Coming Out

The short version, I am coming out as a trans woman, as well as pan/omnisexual. I use she/her, previously I was fine with he/him, but no longer feel that way. I have been using the name Abbie socially for a while now, and wish to change it legally as well, and as of June 1st 2022, I have! I am now Abigail legally, going by Abbie socially though.

Below I will explain my thoughts, I don't expect many to read it, but I think it should answer some questions, but feel free to ask about my gender identity/sexuality, it certainly opens up questions I had not considered before. These thoughts were written when I first came out, and things have changed a lot since then, so again, check the updates for my most up to date thoughts.

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Over the last few years, my understanding of gender and sexuality has changed a lot. I have known about LGBT+ at least since I was a teenager, it was always there, but it was always in the background, I didn't know anyone who identified this way, nor did I put question to my own identity, I thought I was a cis man, straight, and it wasn't until the last few years I began thinking about it more and more.

I thought more about gender than sexuality, I held a strong belief that I was attracted to women and not men, regardless of my gender, and I guess that reaffirmed my belief that I couldn't be trans, though I learned about non-binary later, which put more questions in my mind. I have also come to realize that I am polysexual, meaning I am attracted both women and non-binary people (have now realized I'm omnisexual, check updates)

I knew about trans people, even knew some people out there who were trans, but I didn't know what non-binary meant, not fully anyway, I had heard the term at times, but there was not anyone out there who I could put the picture to, so finding more celebrity trans and non-binary people in the recent few years, playing games and watching TV show etc. which featured trans and non-binary people, not only showed me different perspectives and struggles they can go through, but it sparked more thoughts about my own gender identity, so I began to watch videos, read online about it, figure out if there was some kind of spark there, and well, here we are.

So the term I used before, demigender, demimale or demiboy or whichever you prefer, is one I didn't know about before I started researching more about non-binary people, and it was exactly the thoughts I have had. I have only experienced being male, but everything I knew about being a man, what I should conform to, what it meant to be male, that was something that even as a child I questioned. I never believed it mattered how you presented yourself, your clothes, your hair, how you talked or acted, to me, gender didn't mean anything, it was a label, a term that divided up bathrooms and toy aisles by meaningless distinctions. There were boys at my school that didn't act masculine in their appearance, girls who enjoyed "boy things" like playing football and video games, and at the time, I didn't know that these things didn't play into typical gender roles, a person was a person, gender was not significant.

I didn't see myself different from other people, but knew I was, but the reason I always came to wasn't related to gender, rather it was related to my ASD (autism spectrum disorder). To me, I viewed the world in a way where I wasn't like others and couldn't communicate that way with others in the way I was suppose to because I am autistic, not because of my gender, fitting in was never because I felt any sense of gender dysphoria, rather it's a sense of neither feeling male nor female.

What gender I am when I look in the mirror feels like it should be obvious, I present myself as male, the clothing I wear could not be described as feminine, I currently have a beard (shave it off now actually, it's better for sure), I have had both short and long hair at various points in my life, currently having hair that goes to my shoulders and my voice is monotone, deep and masculine, but if I were to call myself a man because of this, it feels wrong.

I don't feel like I can identify with the way others identify as a man, though there are still these things I feel like I can't deny, I don't feel uncomfortable this way, I have always felt myself, so in a way, I didn't think I really was non-binary, at least until I discovered what demigender meant, and that was important to me, because it described what I felt much better than transgender or anything else. The way I have best seen demigender described, it's the feeling of having a partial connection to a gender identity, whether it be male, female, a third gender or no gender at all.

To me, I feel a connection to the male gender, yet also to no gender at all, and more recently, feelings of femininity have started to form. This is why I don't mind anyone who uses he/him rather than they/them, though my thoughts about all of this are still evolving, and during my research, I read posts stating that you don't have to stick to one identity forever, and maybe I was begin to feel differently, which is a major reason why I feel somewhat comfortable sharing this, as I may not feel like this in a year or two, it's still new to me.

I still feel rather ignorant of the whole thing really, still feel like an outsider, and reading how non-binary people are discriminated against, how our feelings don't exist, that we are either transgender or confused cis people, saying I am myself non-binary, and even more so demigender/demiboy, it's something that many people don't understand, and I don't know if I have the full understanding of it yet either.

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UPDATE: So it's been about a month (April 25th) since I posted this originally, and I decided to update and revise my statements slightly. Firstly, I didn't talk much about sexuality itself, probably because I didn't know what to call what I felt, but then I found out about the term polysexual, which describes the attraction I feel to women and non-binary people, agender and trans etc. I also came out to someone IRL, though not to my parents yet, but I'm working the courage to do so, it went well though and she was positive and supportive, but it still feels difficult to tell my parents. I have also found that since posting this, people have responded positively, and I have found it easier to share this personal information about myself with other people, and in general, I just feel happier than I have in a long time.

