non-binary wasn’t a word that was familiar to anyone in my family, so just as much as I needed time to process it, they did too. But ultimately it hasn’t changed our relationship or anything like that, I’m still really close with them. . So yeah, I guess it’s been a, it’s been a very gradual process. I’d say I’m not at a point where there’s no-one significant in my life that doesn’t know. So, but I guess yeah, I guess as most of us are aware there’s you know that coming out process never really ends, it’s everywhere you go, it’s every time you meet new people, it’s how much you choose to tell them or not tell them. Yeah, so that’s on, ongoing, I guess.
Coming out in multiple ways with different people sometimes helped young people prepare for their friends’ and family’s responses. Evelyn talked about how coming out to friends ‘was kind of like a preparation’ before telling her parents. She asked her friends to learn her new name and use her pronouns before it was changed on the school register. Jay said he ‘staggered it’ telling his girlfriend, then close friends, then siblings and eventually parents. He did this in order of how hard he felt the response would be.
I feel like a lot of trans people are recognising or have recognised that this, this narrative, this whole thinking as one narrative and only one narrative is like people, people are recognising that it’s bad but people, cis people are either fixated on there only being one, there only being one trans, trans journey, trans narrative and all trans people being that or, and this is the case kind of the rapid onset gender dysphoria or not, that there is one acceptable trans narrative and anyone who doesn’t fit that exactly isn’t trans and honestly I don’t believe they believe the people who fit that narrative are trans either. They just think, they just hate everyone pretty much laughs]. But, but yeah there’s, I don’t like the idea there’s one singular narrative because there clearly isn’t and anyone who looks at it closely can see that. I was acutely aware that this was always the second time I’d be coming out, and my first time didn’t go so well, so my, when I came out as gay I, I didn’t really come out so I, I had a secret, I had a secret girlfriend that I called a lot, and clocked up a phone bill, and then my parents confronted me about that, and oh it was a mess, so got off on a bad foot to start with, you know with a £250.00 phone bill, that was not the best way to go about it. So I was conscious that I wanted to be more in control this time, I think that had given me, I almost saw this as an opportunity to do it right, but again I was aware that I might face a lot of negative responses I think, as much as, you know I was in a, I was in a bit of bubble at university and then you know me coming out to my friends at university wasn’t a surprise, cos they’d already kind of seen me exploring things already, and everybody, for the most part, was incredibly supportive and genuine in kind of being supportive. But it was the wider world and you know outside of that bubble that I was, I was afraid of. And I almost, so I toyed with the idea of writing something to my parents but just, I felt like there was so much opportunity for miscommunication if I wrote something down, that I, as much as I know it’s such a valid way for some people to use to come out I, I chose instead to just sort my head out and speak to them about it and I’m glad I did, and I did that, I did that over the phone, but I’m, again yeah I’m glad I did it that way cos I kind of told them over the phone and then kind of just left it with them for a bit. And immediately when I said that again they, they weren’t really surprised when they heard it, but it, me kind of giving that information to them they were supportive of me from the offset, and then the questions came. So I think I almost gave them that information and then they started to question it and to they, I mean since my parents have, so my parents have gone through a greater transition than I have to be honest cos now they’re almost too supportive, they, you know go to Pride marches and they’re better than I am. But they, they did have a lot of questions at the start and I think some of those questions weren’t always phrased in the best way. So I almost again trying to do it at, at my own pace rather than feeling rushed like the first time, I was, they would, they would ask me questions, I’d then have time to process and I’d get back to them and it was, it was a very that distance helped I think. And then I, so I remember posting a status on, on Facebook I think, about six months after I’d told my parents and that’s when I guess the wider world were informed, and if the, if there were negative responses I can’t, I can’t remember them if I’m honest, and I think the positivity that I got outweighed whatever the negative was. And again it was almost like I posted it and then I left it, and I didn’t go on Facebook for a week, and I just, yeah I think I, as I’ve grown I’ve gotten to know that I much prefer to do things at a slower pace, where I feel more in control, and it says a lot about me I think, but yeah, that’s kind of how I did it. And to be honest around that time; so I entered, so when I graduated from university I did kind of a social work grad scheme, so I went into social work, and starting that grad scheme was an absolute baptism of fire because I, it was the first time I’d started something as [name], with he/him pronouns, so that, that was kind of the start of the limbo stage, what I call the limbo stage which was a little bit horrendous because everybody knew me as [name], and you know for the most part used he/him pronouns, but I wasn’t, so I still had a high voice and I, you know I was basically waiting for the access to the hormones that I knew were kind of the natural next step for me so that was the, that was the part when I found myself having to come out every day, and that was where it got a bit more difficult.Kat says coming out was easier because she had come out as bi a few year before.
Kat says coming out was easier because she had come out as bi a few year before.
Henry shares the times he came out, first as gay and then as trans. He ‘wanted more control this time’.
