Some Kind of Journal I Guess

Outed

Alright so this isn't technically a vent, I'm doing pretty well right now, but I just wanted to talk about this since it still kind of makes me angry when I think about it

A bit of a warning that this story will talk about being outed from the closet and transphobia/enbyphobia, so if that makes you uncomfy proceed with caution.

Also if this is too long or there are too many details, please let me know, I'll try to be mindful of that in the future. I just like adding detail and getting deep into my stories.

Around the time this all happened, I had known for quite a while now that I wasn't exactly cis, and I was starting to adjust to it. I wasn't 100% sure what I was and was still kind of in the questioning phase, but I was pretty positive that I was a demigirl. (spoiler alert: I wasn't lol) I kind of entered a phase where I would talk about gender a lot, I guess just as a way of kind of understanding myself better, and some weird form of self-validation? I was dealing with a lot of internalized transphobia due to my transmed phase, so I guess that might explain it. 

However, I wasn't out to anyone in real life, and I especially didn't want my parents to know. They've expressed that they would be supportive of me whatever gender I was, and they support the trans community and stuff, but I thought that them knowing would open the floodgates for really awkward conversations, not to mention I would have to explain what a demigirl was, and they might not understand or think it's something made up. (My dad's made jokes about the "70+ gEnDeRs" before, I know he doesn't mean anything by it but it kinda made me uneasy)

During all of this, I was really close with my older cousin, who was 17 then and 18 now, and she was my best friend. (I know that's sad, but I didn't have many other people to talk to, since I'm homeschooled.) We'll call her Alissa. Alissa took notice of my gender talk and asked me about it, and I decided to just rip the bandaid off and come out to her. 

I didn't tell her I was a demigirl since I knew she wouldn't understand what that was, I just told her I fell under the non-binary umbrella and was still partially fem, that I had gender dysphoria, and that I used she/they pronouns. I also told her that I wasn't comfortable telling my parents yet for the reasons listed above, and that she was the only one who knew at the time. I also made it clear to her that I was telling her all of this in confidence. She was actually really supportive, and we had a short talk about it. She really made me feel better, and I felt accepted. I really trusted her, and that conversation heightened the already high opinion I had of her.

Fast forward a bit,  Alissa was living with us part-time, and I was in a phase where I didn't have a label for my gender because I had figured out new stuff and the label demigirl didn't apply to me anymore. I just knew I wasn't cis. At the time, my hair went down just past my ears and almost to my shoulders, and I started wanting my hair cut short so I could kind of experiment with presenting more masculine. (I didn't say I wanted a masculine haircut since that would give me away, I just said I wanted it short.) At one point, my mom came into my room to confirm that it didn't have anything to do with gender stuff. I thought that was weird, but I didn't really see anything off about it, and I just told her it had nothing to do with it. You know, like a liar.

Fast forward even more time, and Alissa had done some pretty not-good things. I won't go into exactly what she did, but she really betrayed my family's trust, and she left and went to live back with my aunt and uncle, who are her grandparents. I was hurting from it, especially since she blocked me even though I was in no way involved with the situation and never did anything to her, but I was able to move on. I finally got my hair cut just like I wanted to, and having it cut that short for the first time was probably the most gender euphoria I've experienced in my entire life so far. I'd figured out that I was genderfluid, and everything was fine.

I was alone in the car with my mom, driving back to our town from quite a bit away, and we got on the subject of Alissa. My mom told me about how she would project and talk about other people's issues behind their backs, so more toxic behavior that I had no idea about until then. She ended up telling me how Alissa told her that I had told Alissa things that I didn't trust my parents with and that I was afraid to tell them, in a very accusatory manner, implying I didn't feel safe telling my parents personal stuff. Apparently, she also told my aunt about it, so double yikes. I immediately knew what she was talking about, and my stomach dropped.

After a tiny bit of indirect questioning, my mom confirmed that yes, Alissa was talking about the gender stuff. I had to actually reevaluate that entire conversation I had with her, because I just felt so betrayed. I thought she had already hurt me enough, but no, she had to out me to the VERY PERSON I said that I DIDN'T want knowing. Thankfully, I got lucky, since my mom didn't first find out through her. It turns out that while I thought I was being stealth 100 about my gender stuff, she had an idea of the fact that something was up with me gender-wise because of how often and how passionately I would talk about trans issues. Great job, Jaden. Way to be subtle.

We had a nice conversation after that, and I didn't tell her I was genderfluid for fear of more confusion, but I know that at least she would be okay with me being genderqueer. To this day, she hasn't told my dad about it, and I have no idea if he figured it out either, which makes me feel nervous, but oh well.

Back to the actual reason I'm telling this story, though. Being outed felt like a complete betrayal of trust from someone I believed would respect my wishes for her not to tell, even if it didn't harbor bad results. I thought that as a member of the LGBTQ+ community herself, she would have more understanding of the fact that getting outed without your consent isn't really pleasant. Hell, I was even put in a situation where I lied to my parents about something because I had no idea if she was out to them as bisexual or not and I didn't wanna risk outing her, and the fact that she not only wouldn't do the same for me but also went out of her way to out me really hurt.

I'm doing much better now, this was quite a while ago, and while the memory of it still upsets me, I don't really let her as a person affect me anymore, since she's out of my life (through her choice.) I'm still not out as genderfluid to anyone irl, but I'm doing pretty well since I'm in an online environment where I feel like it's okay to be myself, identify how I want to, use the pronouns I want to use, etc.

If you've ever been outed forcefully, I'm really sorry about that, and I hope things have gotten better for you. Anyways this took too long to type out have a good day