Small update, shaved the quarantine beard, good decision, it didn't make me feel like me anymore, have been considering names, while I'm still uncertain, there is this part of me that feels like I want this, but I don't know, we'll see what happens. Currently liking the name Abbie/Abby but others include Naya, Nico/Niko, Alex and Wynn.

As of June 8th, I am trying out the name Abbie in some places online, I'm liking it so far, and I have been thinking that the term demiboy may not be as reflective as I thought, there are more feminine things that I experience, I feel myself relating to that side more than usual, maybe having spend more time in the LGBT+ community made me realize that my gender expression and the gender expression of others is so varied, that my expression leaning more so towards male is something that I may not be tied to. Also, I should mention that I have used non-binary mostly, but that genderqueer is a synonym I can identify with as well, and simply queer for sexuality, since polysexual isn't widely used.

On June 18th I came out to my mother as non-binary. I was expecting it to go pretty well, and I think it did, we definitely talked for quite a long while, and while I expected her not to know about all of this, and I think I explained it as best I could, she still seems to not fully understand it, and I get that, but I know that she respects me for who I am, she said that as long as I was happy and that this is what I felt like, that's all she wanted. Something completely unexpected though is that she told me her cousin, my first cousin, once removed I suppose is the term, is in fact, lesbian, and is in a healthy marriage for over 10 years, and she was even at their wedding. I never knew this, and in ways I wish I had, it would have made me feel less hesitant for sure, that it was not 100% out of left field, but well, now I know.

It's July 3rd and I'm thinking that I want to stop using demiboy, feels like it's saying I'm mostly male, which I don't know if I feel anymore, I feel a little of everything, and it varies from day to day, I'm not sure I would say it's like genderfluid, because I feel like I don't have enough of a connection with any gender, and the feelings of not having a defined gender, a non-binary gender I suppose you could say, still persists, so yeah, just going to use non-binary/genderqueer for now.

July 7th, so turns outs that didn't last long, because I found the term Trigender, which can be described as having three genders at the same time, and you can move between them, so I feel male, female and some gender I cannot describe, a non-binary gender, and there are times I feel a bit of all three genders, and times where I feel a lot more male or female or non-binary, so I think this works for me right now. Also just learned about the term Neptunic, which is a more precise version of how I feel, though polysexual is also still accurate.

July 10th, a thought popped into my mind, neopronouns are probably superior, because with "they/them", it can maybe be used in a sentence and the recipient may misunderstand that it's singular and not plural, which usually isn't a problem, but could be in situations where it isn't known if it's a singular or plural usage. Also, it's more usable in different languages as well, which helps since English isn't my first language, so if I were to get a pronoun pin, it would be slightly confusing with it being English, so yeah, going to use xe/xem pronouns, but you can still use they/them as well.

July 14th, well it's international non-binary day, so happy pride! I also just came out on Facebook, which means everybody will know, some may even see this update as well, so here we are. It's now such a big part of my life that I needed to share that, and yeah, I'm happy about doing it.

July 18th, let's revisit sexuality, because big update, I am omnisexual, meaning I am attracted to all genders, but it varies from each. I still feel mostly neptunic, but some men who have more feminine features or present more feminine can be attractive to me. Also been thinking about a last name, as I have said before, I am going by Abbie online, and thinking about trying it IRL, and I love it, and now that I almost exclusively think myself like that, I want to experiment with another last name, I don't mind my given last name, but still. I was suggested Abbie May, so trying that out for a while.

July 25th, it's been 3 months to the date (April 25th) since I came out as non-binary, and in that time, I realized that my feelings have become more complicated since then, feeling my masculine side fainting more and more away, and questioning whether I'm female or enby, I don't know really. As well as exploring my gender identity, I have also come to realize that my sexuality isn't what I thought, and that I am attracted to more people than I thought, and I now use the label omnisexual. I know one thing, I am happy.

August 8th, it's been two months since I started calling myself Abbie online, and ever since, it's who I am. As such, I have decided to request a legal name change as well as gender, because well, I feel that my connection to gender and who I am are tied to my sense of femininity more and more, so if there is a remaining part masculinity, I would rather be feminine and experience that than masculine and experience that, as such I finally feel that calling myself a trans woman is right, so there we are, and now I gotta figure out the details of HRT and the process involved with that, I know some, but learning more and more.

August 19th, I went out with my feminine clothing and make-up for the first time today. I was anxious for a while but felt like I needed to take the step forward, and it felt good, like I finally feel like I can do this properly, even if I may not be perfect or even close to what I want to look like, if I keep hiding it from the world, the doubts are going to overwhelm me, and I know that this is me now, and I feel good, and I hope that I will feel even better if I can get HRT, I think that without it, there will always be something off about it all.