Henry shares the times he came out, first as gay and then as trans. He ‘wanted more control this time’.
Responding to an event or incident
The young people shared different reasons for coming out or starting to come out. This could be because of an event or incident or feeling the need to respond to feelings of unhappiness or low mood. N spoke about a moment of reflection on a plane and ‘was tired of… not being visible’. This prompted them to post a picture online topless following top surgery and then managing their responses privately.
Summer said she first told her parents at the end of a holiday. She ‘sat them down’ and said ‘okay, so, you’ve noticed I’ve been a bit down recently as I’ve been thinking a lot about, well about like my gender.’ This allowed her to open up about how she was feeling. Some young people responded to an event or incident with family members. PJ said, ‘My Mum noticed that I’d started wearing a binder, so she was like, “Okay why are you flattening your chest?”’. This led to him telling his mum he wanted to transition. Jacob described getting their parents to tell their wider family because they were meeting for a BBQ/family gathering.
Rahul shares the story of coming out to his family because of being filmed at Pride on the news.
Rahul shares the story of coming out to his family because of being filmed at Pride on the news.
My family were very different. I came out to my little sister first and this is actually kind of a funny story. I went to Pride in [city] I think the year after I come out. I wasn’t on hormones yet or anything else. Waiting for Gender Clinic in [city], but I was back in [city] for Pride and I didn’t mean to do join the parade, but me and my friends saw one of our pals walking in it. We joined in. That evening I was on the six o'clock news. Just framed like this two-shot of me and my pal screaming along to YMCA, Pride flags on our cheeks. A full zoom in like a close-up of me and there was it lasted like, it lasted four or five seconds, but that’s a very long time on the screen. So, obviously, at that point I knew that the shit was gonna hit the fan. I called my sister and she didn’t know anything about it and turned out that my parents hadn’t seen the news that night. That meant I still did have to come out to my sister and she was very confused. She didn’t take it very well. She wasn’t, she didn’t make any comments in the beginning. She just made the comment that if I didn’t come out to my parents within a specific time period then she would out me because it was on the like main news channel of Denmark so it meant that someone from our Mosque definitely would have seen it. It was gonna come back to them anyway and she didn’t want people talking behind my parent’s backs, which I understood, I guess. That kind of gave me a deadline and my parents again were very they had strange reactions to it. My mum didn’t really take me seriously at first. She thought I was kidding on. And then, just seemed like a bit pissed off that I was coming out to her. She did also have a very funny comment though, which maybe isn’t that funny, but in context it’s funny. She was basically asking me about my sexual preference but she is very private and so she didn’t directly ask me. She asked me who I was gonna marry. I told her I didn’t know who I was gonna marry [laughs] ‘cos I was 21. She said well, are you gonna marry a guy or a girl? And I am bisexual and so I told her, either. She took that as meaning both. She was like, both? Both? And I was like either or either a guy or a girl. She was quiet for a while and she said, if you marry a woman you are gonna be two women. If you marry a guy you are gonna be two guys. She was just like, it was just turning in her head. It was just coming out homosexual either way and she just couldn't really, but like now my dad actually was, reacted in a very different way. He was mostly upset that I hadn’t felt safe enough to talk with him about it. So, he did still say that he was gonna pray for me for Allah to show me the right way. His main concern was that he was sad that I had felt like I had to keep this to myself or be alone in this.
Freya shares how she came out after her mum ‘found dresses and stuff’ in her wardrobe.
Freya shares how she came out after her mum ‘found dresses and stuff’ in her wardrobe.
So, when it came to coming out, I was very prepared to just sod everyone off and just, if you don’t like it, who cares, I’m off. I had a bit of a nuclear thing where I sort of just said one evening in my like friend group chat like, I’m just gonna straight up say summat and it’s gonna be weird, here it goes. And then, summat along the lines of I’m transgender and all that crap. I think that was literally what I said, which confused them a lot. And get used to it. If anyone has a problem with it FU yeah and then spammed like that in a big chunk and left it within like five minutes some of them we’re putting in the chat like, cool, good for you. Some of them were like messaging me privately like great. It was like a fairly not a very queer group. So, I think one of them was like, what is transgender and all that crap. I was like, I wanna be a woman and I think I’m gonna become one. They were like a bit confused. There was one girl in it who was by herself a bit more like into the queer scene. She had more of an idea and messaged me like great. So that’s how I came out to my friends.
