Coming Out

My brief story of silence, fear, realisations, and the ability to finally be truly happy in who I am.

Yes I know it is not June anymore, but not only is Pride is all year around but I have written and edited this that many times over the past two months I have decided this is the version you are going to be getting and the one I will be reading out for my Youtube channel. (Link at the bottom) It isn’t in as much detail as the original because that was starting to turn into a huge trauma dump of a book. I am not ready to write a book, although I have been thinking about it for a while I do not think I can bring myself to put my life into words. Not yet anyway. So grab a cuppa as I am telling you now it is over 200 words.

I have also used * to direct you to outside links so you can choose whether or not you want to expand your knowledge if you do not already know what I am talking about.

Last year I made a very awkward coming out post and used AI to help me because I didn’t know how to put things into words myself. The fear, that has always been with me still very present at the time but certainly not now. I have spent more than a year reflecting on my past or as much of it as I can remember. Not only that but I have been ‘researching’ the science behind sex, gender identity, gender expression, gender roles etc and as I sit here writing this I can honestly say I never felt happier with who I am as a human. In a way this post is a testament to why LGBTQIA+ subjects should be taught by parents and schools a like. So others do not spend over 40 years thinking they are some sort of a broken freak. 

My story:

I do not know when I first noticed the disconnection between myself and my body. I do vividly remember being told that I was too much like a boy to be a girl and too much like a girl to be a boy. It is one of those memories that has always stuck out for me. All I know is that I never felt like I was either. I use to be asked “what ever are you” and my reply was always “I am a me”  BUT never in front of adults. I went through life convinced that certain body parts would change as I grew, sure when I was taught this wasn’t the case in school I didn’t know to male of it. I simply had no choice but to accept it.

I always knew I liked girls, and that I wanted to marry and live with my childhood best friend. To have a library, farm, a world famous ballet dancer oh and also be wonder woman. Still to this day I love the character and that whole part of the DC franchise. 

Sadly I was forced into the only use my body was for. For the pleasure of men. Now I am not going into detail about this, not just for your sake but also for mine. Plus I have covered it in past posts. Needless to say the “just put up and shut up” side of things, that fact I was made to believe it was all my own doing etc impacts me to this very day. I didn’t know and was never told that my body was mine. I was always told that it was for one use only. That how I felt didn’t matter as long as the man was satisfied life and relationships would be happy. I do not even know how many times in my life that I have spoken to the Dr about my own sex drive, as again this was always something about me that was broken. 

Due to the time of my upbringing I never (to my knowledge ) voiced any of this to anyone. I kept it all for daydreaming, and playing with my dolls. Everything had to stay in my head, there was no way I could tell others, I didn’t want to die. I was broken and had to live with that for the rest of my life. You see I was born in 1976, grew up in the *80’s and *90’s and only really started to find the rest of the world in the early 2000’s when all the unlearning and releasing of things started because I became active online. My brief stint at college In ’92-’93 showed me a little of what was out there. It was then that I managed to read a copy of *Anything That Moves and more importantly the *Bi manifesto, I realised it was talking about me! I was Bi! I wasn’t alone, not only that but there was nothing wrong with it.  I came out in 1993 and rather than being accepted by some I was greeted with the “no you’re not, it is just a phase, no girls are just your friends, it is just something you have read and want to be trendy” I learnt then that some people were just not willing to accept certain things. I do not fully blame them, nothing had been taught about it, no science, no facts, just bigoted views built on fear, and pushed by society. 

Now that it is 2024 however I am not so forgiving because the information has been out there for a while, the internet has been out there for a while, and these same people have the opportunity to unlearn and relearn things like I had to. But they choose not to. Wilful ignorance is a pet peeve of mine. They would much rather stick to what they were taught as if anything else was a personal attack against them sp they go into automatic defence mode and did their heals in. You can not help what you have not been taught growing up, it wasn’t a choice they made back then but it is a choice they make now. (When I am talking about these people I am not talking about every one in the rest of the world, simply those in “my world” because I know not everyone has access to the Information for starters.) 

Quickly going back to the ’90’s I had my first child in 1994, married a male, got divorced which was finalised after a long years process a month before the birth of my second child in 2000. (Yes two different fathers) to those around me I was seen as “cured” that my “phase” was over but that is only because they only ever recognised my relationship with women as nothing more than platonic friends. It just so happens that until last year my long term relationships have been with men. Noting more than a coincidence, certainly not a strong preference towards men, but the opportunity never came up for it to be anything else. 

