Hey everyone!
So today I wanna talk about why it took me so damn long to figure out that I'm trans and a lesbian.
Because I came out when I was like, 22, which in the grand scheme of things is pretty young
-- I know trans people who've come out in their 40s or 50s or 60s -- but in retrospect,
I was in the closet for a lot longer than I could've been.
Like I just believed so many misconceptions that stopped me from ever even being able
to consider that I might be trans or a lesbian.
And that sucks, because while I'm in a really good place now, I do wish that I would've
been able to learn about myself earlier on and come out sooner -- because I wasted so
many years knowing that something was off but not really knowing what it was.
So I wanted to make this video mainly in case there are any young folks out there who are
either in the closet or don't even know that they're in the closet yet.
If I had seen trans lesbians on the internet talking about this stuff when I was younger,
I probably would've figured it all out way before I was 22.
So if I can help even like one young trans lesbian discover her identity, then I feel like I've done my job.
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Anyways, back to why it took me so long to figure out my identity.
I mentioned that I didn't see any trans lesbians in the media -- and I think that
was a pretty major factor.
The only depictions of trans people I ever saw were extremely negative and demeaning
and not framed as something you would ever want to be.
Like I know there was a super transphobic scene in one of the Ace Ventura movies, which
I'm sure I saw as a kid, and so when you grow up seeing that this group of people is
universally hated and everyone thinks their disgusting, you don't exactly picture yourself as one of them.
In fact, you try really hard to distance yourself from that.
I can't think of a lot of other specific examples but I know there were several movies
or TV shows where I only saw trans women depicted as sex workers, and even then being demeaned
not only for their gender but also for their job.
You know they weren't being given complex storylines, they were usually just the butt of a joke.
And I didn't see myself in those characters, so there just weren't any depictions of
trans people in the media where I was like, "Yeah, that could be me, that feels like how I feel."
But I also knew that I didn't fully identify with the boys I saw in TV shows and movies.
But, I do remember that when I was younger, I saw two girls kiss on TV or in a movie or
something, and I identified with that.
That felt much more right to me than any guy kissing a girl.
But, women kissing each other in the media is often hyper-sexualized for men, and it's
like a common trope that straight guys like to see women kissing.
So for a long time, when I thought I was a guy, I just kinda assumed that I liked it
in that kind of sexual way -- and I didn't realize that I liked it because I identified
with it, and I found it romantic and sweet and cute.
Because I saw that as my future.
It was like the first time that I really felt like something made sense in regards to gender and relationships.
But because of men's hyper-sexualization of women, I couldn't figure that out.
Like, there are a lot of ways that the patriarchy fucks with us, and one of those ways is in
confusing the shit out of trans lesbians.
Because it's hard, especially when you're younger to untangle gender and sexual orientation.
I remember specifically thinking in high school, that I couldn't be trans because I didn't like men.
And in retrospect, that's ridiculous.
Obviously, trans women can like women, or men, or multiple genders.
But I didn't know that.
All I knew was that every trans woman I'd ever seen in the media or heard of somewhere had liked men.
And so trans lesbian wasn't even in my vocabulary.
But the thing was, I knew something was off -- and other people did too.
Like, throughout middle school and high school, I was bullied because people thought I was a gay boy.
The people around me, somehow, picked up on the fact that I was different in some way
-- and I think the only label they had for that kind of difference was gay.
So for a long time, I thought I had to like guys.
I tried really hard to like guys.
Everyone said it so much that I tried to force myself to believe it as well.
I thought I might just have some deep internal homophobia and that's why I didn't like
guys, and if I could just get past that, I could be my real self -- which according to
everyone around me, was a gay guy.
But, the thing that was different about me wasn't that I was a boy who liked boys,
it was that I was a girl who liked girls.
I really didn't like guys at all, and I wasted a lot of time trying to.
And when I was young, cisgender and gay could be an option, but transgender and gay wasn't really an option.
I didn't see it as one, and no one around me did either.
But when I did finally come out in college, a few people said something along the lines
of, "Oh, that makes sense," like something clicked into place and they realized that
that's what was different all along. And I liked that.
I liked feeling like I finally solved the puzzle of my identity.
A lot of trans people say they knew since they were 4 years old or whatever, and that
is a totally valid experience for them, but that wasn't my experience.