My mum was looking for an extension lead and took a quick look in my room and found like dresses and stuff. She came to pick me up like the end of the night to give me a lift home and was like, found some things in your wardrobe. Do you want to say anything? And then it was just like, in my head I was like, damn, but a stronger word. And it was either I kind of lie say I got them for a friend, lie say I’m into cross dressing maybe or I just come out with it all. And I just told her in the car and then she was like completely stunned. She, we got home and it was like, right I think you need to go and talk to your dad. Up to this point at no point had she been like this is super cool, we’re fine with it. I was like, I have no idea how this was going. I went and told my dad like with her there. They were both like, okay, cool. Well we love you. And then it was sort of like a very awkward silence and I was just like I’m gonna go to bed. I think instead I just pretended to go to bed and just straight on my phone like, oh shit. I think I actually left and went sneakily and stayed at a friend’s house. Because it was really awkward. It turns they were actually really cool with it and it just took them a long time to get used to it. They had like absolutely shocks. They had no idea at all. And then when I was like straight up like I’m going the whole way, I’m going the nine yards and getting surgery. They thought at first I was making a rash decision. And were like, great, slow down. I was like, no I’m speeding up if anything. They didn’t release I’d been sort of thinking this way for twenty years, essentially. But within like half a year once they realised it was happening. Once they’d sort of seen me a bit, hair growing out, wearing different clothes and then also once they realised it’s not a rash decision. They were sort of fine. Now these days, completely cool with it. And coming out to the public, just one day like six months later and I think sometimes people would know like it sort of spread through social circles. I did just my official coming out, if you like, sticking a new profile picture on Facebook and Instagram with like you know, very clearly made-up in a dress and stuff. Like a caption like, there’s gonna be some changes or something. Make it obvious something is different. Then it was like the most likes and love hearts and all that of every picture I’ve ever posted. People got the message. Yeah, that’s sort of my three coming outs.
The coming out process was made easier for some young people by family members recognising different gender expressions from an early age. Jay said ‘my dad was fine, he said he saw it coming which I guess was relief. It took the pressure off me to explain everything.’ Some young people said they didn’t directly tell their parents. Bailey said that because of his autism the doctor explained to his parents how he felt because ‘I'm not great with words’ and ‘found it difficult to talk to them’.
Tori shares her story of coming out to her parents. She says they ‘started to notice from an early age’.
Tori shares her story of coming out to her parents. She says they ‘started to notice from an early age’.
I mean like I said I was never really a boy anyway. So I don’t, you know even my Dad when I first started to transition in the early, early stages, when I’d got a little bit more information from friends, and, and even the internet, and knew that actually this was something that I could, you know, I could go through. So I just started, I mean I first got a job as a drag queen, where I was obviously a door whore, and I was you know it was almost, I mean don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t the way I wanted to look. I didn’t want to wear you know awful wigs and well, I still wear the tiny dresses sometimes, but you know it wasn’t kind of the full feminine feel that I wanted to be, but it was an edge into what I could have a taste of, and just kind of, see how I felt with it more than anything, I guess. So as it got more and more and more, I progressed to become more feminine, I started to grow my hair and my Dad kind of just started to notice from a very early age, I mean he knew anyway, you know but he was waiting for me to find my own, my own path. And he noticed that I was working as a drag queen and knew that what drag queens are, you know he knew that they don’t, they don’t necessarily become women full time, and they’re not transgender always, you know, so it wasn’t until he started to notice me outside of work, I was becoming a lot more effeminate and in touch with more my feminine side, and he turned round to me, and just said, “Look, you know I get the feeling that you probably want to spend the rest of your life as a woman, I just want you to know that I’d be you know just as proud to call you my little boy as I would my little girl. You know you are, you,” he loves me either way, so, I was very blessed to have the, the good family that you know and the support that they gave me. My Mum, the first time my mum found out she rang me and asked me what name I’m gonna pick. She was like, “You’d better pick a good one.”
Choosing the time and place
Young people talked about how they chose when, where and how to come out or if they had that choice at all. Patrick started trying to ‘change my name on the school records’ but was unable to without his parents’ permission’. He said he felt ‘forced’ by his GP and by the school ‘to come out to them’ so he could change his name and access medical services.
Some young people chose to come out to relieve the pressure they felt bottling up their feelings. Tom described how he ‘got overwhelmed and I couldn’t do it anymore’ and ‘broke down… and told [his mum] everything’. He said his mum said “Yeah, okay, we’ll get it sorted”, and it was kind of like a massive weight lifted off my shoulders’.
Declan talked about how after giving a letter to his mum explaining how he felt ‘she just started crying… she was just like, “Are you sure?’”and I was like, “Yeah.”’ He said ‘It was more of a, ‘I need to come out,’ moment because I’d been holding it in as long as I could and I couldn’t keep it in anymore.’ He stated, ‘Well, I’ve got to say something because otherwise I don’t know if I’ll be here next year if I keep it inside any longer’.
Beth says having their own space meant they were less afraid of being rejected when coming out as non-binary.
Beth says having their own space meant they were less afraid of being rejected when coming out as non-binary.
