rants: cuz i have no one to talk to besides myself and even i'm sick of my shit

11: coming out as nonbinary for the first time

november 5th, 2020

hi guys,

i recently had a realization that it's been many years, and i haven't come out irl as nonbinary.

it's not something i'm actively hiding, although when people ask me my gender i always end up saying "female" (after awkwardly long pauses of course lol)

now that i'm preparing for university, i have the opportunity to really be who i want to be. i'd love to be open about being nonbinary.

i don't really care about/feel a connection to gender, and for me personally, i also don't care much about pronouns. i'm cool with being referred to by anything.

i put they/them in all my social media bios because they're my favourite pronouns, but i'm never offended or anything when people use she/her, he/him, or others.

i feel like coming out in regards to gender is completely different to coming out in regards to sexuality.

to be quite honest, i'm scared to come out as nonbinary. i haven't really experienced much homophobia or even transphobia firsthand, but where i live, people very firmly believe that there are only 2 genders.

when i say "people", this includes actual members of the LGBTQ+ community at my school. i know so many people who are gay, lesbian, bi, pan, etc., and/or trans, and they have all very strongly invalidated being nonbinary.

they all say it's just an attention thing, and that it's completely stupid.

they've all made that incredibly annoying, and frankly disheartening, "i identify as an attack helicopter" joke many times, intentionally to insult the idea of being nonbinary.

i've never met anyone irl who accepts being nonbinary.

it's both infuriating and frightening.

it really sucks because the LGBTQ+ community is supposed to be about embracing who you are and accepting people for that, but these people just... don't.

i think i might talk about this to my counsellor this weekend, and i guess i'll come out to her. it's just kind of scary.

my mom knows i'm not straight, and now she doesn't ask me about my love life anymore. my dad doesn't know, and i love him so much but he can be a lot sometimes.

i feel like i've disappointed my parents enough, so i don't plan on telling any family members. if they ask my about it directly, i'll tell them, but i think i've put them through enough lol.

i have 2 friends. one is bi, and one is pan (and also maybe genderfluid?? now that i think about it lol. i can't even remember) we're all very awkward though, and when we came out to each other we couldn't look each other in the eye. ig we're just very shy and private, idk why it was so weird bc we're all extremely accepting.

i don't think i'll bring it up to them either, unless i'm asked directly. they're going to the same uni and i'm going somewhere else anyway.

honestly, even right now i'm a little nervous about saying i'm nonbinary, because i feel like someone is just going to invalidate me and get mad at me. people where i live genuinely believe that being nonbinary is wrong and harmful to the LGBTQ+ community.

anyway, i don't really think being nonbinary is a big deal. it's not something i feel like i absolutely NEED to be open about.

however, when i go to university, i would love to just be open and be myself.

when people actually refer to me as they/them, or like anything that has to do with me being gender neutral, it makes me so happy.

the idea of openly using they/them pronouns just makes my heart soar.

i just wanted to talk about this a bit because i realized that i've never talked about it ever. it's nice, but still scary.

anyways, thanks for being nicer than people irl lol.

if any of you guys are openly nonbinary and have any sort of advice at all, i'd love to hear it.

i love you all, thanks for validating my existence(,,:

-em❤️❤️❤️