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My heart races, thumping a staccato rhythm through my chest. My palms slicken and sweat seeps through the fibres of my t-shirt. Mum and dad sit across the dining table from me. Our dirty plates sit in front of us almost cleared of the meat and three-veg that was mum’s specialty. I had barely tasted mine as it went down. The dry bites of lamb chops and mushy steamed broccoli somehow held even less of an appeal than usual as my stomach tightened and my palms slickened against the cutlery.
Being queer means that you never stop coming out to people. Almost every person I meet I have to decide whether I want to crack open a window to my heart and risk them further damaging the already battered and bruised organ, or whether I decide that it’s not worth it; it’s not worth and aching pain of being disappointed yet again by complete stranger’s opinions of me. Most of the time I can convince myself that I don’t actually care that much and simply weather whatever reaction they bestow upon me. But despite having to do it repeatedly, the act of coming out never gets any easier, and coming out to my parents was something I hadn’t quite figured out how to do. But I have to do it now. Every morning, I slather the stinking Testogel onto my stomach, turning my fan toward me to waft away the burning fumes of the alcohol that cloy and sting in my nose, and every day the blessed changes happen slowly. My voice is getting deeper, my facial hair is starting to get darker, my arms and legs and stomach now are thatched with hair, and the bottom growth is really hitting. All of these changes – bar the bottom growth – are now getting harder to hide. My impending surgical removal of my breasts is also going to be something almost impossible to hide.
I don’t know why I have found it so hard to figure out a way to tell them. I know they love me and are supportive of everything I do and have supported my other coming out of being bisexual, but I still just find myself hesitating. Scratch that. I do know why it’s harder. It’s because I know how they have reacted to my previous coming out. I know how they have reacted to everything I do. They support but also question. They ask a thousand questions trying to understand and I wanted to avoid being their personal Google search engine for as long as possible. Once they know, I’ll have to step back into the role of walking my mum through her anxiety about MY life decisions. Once they know my own nerves about undergoing a surgery will take a back seat since any sign of anxiety will be perceived as uncertainty and used as a reason as to why I should wait. But I can’t wait anymore. Every day I stand in front of my mirror trying to choose an outfit that makes me feel the least shit. I try on shirt, after shirt, after jumper, after button up, after shorts, after pants, after everything I own, with the pile of discarded clothing threatening to tumble and bury me. Eventually I always settle on one of the two shirts I ever wear since they are safe and make my appearance bearable to me but not after weeping on my bedroom floor, staring at my body and the curves that are in all the wrong places and the breasts which most assigned-women-at-birth people revel in but that I resent. It’s one hell of a daily routine, and sometimes it just ends in me numbly climbing back into bed and deciding not to go out after all. All I want is to not have to hunch and pull my shirt away from my chest every five seconds. I want to breathe deeply again without the crushing pressure of a binder being the saving grace in my being comfortable but also the death knell on me being uncomfortable, and overstimulated, and in a sensory nightmare. I want to be able to hear a recording of my voice or a photo of myself and not cringe. So, I have to make the changes I’m making for myself. Which means I have to tell my parents.
I take a deep breath.
“So, I have something I wanted to talk to you guys about…”
Written by Cass Hayward
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