September 2nd, just had my first trans appointment thingy. They said there was some wait time possibly due to them having a lot patients which I sorta expected. A nice thing is that they are able to make a nickname for me so I will be referred to as Abbie from now on in their systems. She was quite nice and positive and asked how I had felt and just explained I had been questioning for a while, and that I finally figured it out and yeah, now we wait once more.

September 20th, I didn't ever explain, but around September 5th, I was notified that the wait period would be longer than I expected, that is that I'm gonna need to wait until April 27th, and since then, I have been having a lot of mixed feelings about that, but also the last few weeks have been some of my best, pretty much ever, and while life is never easy, it does feel more right than ever. I wish I had more to really say, but it's just been good, even though there are so many things I want, looking at myself now, I feel like I'm getting to the point where the wait is still hard to swallow, but that the closer I get to it, the more ready I will be. Also, I am using she/her only now, and considering if it makes sense for me to call myself non-binary, as the feelings I have of being a woman make me so happy, and saying anything else is making me question things, and I don't know, it's confusing.

October 25th, it's been 6 months since I came out as non-binary, which has evolved to realizing I was trans, though thinking about my identity has been something I have done for way longer. I never quite knew what was so weird, was it just became I have autism? I thought so, but I had also known I had autism for a long time, yet something was still wrong, and the question of gender was something I hadn't considered much, mostly because gender wasn't talked about, I knew no LGBT+ people either, and didn't know what non-binary, I knew what trans meant, and I begun questioning if I were trans before calling myself non-binary, and ways, I still feel that I'm not binary, but also that being a trans woman makes the most sense to me, and I haven't thought of myself as non-binary as much lately, more just a woman, because everything about that feels right to me. There's still a long time until I can get to where I want, but I know that this is my life now, some days I can't believe it, but it's true, and I couldn't see my life being anything different.

December 23rd, anyone who can relate to being out, and having no choice but to wait, and just feeling exhausted by everything? I wake up, and I hope I finally got my wish and was just made a cis woman, instead I have to look at this body and see a man, and I just feel like I am going to be like this forever, and maybe I will be, maybe HRT, surgeries, even legal stuff won't ever happen, maybe it will and it won't be what I imagine, and that's also scary as hell. It helps being socially being out, expression through my clothing, and makeup and such too, but I never cared about that, what mattered was how I felt inside, and that still says "you are not a man", but when I know that who I am and what I look like aren't alligned, I feel this sense of not existing, I have not been born yet, but I am still here, so where do I even fit in? 2021 is almost over, and I have only out for less than a year, so my mind still has doubts, but I know I can't live how I have for the 25 years I have felt wrong, and I don't know if I will feel right ever, but I don't know anything else, I just know something isn't right, and I can't see how changing something about my entire existance couldn't at least do something to improve things, so maybe 2022 will be worse, who knows, I expect it isn't going to be what I imagine, the new year never is, life is too unpredictable, but I am going to see it through, as scared as I have been I lack the strength to do so, I made it all the way through, and in 4 months, I am going to see the gender therapists, and we will see if they let me start HRT, and if they do, I hope I can see myself for the first time ever

March 27th, there is exactly 1 month until my trans consultation thing, we are in the endgame, it's gonna happen very soon. I'm excited, nervous, but hopeful that I will be able to get on HRT sooner rather than later, but I am prepared if that's still going to take a while, as I don't know what to expect. Either way, living my life as a woman, it's what I'm gonna do regardless of HRT or anything

April 25th, it's been exactly 1 year since I came out. In that time, I have discovered much more about my gender, my sexuality and who I am overall. I came out as non-binary first, then later as a trans woman, and pansexual. My feelings were still all over the place, and it developed a lot, as I began to accept who I was. I feel happier than I have in a long time, and even though there is a long way to go, there is only 2 days until I go to my first trans consultation, so I'm finally getting there.


April 27, I am home from my first trans consultation. I think it went well, I explained how I had felt like my gender didn't match how I felt, and who I were, and also how I never liked the way my body looked, and that I wanted to go on hormones, get hair removal and possibly bottom surgery in the future. I have another session 2 months from now. The bad news, it's going to take 8 months until I can start hormones at least, it sucks, but I had the feeling it would still take a while, as they want to make sure this is the right path for me, but there's a silver lining, it's possible that should someone cancel in between this time, my date may be pushes ahead, so who knows, maybe it will come sooner than 8 months.

June 1st, omg omg omg, I got my new birth certificate in the mail today, my legal name is now Abigail ahhhhhhhh!