Just like the cis gay people who have repressed their sexual orientation to the point that
they couldn't even admit it to themselves until much later in life, I didn't have
the tools or the language or the representation that I needed to figure who I was.
But now that I do, everything feels so good.
I don't know how to express in words the feeling of finally figuring out who you are
after 20 something years.
I know there are trans people who've gone much longer, and I send all my love and support
to them, but it's just such a euphoric feeling.
It's like a couple decades of confusion hovering like a fog in the back of your mind,
and you know that something's there but you can't quite figure out what, and then
when you do, it's like the fog has cleared and everything feels sharp and in focus.
And there were a lot of other barriers along the way to me getting here.
I had a lot of misconceptions in my head about transitioning, but now, after having been
out for about 3 years now, I feel absolutely on top of the world.
I'm more confident than ever in who I am, and I'm so glad that I found my way here.
Because I think living an entire life with that fog in my head would've made me miserable.
I mean that's why representation and visibility and legal protections and access to transition
services are all so vitally important for trans people -- because it allows us to live happy fulfilled lives.
And I know that there are so many trans people who are still in the closet or who can't
access the transition services that they need and that breaks my heart.
We have so far to go.
I don't want you to think that just because my story has been this positive arc that like
the fight for trans rights is over.
It took me what felt like a really long time to figure out I was a trans lesbian, but it
was probably sooner than the trans lesbians who came before me.
And all I want to do is to keep improving on their legacy and making things easier for
the trans lesbians that are growing up today.
I mean, obviously I want to improve things for all trans people, but my coming out as
trans and my coming out as gay are so interwoven that I just can't separate them, and that's
the struggle that I know first-hand.
And even though I'm in a really good place now, there are still times when I'm not.
Like every trans person, I've questioned myself and doubted myself a million times,
and I don't think that ever fully goes away.
The constant vitriol that trans people are so often subjected to can be really hard to
take, and it can gaslight you into thinking you must be something else even though you
know you're really not.
So if you're a trans lesbian and you're ever not 100% sure, that's okay.
That's a reasonable thing to feel.
I feel like there's so much pressure on us to know our identities and know exactly
how to articulate them, and that can scare people.
It can also keep people in the closet by not allowing them to experiment or branch out.
I didn't tell anyone I was trans until I was 200% sure, and that meant I did a lot
of figuring out my identity completely alone.
Discovering who you are is a process, and I wish we could share that process with people
without needing to label everything so specifically all the time.
Labels are great when you want them.
I love having words that encapsulate who I am, but they feel so permanent, and I wish
we let people explore their identity free of judgement or longterm commitment to specific labels.
I think being able to more openly question my gender also would've helped me come out
earlier, because I was keeping all of it to myself and trying to figure it out all alone.
But, it's also funny because I started growing my hair out as soon as I realized I might be trans.
It wasn't like, I figured out I was trans and then I started growing my hair out -- I
just had this small feeling at some point in college when I was like, I might be trans,
but I really don't know, so I'm just gonna grow my hair out just in case -- because I
knew if I ended up identifying as trans, I would want longer hair.
And this was, I think like two years before I actually came out.
So it's hilarious for me to look back on pictures and see me growing my hair out, and
just thinking like, "Wow, you were on to something and you genuinely had no idea."
Oh, and the last thing I wanna mention that made it harder for me was that I'm also non-binary.
I've mentioned this in videos before, but I feel like my gender overlaps both with female
and gender-neutral, so I'm a non-binary woman.
I don't identify as a binary woman.
And so I think that also put me off from identifying as trans for a long time, because even once
I knew what being a binary trans person meant, I didn't have any idea about nonbinary identities.
And so binary trans woman never felt completely right to me, and when I learned about nonbinary
stuff, it suddenly felt a lot more comfortable.
So yeah, that's basically everything about why it took me so long to realize who I am.
There were just a lot of hurdles all kinda stacked on top of each other, and for the
longest time I was just running through them and not even trying to jump over them.
But I've finally made it over all of them, and I really hope that from here on out, things
only get better for the trans lesbians growing up today.
Anyway, if you'd like to see more videos like this, you can subscribe by clicking over
here, or if you'd like to support me on Patreon, you can do that by clicking over here.
Thanks so much for watching this video, and I'll see you next time.
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