Out vs. out: a report from the frontlines of my life

Posted on January 18, 2011. Filed under: author: qout, sexuality & orientation, trans* |

Super dramatic title.

Taking this post as a prompt: Trans Pride vs Gay Pride.

Out #1: 2008

When I was 19 and living independently in Pennsylvania, having left my parents’ house in Illinois when I was 17, I moved in with some queer friends – three cis lesbians and a cis bisexal guy. My older brother came to visit and met them all. When my parents asked who I was living with, he outed them and thereby outed me as “something”.

Bonus of having fundy Christian parents who can discuss interdenominational differences and nuances of doctrine and heresy for hours, but perceive the un-Christian world as a monolithic damned-and-going-to-hell entity: it was entirely possible to come out as something vaguely non-heterosexual, in a non-specific and undefined way via association with queers, and have my parents feel the full emotional impact of a more concrete statement like “Mom; Dad; I’m gay”. I was a wandering sheep, and they were distraught. End scene.

In this way, I became “out” and was part of “the family” without having to fully face and articulate my identity. I simply belonged to a queer milieu. I had my “I don’t have a family” cred to back that up. I felt OUT.

AND I felt fucking great about it.

I was glad to (a) find a community and soak up their culture; (b) stop playing the CAHAB (coercively assigned heterosexual at birth) role my family had put me in; and (c) I was unquestionably some kind of queer: so my friends didn’t question me.

What was I? Out. Uh, as something. I really didn’t say. I would say “bisexual” sometimes. I would say “gay” usually. I would say “not straight”. Didn’t say “lesbian” more than twice. Didn’t have the words for my identity. Always knew that it was deeply related to gender, but transsexual women: much more vocal & visible & sensationalized by media; transsexual men: not so much; and besides I thought that gender was the crux of queerness for every queer. I didn’t know about more gender normative Ls & Gs because my L and G friends were butches and flamers, respectively. I identified with the gender non-normativity of my friends and sidelined myself with respect to sexual orientation. Okay, that’s not exactly true: I started sleeping with Dustin, but I sidelined the significance of it. I was, let’s say, out to the best of my knowledge and ability, or, let’s say, the will was strong, and the self-knowledge was there, but the idea that my identity could be taken seriously by other people literally never crossed my mind. And wouldn’t until two years later, when I met trans* guys.

Elise looked me head to toe and said “Jay .. you are the gayest lesbian I have ever seen.” I knew she could say it and I knew it was fundamentally true but I didn’t for a minute think that she would treat it as anything other than a joke, were I ever to seriously propose that I identified as a gay male.

I still felt mostly great though: when I was alone; and when I was surrounded by queers, fitting in; and when I was surrounded by hets, not blending in.

Out #2: 2010

(First of all, Jesus, really? Has it only been 3 + years that I’ve been out? Why am I so bitter and exhausted already?)

Purely in the contexts of school, job and one dating relationship: came out as trans, and requested proper pronouns. Noticed something weird:

It is a hell of a lot harder and more miserable to an extreme degree.

I was proud, happy and relieved to be out the first time, even though I was OUTED. I have never wanted to go back to pre-2009 closetedness.

This time, hardly a day goes by that I don’t regret coming out. Every day is a fight. Every single day, I go to campus knowing that at least one of my co-workers, who have been working with me for the past 7 months and have had that amount of time to interrogate me and learn to respect my identity, at least one of them will fuck up my pronoun. You know, not maliciously; but at least one of them, every single goddamned day. It’s like they take turns.

To put pronoun violations in context – because, you’re probably going to be inclined to put it into context for me; you might want to tell me about “physical gender cues” and “everyone makes mistakes” and “as long as they apologize, what’s the problem?” -

What this means for me is that EVERY time EVERY one of my coworkers opens their mouth, I have no assurance that what comes out will be right. Every time they speak in front of me it is Russian roulette. I tense up. Someone’s going to fuck it up today: I would love for it to be NOT NOW. A basic level of trust is a pre-req for being able to relax around people. If someone one fucks up my pronoun and then brushes past it with a “Ooop! Sorry!” and giggle, they are not doing anything to restore my trust. And so I try to keep hoping, you know, but I can’t legitimately get my hopes up knowing that I’m guaranteed another pronoun violation tomorrow. Or later in the evening. Or in five minutes. And you could be my next one, despite your apology: wink.

What this means to me is that WHEN you fuck up, the conversation ENDS there. That second. You can keep talking, but we are no longer engaged in a conversation in the sense that we are looking each other in the eye and communicating as equals. I am not listening to you. I don’t take your “sorry!” at face value and chuckle ruefully in my head at what a scamp you are, or give a sympathetic little sigh because I know how damn difficult it is, these kids with all their newfangled notions of self-determination and respect, of course you’re going to slip up time and again!

Instead I hate you. For fully 30 seconds. And after that, I move your tile back to square one. All your ally points! Gone! Not that that’s a rational punishment, but hey! Trust. It’s fragile. I am not a saint. I am a hunted, hurt human operating permanently in a state of extreme stress and depression. That’s typical for my demographic.

There was a sense where it was definitely better to be closeted. Knowing who I was and keeping that knowledge to myself. People would mislabel me, but they were doing it in complete ignorance. I could frame their ignorance as just ignorance and not as a more-or-less considered response to my clearly spelled-out identity. I could sort of laugh at them for being stupid. I could think, “I have the power to keep this person from knowing who I am, and I am choosing to exercise that power”. Now I think “Every time this person speaks to me, they give me their verdict: my identity is in their power to acknowledge or deny”.

So this kind of out sucks, really. I don’t think I could go back, because I am committed to going forward for my own health and sanity, but the loss of power associated with being out as trans* is tangible and overwhelming. The sheer amount of deprogramming that people need to cooperate with in order to be a decent ally is overwhelming. Having to conduct that deprogramming at other people’s convenience, ie at whatever given point during my school or work hours that they approach me, engage me in conversation and then fuck up – sucks, and leaves me feeling exposed and weary.