So I, in both elements of queerness and transness I didn’t tell them until I had moved out, and it wasn’t so much that I thought they would react badly, it just felt like I should have my own space in case something did go terribly wrong, and I think that’s true of a lot of queer and trans people, and even though I’m quite open with my parents and we have quite at times like a friendship instead of like parent and child relationship, I think that having my own space meant that I was like less afraid of being rejected because even though it would be terrible if my parents had said, “We don’t want to interact with you anymore,” I already had my own life that was separate from them, but they have been I would say supportive, but also they don’t really get it.
So they kind of, I make a lot of art about transness and queerness and my Mum follows me on Instagram so there’s, like when I came out to her as non-binary it was because someone had said something horrendous about trans people on Facebook or something, and she was like one of my Mum’s friends but she was not really her friend anymore. And I was like, “Right, I’m gonna come out to my Mum so that I can explain to her why I feel terrible right now.” And she took that all on board, she was like, “You know that, that doesn’t make any difference to me,” which is not the ideal thing to say but like you know when people say, “Oh it doesn’t matter,” but it does matter, that’s why I’m telling you, but I know what you’re trying to say is “It doesn’t make me not like you,” and so sometimes you have to just be like, “Okay that’s not what they meant, let’s just move on.”
Yeah so they kind of always filters through my Mum as well, so like I’ll tell my Mum something, and she tells my Dad even though, even though I have a good relationship with my Dad, he just, like he’s the one who’s kind of like, “So what’s gone on in the kids lives?” and then my Mum’s like, “Here’s the newsletter” rather than me like talking to both of them individually.
Yeah, but they took it quite well, and the, when my girlfriend came out to like the big extended family rather than just me and our friends, they were like, “Oh well this might take us a while to you know change names and pronouns and stuff,” but they did really well, they didn’t mess it up once. And I think that having me as like a first experience helped, I’m glad that that’s the case, but I also think they still don’t use my pronouns, and that’s not because they don’t know them, but again it’s with the whole like not having a, a reference point for what non-binary is. But they, like they definitely get a binary trans woman and therefore will use her pronouns and her name, but there are less, they don’t understand it as much with me.
H shares the story of coming out to his friends.
H shares the story of coming out to his friends.
Ok so coming out story, ok what happened, so why has my mind gone blank. Ok so coming out, so yeah, it started basically when I was at uni, so this is around 2014 time, I was basically seeing this girl and at that time had bought a chest binder. So I remember one night we got like really drunk and I basically told her, I told her by lifting my, lifting up my top to reveal the binder. I remember I was crying a little bit. And yeah she was really supportive and she, the one thing she said to me was “I think that you should tell your friends because at this point, obviously I was away from home so obviously I felt comfortable telling her because she didn't really know like my friends. So anyways, I then told my best, my bestest friend from school, who I was still in contact with, cause like, sort of, that was, when did that happen so the next, so there was a little bit of a gap there before I told my friend. Because at this point in time, I think I was in a new, I was in a relationship with someone else, so I didn't kind of know what to say. But yeah I told my mate and yeah she was fine with it. And then I said about “how am I gonna tell my girlfriend at the time and she was kind of like, like sort of “go for it”. So yeah basically I told, I told my girlfriend and that time I think I built it up so much that when I told her she was like, “oh is that it?” Because I swear it was literally I was like “I need to tell you something” and I started this whole speech and then she started crying, I was like “why are you crying?” and then obviously after I told her she was like “oh, I thought you was going to say you cheated on me!” (laughs) so she, I think it was a bit of relief there but yeah she was fine with it and then she was the one who told me to tell my other, my other close friends. So yeah basically a few months later on one of my birthday's, I got all my close friends together, people that I trusted and I basically gave a speech and (laughs) me and my speeches it was so long-winded. I basically, you know built up to it. I think it was recorded at the time. There is, there is a video somewhere. Yeah basically, I told them the situation an yeah I was crying and everything and then they were like “oh is that it?” but then they were like “oh really proud of you” and things like they never saw me as a girl, they always saw me as a guy anyway so they were kind of like “it’s not shocking at all”. But I just remember the nerves, literally I was shaking everything and my mate, one of my friends was looking directly at me, really putting me off and she was kind of like “yeah what is it? What is it?” But no yeah it was such a relief when I got that out and obviously at that point I wasn't on the hormones or anything so I just said to them, “can you, obviously for now, can we keep it to ourselves? Obviously if you’re gonna tell, share it with people, please share it with people that we, that you know we all trust”. So yeah I think it was, it took about a year or so for me to get on the hormones and then I, what did I do? I then yeah, the following year when I finally decided on a name, I then had a name change ceremony, had like a couple of my closest friends signed the deed poll thing. And then I put it on, basically I put it on social media which got quite a lot of support, it was like maybe over 1000 likes. And people were sharing it saying they was proud of me and everything. So yeah that was, that was really really nice. But yeah, I told my family, basically told my mum, that didn't go well. But yeah that's my coming out story.
