Coming out is hard, and coming out as trans is even harder. As trans folks, we have to do it in a way pretty much nobody else ever does.
This week on #StainedGlassWoman, we're looking at the rhetoric of How To Come Out Anywhere, so you can feel a little more confident when you invite the people you love into a deeper relationship with you.
@Impossible_PhD gonna take a read later - my gf is a social worker and sometimes helps kids with this issue, so maybe this would be a good resource for her or the kids :)
@2d My stuff isn't aimed at minors, I should say--it's not that they can't be used by minors where appropriate, just that there are many fewer resources for folks figuring their stuff out later on.
@Impossible_PhD The matching energy observation is so true. My mother has told me several times that her initial gut reaction to my coming out was based almost entirely off of how happy and excited I was to share it with her. While she didn’t at all understand in detail yet (many conversations would follow) she could tell it was a good thing for me in those first few minutes. She saw joy in my face and instinctively rushed to embrace it.
@kelidanovus@Impossible_PhD Once again Zoe hits the nail on the head. I'm pretty sure this is (part of) where I went wrong with my mother. I came from a place of fear & shame, which was far more about my relationship with my mother than being trans.
I was going to need a "do-over" anyway (since she's just trying to pretend she can just ignore things), and this article is so helpful.
@nictea@kelidanovus Good luck! When you're ready, it can actually really help to explicitly ask for a do-over. It sounds silly, but if they want to give it a try, it actually can help!
@nictea@kelidanovus Also, the energy matching thing? It's because humans are a social herd/troop animal. Evolutionarily, it's been super important to see and match troop members' emotional states, for the protection of all!
I'm actually thinking of just starting with a very short conversation, and giving her a copy of "Oh, s#!t, my child just told me they're trans" and another book I have, then revisiting after that. She just has no background to understand things at all, and it just seems to much to try and cover all that while coming out.
She (and I, when it comes to dealing with her) emotionally regulate poorly.
@Impossible_PhD this made me curious so I looked. I have known I was trans for 142 days.
A pair of buckets I use to divide people into often are:
a) People I won't take shit from.
b) People I will take shit from.
I thought about this immediately when you talked about the trans elder. Somehow, all trans people go into bucket (a) when it comes to whether or not I'm trans.
I think because I know how wrong it would be for them to question that.
@Impossible_PhD
When it comes to whether I am trans or not, bucket (b) is a thimble.
I won't argue that's because I have done the work to know this and no one gets to second guess me.
That's true, but that's not why.
My (unsent) message right now, for people who I have known, is: "I'm trans. I can't handle any objections or judgement so rather than risk that I'd prefer everyone to fuck off."
I suppose that's not healthy, and I have some work to do.
@OftOverthinking I mean, that's a rhetorical approach that'll leave you very alone, Wendy. You're telling them what you want them to do, and it'll be easy for them to do it.
@Impossible_PhD OK quickie while I'm reading, but you mentioned rhetoric and the idea that duh there's ways of learning this other than through trial and error and vibes should have occurred to me but didn't.... and are there self-study-able resources you could think of?
I think for me the purpose as you term it is what's held me back from being out in more places than I am, need to have a think about that.
Thank you for writing this, it's providing some mental framework
@Impossible_PhD By "this" I meant, thank you for this SGW post providing a rhetorical framework to communicate with people in terms of coming out... I actually don't recall having an education in rhetoric, which I feel sometimes tells. Also some of the components of things you've highlighted are places where I've held back from coming out in some contexts.
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