In the past 24 years I know many people who are part of the LGBTQ+ family, including people who have transitioned, come out as being asexual, come out as being gay when they were pushed into being straight, and many other varied combinations. I accepted them for who they are being people are people and their happiness shone through. (Before anyone comes at me in the comments, as long as no one is hurting themselves or anyone else, and as long it is consensual that is what matters. I shouldn’t really have to say this but there is always one who comments a “but what about…” whilst adding something unhinged and usually illegal in the mix too. We won’t even go into the “well I identify as a ….” Insert boomer joke.) Even though I accepted them for who they are because I trusted they no best about their own identity I didn’t really start actively learning about it until about 5/6 years ago when, I started using Youtube during recovery from some invasive procedures. The more I watched the more I learnt, the more I went off and read things on my own, peer reviewed studies, historical papers etc I began to notice that more and more similarities with my own lived experience. Things I did, such as constantly trying to work out if I was intersex, which not only meant measuring my “cathedral”  to see if there was a certain length that was a signifier but also scouring the internet for the smallest amount of information that would confirm I was because this would explain everything.  (if you know the meme you know what I am on about and, if you don’t now is your chance to google Cathedral finding meme …. Because apparently men cant find the cathedral)  I got to know about different types of sexualities, not just the gay, bi, and straight ones. I identified with pansexuality about 10 years ago, but it never really felt any different to how I saw being Bi. I did hearts not parts. The more I learnt the more light bulbs came on in my brain, until last year when everything was fully illuminated. I had the answers to all the questions I had been keeping to myself for all of these years. The main thing that has always stuck out for me was the wise words of a YouTuber called OT (one topic at a time) 

Who in one of his videos looked into the camera as and said “if you think you may be faking it you’re not. Because those that are faking it know that they are” I cried. There I was a 46yr old human crying at a goddam meme compilation video. One that I had seen before but this time around is was different, In fact I have found more validation from YouTubers than in my closest of circles at times. Take Jammidodger for eg, he (Jamie Raines) wrote a book called The T in LGBT which includes information on his own transition, those of others, and many references in order for you to find more information out on your own. Of course I spent goodness knows how many hours reading more but this is a book I keep going into and would highly recommend. Even to this day I fall back into YouTube holes from some creators (listed below) as a comforting way of affirming that I am not on my own. I have also built up a lovely group of friend over in tiktok of all places (yes I know, who’d of thought?) It was there when about 4 years ago my mouth got jumbled and I declared that I was Pie. Yup my brain has mashed up Bi and gave me Pie. Who am I to argue with pie? It is amazing. Our own little community started to grow and is slowly building up into a wholesome group of humans all willing to support each other, and be there for each other. The only thing we don’t tolerate is intolerance. 

So here I am announcing to the world with a much stronger voice

Hi my name is Mel. I am a trans non binary human being, my preferred pronouns are They/them. I am an asexual, “piesexual” disabled and chronically ill content creator. I love being called a mum, I love being called a grandma because I see these as an honour as my grandma was amazing and the only one who throughout all of my life encouraged me to be me. I also think she was also ace but as she passed away three years ago I never had the chance to talk to her about it all. I do get called she by some, and I guess don’t really mind it because it is what I am use to, and what they are use to (perhaps this is also to help those around me more than myself… something else I am working through before I make a decision ) but for now I do not mind going by she/they. I also know a huge part of me doesn’t care what I am called, because I know who I am and for the first time in my whole life I can say that I am truly happy with my identity. Will this change? Who fucking knows at this point. I am coming up to 48 less than two weeks and want to rejoice in the knowledge that there are many others out there like me, that I am not on my own, and that I am not a freak. Those who will stick around and support me will, and those that don’t do not matter. I am done putting on pretences for the comfort of others. 

If you have gotten this far, give yourself a huge pat on the back. Thank you so much. 

*80’s

*Aids Pandemic https://www.historyextra.com/period/20th-century/aids-hiv-epidemic-changed-britain-how/#

*Section 28 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_28

*General vibe of the 80’s https://www.petertatchellfoundation.org/1980s-a-decade-of-state-sanctioned-homophobia/

*90’s

*Anything that Moves   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anything_That_Moves

*The Bi Manifesto  https://bimanifesto.carrd.co/

YouTubers that I can not thank enough:

https://www.youtube.com/@Jammidodger

https://www.youtube.com/@jessicaoutofthecloset

https://www.youtube.com/@OneTopic

https://www.youtube.com/@shaaba

https://www.youtube.com/@TheClick

Oh and of course the link to my own YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/@dandelionmel