Ari shares the story of how they ‘spilled the beans’ unknowing after being ‘fairly intoxicated one evening.’
Ari shares the story of how they ‘spilled the beans’ unknowing after being ‘fairly intoxicated one evening.’
So, bizarrely I got I got fairly intoxicated one evening as one tends to do in first year. And I don’t remember it happening. But a friend of mine came to me the next day and said, ‘Hey just so you know you talked a lot about wanting to bind your chest and stuff last night. Obviously, you were away and so wouldn’t know if you would remember but there’s that piece of information for you.’ And I panicked for two or three days, I think because that was something that I’d always kept on lock. So realising that I’d kind of ish spilled the beans already was, once I got over the panic was a relief, because I knew that if he hadn’t been accepting in any way, he wouldn’t have told me. He would just let me brush it aside and let it go. But the fact that he came to me and was like, ‘Look, okay, I can see that you’re, you’ve got some gender incongruence stuff going on.’ And I think he also said, ‘Like I’m here if you wanna talk about it.’ And that sort of thing. And so, knowing that some people around me inadvertently already knew and especially having a lot of LGBT plus people in my life and made it a lot easier. So, I came out to the people around me fairly quickly just in terms of say that I was figuring stuff out more than anything. And they were so supportive, more supportive than I ever could have hoped for in terms of being willing to test out various pronouns sets and all that sort of stuff for me which was fantastic.
Choosing not to come out
Some young people talked about not coming out to friends or family. Max had a lot of ‘complex feelings about coming out’. He said they were ‘out [as trans] at work but I’m not out to all of my friends.’ He talked about wanting to wait until he was able to access hormones’. He was ‘worried it would change things.’ He only felt comfortable telling people on an individual basis ‘not like a public coming out or anything’.
Safia talks about their decision not to come out to family due to different cultural understandings of sexuality and gender.
Safia talks about their decision not to come out to family due to different cultural understandings of sexuality and gender.
With my family I still haven’t come out. I don’t speak to my Dad any more so it’s not really an issue on that front. With my Mum for a very long time I just felt no need to, I think in part just being south Asian like it’s, it, because of the different like cultural understanding of like sexuality and gender, I suppose it’s just, it’s never felt like something that she really needs to be aware of, unless like you know I’m in you know a serious relationship with you know somebody where I would need to sort of tell her, like oh I’m queer or I’m trans. But over the last like couple of years I think I’ve started to think about it a bit more, just because I think there’s a part, like I think that she we have a complicated relationship, but I do often think that she would really appreciate knowing who I am, as a whole.
And have been testing the waters a bit more recently I suppose, you know, I guess like something that we have in our culture, you know we have a third gender identities she grew up with a lot of trans people in [country], so she has that awareness, and almost in a way it makes, especially being non-binary easier, because there’s already a concept of like gender beyond a binary. The thing that I think makes me hesitate is mostly just that I think, I don’t think she’d be, you know super hostile about it, or anything like that, but I think that she would have a lot of questions and because our relationship is quite complicated I worry about the emotional impact I suppose of like how is she presenting these questions, and I, if she starts worrying about you know how, how I’m going to live in the world as a trans person, you know then she, you know things might get a bit more negative I suppose. I think, you know I think my brother knows that I’m queer, we’ve never explicitly spoken about it, but I mean, I’d be shocked if he hasn’t picked it up by now.
And then with everybody else like I’ve never felt the need ever to hide my sexuality. Gender stuff I’m a lot more cautious about, because I’ve had a lot more negative experiences, I think. You know I’ve never experienced you know anybody who’s ever had like a negative reaction to you know my queerness, has not been anyone important to me, it’s always just been you know someone being a dick in a pub or whatever, and you can just, you know, tell them to go away. But with the gender stuff, like yeah, I dunno, like even small things, like I was dating someone for a while who was cis, a cis guy and like he, I remember just casually saying like, you know I’ve had like some you know screen name or something that was a different name to my own, and like you know I mentioned in passing that like it’s, what I called like my genderqueer name right, like a name that I was sort of almost trying out, or like a name that to me felt you know genderless. And he just laughed about it, and that was at a moment where it was like, “Oh like I’m dating this guy,” and like, and he knew, like I’d told him like I identify as genderqueer, but him like laughing in that moment made me immediately feel like oh he doesn’t see, he doesn’t see me as anything other than a cis woman though. Like, and so I think experiences like that where it’s like people, you know I live in [city] so I think generally speaking people are a bit more open socially. I think people are happy to be around queer people, trans people. I think with the gender stuff though, and with being trans, I’ve experienced a lot of people are happy to hear you say you’re non-binary or genderqueer or whatever, but if they don’t have to change anything, if they don’t have to use different pronouns for you, if they don’t have to you know, if they’re looking at you and can read you as X, then in my experience they’re just going to brush off anything you’ve told them about your identity.
