Jasmine Tang

My adhd brain has been postponing writing about this since forver and the essay has turned into a new material.

Coming out has always been living rent-free in my head forever since I realized that I'm trans.

When I first realized I was trans, I was always eager to come out to everyone. I'm not sure why. Every person I always told. Looking back, I was this newly-came-out trans girl who was very anxious and wanted her identity reaffirmed. I was a closeted baby trans. Coming out was a way for me to get acknowledged.

Getting further a bit into my transition, I was a little bit more recluse. Acknowledging that I was trans (and still am lol), I was more invested in the discourse around trans issues and discovered how much transphobia around the world. Together with internalized transphobia, I was determined to pursue facial feminization surgery and voice training and yadi yadi yada to go stealth and to hopefully live my life as a cis woman.

Now, I'm not sure. Things have been changing for me in the past year. Coming to Berkeley and immersing myself in this accepting environment has made a world of difference for me. I've been starting to express myself more. My trans friend encouraged me to love myself more.

Andd I don't know. It has been tough to hide myself from coming out to my grandparents. My family advised me not to come out to my grandparents and I've been following their advice. But, it's painstakingly hard to stay in an environment where I would have to voluntarily hide myself to appease the family's peace. It hurts to not be able to say "I love your dress, where did you get it" and little things like that. It especially hurts to go into boy-mode and be eternalized into family pictures. I can't do it; instinctively, on the last occasion, I walked out of my family's gathering without saying much of a word.

With the choice of coming out, a difficult dilemma pops inside a majority of trans (fem) people's heads: "Do my family love me because to them, I am currently a guy, or do they love me because I am their child?"

I managed to get a blissful response from my parents. But for my grandparents? I haven't managed to get an answer.

I've also always been scared of getting hate-crimed and being discriminated against. With the current political climate in the US, I've been trying to hide the flag of my transness, or at least be very discreet about it. But, when I think about how cool these Twitter accounts with the trans flag are thriving and building things and how much I look up to these figures, it makes me happy. It makes me think about a future where another younger Jasmine would read these blogs and think about how when she grows up, she can also do these things; she no longer feels limited that just because she's trans, she is somehow disabled by this.

So, with the prospect of Pride Month coming (I finished writing this article in July so it passed already lul), with the question of being "Should I come out as trans online?", I guess the answer is "absolutely"

Absolutely.