Coming Out

Dear Mother,

I have been working up the courage for years to tell you this information about myself. What held me back for so long from admitting who I was is that I expected you and the rest of our family to distrust me, and say that I was lying.

For you to truly understand who I am as a person as you read this, I must first explain some terms that will be used in this letter.

Genderfluid means that your gender may change every month, day, week, or hour. You may be female one day, and male the next. It also means that you love each gender equally. Personally, I am usually non-binary.

Non-binary is a gender where you do not consider yourself neither male nor female. It can also be used as a blanket term for other genders that are not male or female, such as agender.

Neopronouns are essentially pronouns that non-binary people may use instead of they/them/their. The most common example of this is xe/xem/xir, but I use ey/em/eir pronouns as they are easier to say and fit me more.

Pansexual is a term for people who love all genders, but still identify as their birth gender. Similar to this, bisexual means that you love both males and females, but not non-binary people.

Transgender is identifying as the opposite gender to the one you were given at birth. Often, when referring to someone’s gender who is transgender, you would say that they are a transgender (whatever they identify as). One example of this is saying that they are a “transgender guy”, meaning that their birth gender is female and they identify as male.

Gender dysphoria is whenever you feel strange as your birth-assigned gender. It often causes a lot of psychological torment and stress. It often happens as you realize what gender you are, but having a body that does not feel like it belongs on you, as you are a different gender, is another cause.

Deadnames are the original names of lgbtq+ people who use others instead. It is often offensive to call someone by their deadname. Now that all of the terms have been explained, I will tell you about my journey to find who I am.

For a large portion of my life, I had attempted to convince myself that I was just another straight male. I would invent fake crushes on female people, or act like I appreciated male pronouns. All the while, I denied that I like both genders, or use neopronouns such as ey/em/eir.

The gender dysphoria and silent infuriation at my birth-assigned gender gradually ate away at my sanity and happiness until I reached the point of depression, one year before realizing that I was genderfluid. I had legitimately considered suicide, and often wondered what the point of life was.

My life was filled with school, homework, and free time, often consisting of playing video games with my friends. I figured that this would go on until after college, and I was unsure whether my years of life outside of school would be worth it.

This began to change the next year. Previously, I was only told that there were two genders: male and female, with “gay” being the only other label. The next year, I began to read more articles online and books with lgbtq+ characters. Gradually, I learned that lgbtq+ existed and what it was, and at first, I thought that I just supported it, but eventually realized that I was genderfluid.

There was a transgender guy, two non-binary people, and two pansexual people in my classes. It was fascinating to me to see people openly speaking about who they were. On the first day of school, they just went out and said that they were who they were.

Unfortunately, many of my teachers were homophobic/transphobic and would prevent discussion of lgbtq+. Still, it was extremely beneficial to me to be able to be in that environment with others like me, and learn that you could be who you want to be.

The way that I realized that who I truly was was by the fact that I would have different personalities on different days, or that I liked all genders equally. I decided on the name Coral instead of my deadname, and I request that you call me by that. The reasoning behind this is that my birth name is associated with many bad memories and dysphoria, as well being explicitly male. I also wish for you to use ey/em/eir pronouns when referring to me.

I hope that you can accept me as your child and that our relationship may grow stronger rather than become strained due to this.

Sincerely, Coral.