And that’s quite, that’s been quite hard. I recently was working a second job, where I came out at work, which was the first time that I’d done that, and still you know it’s some, you know sort of everyday misgendering I suppose, but in general like it, it helped a lot to see like my manager had briefed people, and like people apologised and corrected themselves, and yeah, I’m hoping that I’m hoping that it was just become more mainstream and easy for people to understand, but like, yeah.
Anderson says ‘coming out [as a trans person of colour] and approaching your gender, culture, heritage and upbringing is a lot more to think about.’
Anderson says ‘coming out [as a trans person of colour] and approaching your gender, culture, heritage and upbringing is a lot more to think about.’
I feel like being a person of colour and approaching not only your gender but your culture and your heritage and your upbringing is a lot more to think about. Like I mentioned this in the call that you guys had the other day, when they brought up like coming out and stuff that like it’s very easy for white allies and people to come out, because they come out to their Mum and their Dad and their brother and sister, and maybe an auntie and uncle and grandad and grandma, and that’s them done. If I come out, I come out to six hundred people, six hundred people who all know me personally, who held me at birth, who gave me my name, who brought me into the world, that I can’t just discard a name that I was given generations ago. I can’t remove a part of my heritage that, it’s not mine to remove. Because like I said as people of colour, as black people we carry not just our own selves, but like everyone who made you who you are. And I always say like I’m a collection of the experiences that the people that know me, I’m not my own person who stands alone. I just resonate the things that make sense to me the most, from the things that I know of other people. And so if I carry that narrative forward it’s very difficult for me to just be like, “Oh I’m coming out and I’m this whole person.” I’m just like. I can’t come out, the whole family’s come out like, it’s a lot you know.
June feels that trans people shouldn’t have to come out as they exist ‘the same as everyone else’.
June feels that trans people shouldn’t have to come out as they exist ‘the same as everyone else’.
I’ve just done a bout of therapy in 12 weeks and my sort of like aim was wanting to sort of come out to my parents because they live in [country] so there’s nothing sort of pushing me to engage with them like sort of interface with them really like so I’ve been able to sort of get away with not really talking about my transness which I wouldn’t be able to do if we were living in the same city. Which has been good but, so we communicate, but I’ve actually come to realise that I don’t think I actually, I never came out as queer to them either, I just mention my girlfriend and I don’t really believe that trans people have to come out because I think that’s very you know, I believe in like sort of cisgender privilege and I think it’s sort of seems deferential to come out to cis people when we’re just existing the same as them, they don’t have to come out as cis, we don’t have to come out, you know, I don’t, I never, I never felt the need to come out as queer, or bisexual I always just felt like oh I’m just like, you know, existing the same as everyone else I, you know, I definitely [laughter] I don’t owe it to you to have to justify my who I am, or explain it to you, you know, if they want an explanation then they can have a conversation about that I think that’s a different thing. So that was intention, that, that was the original intention of, of doing the therapy but I’ve kind of come to realise that I haven’t really been hiding it from them at all actually and I mean I like I have my pronouns on my WhatsApp signature. And I have my pronouns on my Facebook and if you click into my Facebook in my about it says I’m male and I have pictures of myself and I also post a lot of stuff about trans rights and trans advocacy and yeah I also recently started like sort of an East Asian trans support group that like, you know, it’s just all really quite public. So I don’t really think I’m doing anything to hide my, do you know what I mean I, I actually think they probably know already because, I mean and one of my sisters lives at home and she follows me on like all of my social media platforms and they, they’re connected with me on WhatsApp and Facebook not Instagram but, you know, the other two where I yeah post really regularly abou trans issues and my own experiences about healthcare.
Navigating family fears, norms and traditions
A common thread amongst parents and family responses were fears about safety, tensions around general expectations and family customs and traditions. Jay said his mum ‘wasn’t best pleased’. He said she ‘is one of those people that believes that women should be feminine and men should be masculine and if you’re anything in between then that’s wrong and makes her uncomfortable.’ Alistair said his mum felt ‘betrayed’. He explained that ‘she’s quite a feminine woman, like female power and feminist and all that. I think she felt quite betrayed that I didn’t want to be a girl’.
Young people said their parents worried their children wouldn’t be happy as trans adults. Summer said her mum questioned “but you won’t be happy… you won’t be able to live a normal life”. Ari said their parents ‘sent me a very long text message’ which said, ‘we don’t support you having this physical change that you want to undergo and that you need to get some help.’
Some young people described how their parents’ felt a sess of loss. Rosa said that early on their parents ‘didn’t really know how to deal with me’. Their parents were ‘worried how much of a change it was going to be’ and had ‘the reaction as if their child had died and been replaced.’ Reuben said ‘at first [his family] got very upset’ and said things like ‘oh I feel like I’m mourning for my daughter’. He went on to say that ‘they’ve sort of come to terms with it and they’re getting used to calling me by like my correct pronouns and things and it’s, yeah they’ve been really great’.
