Tuesday 01-02-2022 - 11:17

Whether you think it’s a rite of passage as a queer person or over-rated and needs to be thrown out, coming out has always been a huge part of being part of the LGBTQ+ community. 

 

However, the Covid pandemic made this process a million times harder for queer youth who were trapped home with their families. For those stuck in unsupportive and unaccepting homes we already expected that lockdown was going to be rough, but what very few of us expected was the mass gender exploration that took our generation by storm.  

 

I remember being absolutely overwhelmed by the amount of content  I saw being made by queer people who had accepted their sexuality, but were now going through an even bigger  gender identity exploration. With little distraction from how we felt inside, introspection became completely unavoidable.

 

One day, I got a text from my now girlfriend freaking out as she confessed to me: “I’m trans, I’m a woman, and this my name”. I was so happy for her since she had been questioning her identity for a while, however I also felt some inner conflict because at the same time she was accepting her identity, I was having my own gender crisis.  

 

With all these terms such as ‘non-binary’ and ‘gender-fluid’, ‘demi boy’ and ‘demi girl’ floating around the internet I tried to tell myself I was simply being influenced by her telling me she was trans, and the internet giving me new information.  

 

I had already come out to my parents twice. I came out as bisexual in high school, which got me in trouble, and then again as lesbian in college, which got me in trouble again. I thought that coming out was meant to be one linear thing: you come out as one sexuality and one sexuality only, you come out once and only once. But that is far from the truth. 

 

During Covid, I came out as lesbian, gay, pansexual, queer, asexual, demisexual, all within the space of a year to my best friend as I didn’t know how I felt and needed to find the right label. I then came out as non-binary to my girlfriend, then as a trans man, then back to non-binary. I felt like I only had the option of one gender, one sexuality. 

 

Then I did some digging. My girlfriend sent me some books on gender theory and sexuality such as ‘The Gender Bible’ and ‘The Lesbian Masterdoc ’ (both of which I highly recommend). I came to the realisation that most things to do with both sexuality and gender are pretty fluid. 

 

Eventually, I came out to most of the people in my life as genderfluid, gay and asexual. I had tried out listless names before falling on my current name, and still question that name from time to time. 

 

It’s important to know that coming out is not linear. Sometimes it’s messy, and you may not get your own label right the first time, but you’re allowed to alter your identity to however you feel at any one time, and you are not bound to the first label, or any label you give yourself, for the entirety of your life. 

As  long as you feel good with the label, or the non-label, you give yourself, you’re on the right track.

 

-Anonymous Student