I gave her a letter, which made me feel like a coward and maybe it was unfair to her. We were walking home from school on this really quiet winter day after our last exam when I stuffed the letter into one of her backpack pockets. I told her to read it when she gets home. She just went with it, and didn’t pry too much about what the letter could be.
Her home is closer to school than my own house, so we left each other at a street corner. “Can your parents pick me up after dance?”
“Yeah sure,” I said. “I’ll see you there. Read the letter I give you, ok! Feel free to call me about anything.”
“I will read it, see you at dance.”
“Bye!”
Once I started going home alone, I got really scared. I felt bad for my best friend, she deserves a one-on-one talk, not a dumb letter. But it was done!
I got home and was watching video game youtube videos with my sister when I got a call. I checked caller ID, it said her last name. I knew what this call would be about.
“Hey R,” I said.
“Hi… uh… It’s a lot to process.”
“Oh. Yeah.”
“When I was reading your first paragraph, I got scared. I thought you might have cancer and I nearly started crying! I don’t need another person in my life who has cancer.”
Knew the letter was a bad idea…
“Oh my gosh… I’m so sorry… I wanted to talk to you about it, but it was hard. I didn’t have the courage. Sorry!!”
“It’s okay. I know it must take courage. Did you tell your family about it?”
“No… I don’t think they would like that.”
“Well, it’s still processing, but I want you to know it’s cool.”
“Thank you… We will talk at dance tonight a bit okay? If you are confused, you should google stuff about it. Maybe it will help. Either way, we will talk at dance.”
“Good idea. I will see you there, then.”
“Yep. Bye!”
So that’s how it happened. At dance class, I told her I might want to change my name. She just nodded to that. My best friend is the sweetest person I know, and even though she is religious I knew she would be okay with me being queer trans. We have been friends since the 2nd grade, and now we’re in 11th grade.
Writing this, I realize we didn’t even name what I was (trans and queer) in our conversation on the phone (I did in the letter though). Maybe this will become an issue, as in she becomes “scared” to think of me as trans and queer. I hope that makes sense. It’s like when cis and hetero people who have friends who are queer that accept them initially, but it turns out they are actually sneaky transphobes/homophobes in the end. I can’t know what will happen to our relationship, but so far she has said nothing bad. I don’t want to let myself be cautiously optimistic, I just want to be happy she accepted me.
But I know that cis + het people accepting me is the bare minimum of what they can do. Support is what queer and trans people need.
As I’m writing this, it’s been about 3 days since I came out to her. Yesterday, I invited R to my house along with my two other friends, E and A. We played cards, talked about the new semester coming up, and watched stupid videos on youtube. I love all my friends so much, and it would mean the world to me if they accepted me. They are super supportive of me and each other already, so if I had their support and they knew I was a trans person, I know I could take on the world and express my gender as I want to. In the next few months, I suspect that time will come.