Max describes coming out to his dad after not speaking to either of his parents for three years.
Max describes coming out to his dad after not speaking to either of his parents for three years.
Well, I did tell the people who I was working with and I was volunteering at that time and so I told them. And yeah, just them. It wasn’t until maybe like a year later or something when I told my sisters. And then, I only told my dad quite recently, so I told him like in December or something. Yeah, yeah, I did tell him in December, so quite recently.
And how was that?
It was bit odd, ‘cos before that I hadn’t spoken to either of my parents for like three years. And then, I don’t know why he contacted me and he just said, he wanted to talk. So we did about three hours and I was like you know what might as well be honest now. I’ve got nothing to lose so I told him. And what he said was, basically, you know, it’s your life and I’m not gonna reject you again over this. So that was quite nice to hear. I was very surprised about it to be honest.
Jack shares the story of how he came out to his family and his families responses.
Jack shares the story of how he came out to his family and his families responses.
So after I’d come out to everyone else in my life I started by saying that at University people were calling me [name] as a nickname and that I would prefer to be called that and they reacted kind of but that’s not your name and all kind of like oh I struggle one of my cousins changed their name for non trans reasons a couple of years back and they said oh well, you know, we struggle enough with your cousins name changing we don’t know if we’ll be able to do you as well. So I was kind of like okay and I kind of took that as not a good thing and so left it a couple of months.
And then I think I would have been yeah so a few months later I kind of just I got quite drunk with some friends and stuff and I messaged my younger brother who’s probably the person in my family that I felt most comfortable to come out to and I just said to him ‘Hey I’m transgender, you know, I, from now on if you could call me [name] and think of me as your brother that would be important to me, thank you’ and I got a reply in the morning that was basically 'okay, cool' which was, my brother he’s younger than me, at the time he would have been 16 or 17 so that was basically as near to woo great that’s amazing, good job like I love you as my 16/17 year old brother was kind of like telling me was like okay, cool can I just get back to whatever I was doing.
And then my parents were less accepting, my mum’s kind of reaction was 'well why can’t you just be a masculine woman' and I kind of pointed out that I’d tried that for several years and it wasn’t right and I didn’t feel right and, you know, it just didn’t suit me it wasn’t me. And then she tried bargaining with me almost to be gender non-specific which I think was her way of saying non-binary which is weird and is actually well, I think that a few other trans men or trans masculine people I’ve met or sort of run into I think it’s kind of the perception it’s kind of, kind of tied into like a lot of enbyphobia [discrimination towards non-binary people] and the kind of idea that non-binary people aren’t really trans or aren’t really, you know, so I guess my mum thought that I could just in my head say that I was non-binary and then in life or real life nothing would change and she wouldn’t have to change anything which is like just really enbyphobic kind of transphobic.
But, you know, I don’t know exactly what was going through her mind but having talked to other people who have had similar experiences it seems to be that kindof like idea that it’s 'trans light' and so would be less like hard I guess or, hard for her to like have to, you know, she wouldn’t have to change anything basically I think. And I said, you know, that’s not me, you know, it’s not, I’m, not gender non-specific I am male I am me, I am [name] and you can either acknowledge that and accept that or you know, we’ll have to, I will be in, you know, you will not be in my life as much.
And my dad didn’t really say much on the matter he was kind of just passively like yeah so that’s that but my mum we had a bit of quite a bit of kind of several months extended sort of argument discussion though while this was going on I did a refer, I got a referral to Gender Care and I had managed to go through that and then after a couple of months after being diagnosed with gender dysphoria by Gender Care I was given again a referral to get testosterone and then I was seen, had my appointment and went on testosterone and I kind of let my mum know I’m going on testosterone now and she kind of pleaded with me not to and asked me to have more therapy beforehand and stuff like that and I said ‘Actually mum I have had a lot of therapy and I have thought this through a lot with people and I have really thought about this and I’m really sure about this, you know, I understand that this is coming from a place of care you know, your actions but it is actually hurting me a lot, I think that perhaps you need to go to therapy to talk this out with someone who doesn’t, you know, so that you can get all of your emotions out and figure out your worries and concerns with someone who isn’t me because I’m not the person that can do this for you and it’s just gonna harm both of us and our relationship’.
Yeah a few months after that was quite quiet we didn’t really talk much and then I think she talked with a family friend who is very kind of is a good ally to LGBTQ people and I think kind of that I think she did do some therapy with a sort of or some sort of group talk with parents in similar situations and talked it through and then a few months after that it kind of like, she kind of accepted, you know, that I’d started testosterone this is what I wanted, this is me and that it wasn’t whatever concern she did have about it. Again I’m not a 100% sure it was kind of like settled and now she’s really supportive of me actually which is really good.
