Coming Out Tips

Parents

• Write a letter. Explain all of your feelings, and answer any questions that might be asked, and have an information leaflet (you can get one off the internet).
• Have an “Out”. An Out is a friend who knows already, so if you need support after, such as somewhere to stay or just a person to hold, they’re there.
• Be confident. I keep saying this, be confident. If you seem sure of yourself, people will readily accept you as you are.
• Keep calm. Don’t go mental when someone doesn’t accept you. Just walk away. Don’t get into a fight where you could get hurt or kicked out of the house.
• Don’t overload your parents. Start transition slowly once you’ve told them, starting with smaller things like a haricut and clothes, moving to a binder and packing, to surgery and hormones. Don’t drop a bomb on them.

School

• Tell your close friends first, so you have someone to lean on if things get rough or violent.
• Tell the school management, so the teachers and staff will refer to you as you want to be called.
• Start to express as your gender, and when someone calls you the wrong name or misgenders you, quietly correct them and move on.
• If people start getting mean, tell staff. If it escalates to violence then it is a hate crime, so do not let it go on.

Rest of family

• Your parents might tell your grandparents, who being chatty gossipers, they’ll tell everyone else, and that would work well.
• Grandparents might be confused, but they may still be accepting.
• It can be itimidating if you have cousins similar in age to you who are the same gender as you, because they look great. But don;t be intimidated. Just roll with it.