Hello my friends. Welcome back to Queeries, your favorite queer blog! : )
I’m back for this week’s post with another personal story. You’ll hear more about me, but will also hopefully be able to relate to my experience or take away something from it that may help you with your own identity journey. Let’s get into it.
The Monday of spring break, I came out to my mom (so that happened). I’m using this term for the sake of simplicity, but I don’t even particularly like using it for myself. I more so just made my mom aware of the labels I’m currently using (queer and genderfluid) and my preferred pronouns (they/he/she but mostly they/them), and we talked about that stuff for a bit. I had been wanting to do so for a while, but it just never felt right and I guess a part of me was still really scared about how it would be taken. That Monday, I got acai bowls with my mom in the morning, went out to walk around a garden area with my mom, dad, and sister, and then went and got my helix pierced after dinner. On the way back from my ear piercing, we stopped at a place called Washington Rock, which is like a park that overlooks the surrounding area. I’ve always loved that view, and how you can see the New York City skyline from my New Jersey town.
While sitting there and staring out at all the lights in the dark, it finally felt right and I was just thinking about how to go about it. When we got back home, that’s when I told her. It ultimately went well in the moment, despite the obligatory “I thought you were going to tell me something I didn’t already know” (sigh). While emotionally draining, it was overall pleasant and I’m glad I told her when I did, even though it went against my plans in that I didn’t tell my siblings first, and I didn’t tell her and my dad at the same time.
Part of the reason I told her was that it was already so hard being constantly misgendered while being back home. You don’t realize how much other people use pronouns to refer to you until it hurts you so much, or you learn it is hurting someone else. I wasn’t expecting my mom to be anywhere near perfect in using my new (to her) pronouns, but I was just hoping to hear her refer to me using they/them pronouns a minimum of one time in that week before going back to school. I don’t think that was too much for me to hope for, but unfortunately she didn’t even do that, which was probably even more painful since she was now aware of it. It is possible that she didn’t change because I didn’t specifically tell the rest of my family, which sucks. I was planning to tell them before going back to school, but I ended up not doing so. By the end of the week home, I felt so uncertain about everything I had figured out about my identity after being unintentionally gaslit into seeing myself how my family sees me. So, I couldn’t do it, but that’s alright.
I suppose I came away from this having learned a few things, which could maybe help you or help frame your mindset about this type of thing if you can relate. Here we go: It will probably take those people who have known you your whole life a little bit longer to adjust and use your right pronouns. Of those people, it will probably be hardest for your parents, since there’s a gap of knowledge and understanding about identity between us. It will take some time, and that’s okay, as long as there is effort (with a strong emphasis on this last part). Although my mom never used they/they pronouns for me, I could tell she was sometimes more hesitant to use pronouns for me, and would sometimes just say my name again instead. I learned to recognize that this counts as effort! While I previously didn’t put too much weight on this, it still shows that she is acknowledging what I told her, trying to understand it, and slowly working on adjusting. In terms of coming out (or however you would prefer to refer to this), it probably won’t go perfectly even if the person you’re telling is very understanding and supportive, and that person may say some of those things that are a bit annoying to hear (like “I already knew that”). And coming out should be all on your own terms, where you tell whoever you want whenever you want however you want. There should be no rush to tell people, and you should not feel pressured to tell certain people before you’re ready. It’s all up to you.
I’m hopeful and optimistic that as I tell my siblings and my dad, they will all be accepting and respective of my identity, which will make existing at home be less hard and less invalidating over time. Until then, though, I’ll be chilling at college and talking to my new nonbinary therapist every week, which has already been so great after two sessions by the way.
That’s about it for today’s post. I hope you could get something out of it. I’ll see you back here next week for yet another post. As always, I love you and I’m proud of you for how far you’ve come. Take a moment to acknowledge how much progress you’ve made, and how much effort you’ve put in to be the person you are today. Celebrate yourself and try to at least be a little proud of yourself. I mean it.
With love,
PJ <3