A few young people said their parents and family members misunderstood their identity. Tyra was told by her mum that, ‘“Oh you’re overly flamboyant, or you want to do drag”…she still doesn’t understand trans issues.’ Tyra said that her mum told her she ‘felt like she was losing her son’.
Some young people described their parents feeling that their identity change came out of the blue. Noelle said her parents said there ‘wasn’t that many signs beforehand that I was trans, they couldn’t understand where it had come from.’ After ‘a while’ she found acceptance with her parents and felt comfortable to wear ‘whatever clothes I wanted around the house…and [her parents] said they would try and get used to using new pronouns and stuff’.
Being made homeless
Coming out could have negative consequences and resulted in either being forced to, or choosing to leave home. This was a particular concern for some of the trans and gender diverse young people of colour we spoke to. One young person described being sent abroad to live with her grandparents after coming out. She said “I came back to the UK…I was essentially homeless at that time, because my parents wouldn’t take me back”. She described, “sofa surfing for a while” and eventually finding accommodation at university.
One young person’s dad noticed him changing his appearance and clothing and said “if I carried on doing it, I wasn’t welcome to come back home.” An LGBT+ charity helped him “find a place to stay” and “advocated for me when I went [..] to the council to declare myself homeless.” He “stayed at one of my co-worker’s flat for a couple of days”, then found accommodation at “youth hostels [and] supported housing.” For more support with homelessness please search for akt, the LGBTQ+ youth homelessness charity.
Support from friends and the queer community
Many young people valued support from friends and wider trans community when coming out. They often said that they came out first to friends. Jacob said ‘before I told my mum I actually told my best friend, because I need to tell someone and if anyone's gonna accept me it's gonna be [my best friend]’. Cas said that his friends were ‘shocked because it was quite a brave thing to do [as] there isn't actually any other person who identifies as trans in my year group’. Rahul said his ‘friends responded very well’ and ‘were all really supportive’.
Support from friends and the queer community sometimes made up for a lack or absence of family support. Patrick said ‘my family weren’t super supportive’ but he has found support from friends he made in the trans community. Ari said they were outed to their parents because of a Facebook fundraiser for top surgery and their family weren’t supportive. However, they said ‘thanks to the found family I have through the local LGBT scene, it didn’t really matter as much.’
CJ talks about being in ‘very queer spaces’ which ‘made it more comfortable for me just to be like, “Hey, this is who I am’.
CJ talks about being in ‘very queer spaces’ which ‘made it more comfortable for me just to be like, “Hey, this is who I am’.
My friends were great, as with many things, like most of my friends are queer. I’ve been in very queer spaces which meant there were all kinds of gender expressions and sexualities and people from everywhere and we’re neither predominantly cis or predominantly white, which, which I think made it more comfortable for me just to be like, “Hey, this is who I am,” and it was a very much a “Hey this is who I am,” and, and feeling the genuine sort of rush of people to be like, “Hey we support you,” and “What do you need?” and “What do you need in terms of pronouns?” and “How can we make it easier for you?” Which was fantastic. My family in general don’t really understand it, and they make some effort, but very little.
I have a life that’s very separate from my parents. My family is very much a queer family, a queer unit that I’ve made down in [city], and so I do feel the, I’ve really felt more support than anything else just, and again it’s great to be in a space where I’m just me. And that’s the thing I think that’s most important for me, most of the time, is that I don’t want to have to think about being trans all the time, because that can be hard enough in my head as it is, and on the days where it’s great, it’s great, and on the days when it’s bad, it’s really bad. But I’m a person, my transness doesn’t supersede like the fact that I love dogs, the fact that I am not from [city], the fact that I listen to certain types of music and cook certain types of food. And so the best thing is that I have an incredible support network of people who care far more about whether or not I want go to the movies, or whether or not I want to read this book, or whether or not I want to do something with them, than they do about my gender expression. And that’s very liberating. I personally found it, I know some people, I went and did sort of various groups to be around other trans folk, I found them useful kind of at the beginning. I think for me I’m not very much of a joiner in that way, so it felt, I just wasn’t comfortable. And I felt like I was taking up space that I didn’t need to be in. So for me they didn’t work. I know for other people they, they, people who I made friends with there still go back kind of once a month, whenever they can, because they found it really empowering, just for me it didn’t, it didn’t quite work that way. And then the other thing that’s been sort of funny and ironic and a twist, is the number of people who’ve come out to me since I came out. Because I do think there’s something that happens when you relax about the ideas of gender, and people start to be more comfortable in their skins and who they are, and we are entering a stage at the minute where people in their like, we hear a lot about trans youth, but I think also at late twenties, thirties, forties, fifties, you have people going, “Oh I can do this too.” And that’s really, really magical actually, it’s really magical to be in a space where I feel like I’m being supported, but also that other people feel comfortable enough that they can come out and that we’ll support them too.
See also:
Journeys to identifying as trans and gender diverse