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.

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, 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 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 as a male into family pictures. I can't do it. The silence is just unbearably deafening; 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. They accepted me for who I am and gradually working towards getting used to my new gender representation. More fortunate than other trans fems, I've been allowed to stay with them and remain on their health insurance for my estrogen and hormone therapy treatment. From this, I managed to complete my community college and successfully transferred to UC Berkeley. I am eternally grateful to be their child. They raised me with such grace and pride. I love them. They've instilled in me core values about life, and I wouldn't have asked for any alternatives.

But for my grandparents? I haven't managed to get an answer.

I've also always been afraid of getting hate-crimed and discriminated against. With the current political climate in the US, I've been trying to hide my transness, or at least be very discreet about it. But, when I think about how cool these Twitter and GitHub accounts with the trans flag are thriving and building things and how much I look up to these figures, it makes me happy and hopeful.

It makes me think about a future where another younger version of 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's somehow disabled by this.

So, with the coming of Pride Month this June, with the question of being "Would I, Jasmine Tang, come out as trans online?", the answer is "absolutely."

Absolutely.