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[–] OneOddBird 34 points Edited

What I’ve noticed with non-binary/gender fluid/agender folks is that for them, “coming out” is this cutesy rite of passage that needs to be done ASAP rather than the delicate, often frightening process coming out entails for gays, lesbians, and bisexual people. None of my LGB friends, not even the ones with the most kind and accepting families, enjoyed the coming out process. It takes years and is awkward and even the gay guy who had the most liberal and accepting parents was told that his love for men was a “phase” because he was “too shy and afraid of women.” It’s gross seeing the Q contingent these days co-opt coming out with their fake identities and treating coming out like it’s some cute milestone rather than the huge effort it actually is. They get upset when nobody believes their made up identities when half the time, LGB people coming out are disowned at worst or disbelieved at best because even liberal parents claim tolerance but don’t want a gay child in actuality. It’s such a gross commodification of suffering

[–] tymps 13 points Edited

I agree. The TQ+ seem to revel in "coming out" far more than pretty much any LGB person I know, myself included. They seem to find a lot of joy and excitement in it, and while it can be a cathartic experience, I just...really don't relate to the way they talk about "coming out." They seem thrilled to be making an edgy ~statement~ and creating a spectacle, garnering attention and worship, and sometimes it feels like they desperately want some sort of backlash so they can feel oppressed or something. I don't know any LGB people who've gone into the process of coming out and hoped for backlash or a spectacle. I think most of us have instead felt some combination of awkwardness, discomfort, dread, fear, etc. and we just hoped it would go over okay and we could move on. Even when coming out has been decent or neutral for me at times, I still haven't found anything enjoyable about it. The way the TQ+, which frankly is largely comprised of straight people at this point, have appropriated coming out really does feel disrespectful.

[–] OneOddBird 13 points

It’s super disrespectful. Coming Out was arguably the worse periods of my life, I did it three times and only on the third time did my parents even believe me and even then they were like “we understand why you’re a lesbian now because you finally told us that a man assaulted you.” Coming out rarely ever is a positive experience. Fears of being outed, of being discovered, and the social strain that comes from living inauthentically and having to perform straightness for patriarchal expectations is exhausting. The Q trying to co-opt it as something fun or entertaining shows that it’s just sick pageantry for them.

[–] Honeycreeper 4 points Edited

I came out as a lesbian when I was around 16, and only to my brother on an accidental incident. Then I told my gay uncle.

It didn’t take me until I was literally dropped off the doorstep of my college until I told my mother. And she was more livid than anything because she “had more reason to worry about me now going to college”.

I didn’t tell my dad until a year or so later. I was terrified. And then both my parents just made it about themselves in the end of why I didn’t tell them this news sooner
[–] Yemaya 75 points Edited

Based Dad. I’m really laughing my ass off. I wonder if that person is still “gender fluid” 7 years later? I have a relative who was “genderqueer” around 2015 and she’s now married with children lol and she acts like that part of her life never existed.
[–] Iridescence 43 points

I had a 'mental disorders faking' phase in my early teens and I sure try to act like that never happened lol
[–] thesnorkmaiden 21 points

In junior high, I was part of a friend group in which the girls regularly faked suicide with pills or shallow wrist cuts. It became completely normal for us to walk to the hospital at lunch time to visit whichever kid was there at the time. The adults were all freaking out about what was going on, but it just seemed like no big deal to us. It seems crazy now, and I think about it all the time in relation to trans stuff.
[–] Penthesilea 22 points

In high school I had a friend who tried to get me to make a blood pact with her. As like a commitment to keep starving ourselves. The ED forums we both frequented are now overrun with trans stuff. It isn’t surprising that teens who starved themselves and went to a highly toxic online community for encouragement to keep hurting themselves have now latched onto identifying as trans. The “thinspo” threads are now all “gender envy” threads where really skinny men (in place of thin, flat-chested women) are the new aspiration.

[–] DonKarnage 10 points

When I was 18 I had a very brief boyfriend who was like this, and encouraged me to be as well. He glorified suicide and depression, and would tell me that I wasn't "cool" unless I'd attempted suicide at least 3 times. I sometimes act as if all that never happened, because I'm so embarrassed by letting myself be pressured like that. BUT then I remember that this brief boyfriend was a disgusting 30 year old at the time, pressuring an 18 year old girl with such fooloishly dangerous shit. I think I'm more embarrassed by him than my younger self.

[–] NoDayForADo 4 points

Me, too, and I am super embarassed about it and felt like who the hell would even do that... and now kids today are doing it. WTF?

Like it's actually a low key fear of mine if I were to become famous, someone would get hold of my hospital records and see I was "bipolar with psychotic features." I was making it up!!!!

I was in for depression and an eating disorder, but I wanted something more "interesting."

[–] AngelFoodCake 32 points

I briefly identified as non-binary when I was 16 and I'm also married with a child now. Sometimes I wish I could forget that I was into this genderwoo (thankfully, not even for a full year IIRC) but its also funny to look back and laugh at it. I do cringe, but at least I'm not one of those grown ass people who still thinks NB is a thing.

[–] Caerulea 35 points Edited

The thing is though, that questioning who you are and what your role in society is, is an integral part of being a teenager. They are about to go into adult society, and figuring out how to go about it. It's normal, it's important, it's just what it is. There will be some experimenting.

I remember a friend and me talking about our various "personalities" in our early teens. What we were basically reflecting around, was that there are more than one side to a person: we are more complex than this tiny box society seems to want to put us in. Of course, a random onlooker might think we had some serious problems 😂 This is part of the issue when adults start seeing this experimenting through adult lenses, and taking this teenager experimenting for permanent fact. Harm is done. Let the teenagers be, let them try out roles. There is no need to make it into adult politics. Don't let them damage their bodies. They will figure it out as they mature.

Edit: typo.
[–] Orangina 11 points

If it hadn’t been that, you might’ve been goth or emo or whatever. It’s normal for kids.
[–] NoDayForADo 3 points

And it used to be normal for adults to roll their eyes and wait for it to pass.

[–] actualdyke 22 points

LMFAOOO megabased. also the fact that this is literally the height of their oppression lol. my family is Muslim and I'm 100% sure that some of them would try to kill me if I came out as gay, But clearly it's much more tragic that this snowflake gender individual isn't having their super special identity validated
[–] Carrots90 4 points

“Cis-privilege”

As they enter into a heterosexual relationship that they call qu*er because one says they are a gender special

[–] Cigarsofthepharoahs 47 points

I wonder what the build up to the Dad's comment was. Probably months (if not years) of listening to pretentious made up word salad and oppression Olympics. Guess the Dad just had enough.

Also, don't forget to change your gender fluid every 50 twitter posts and dispose of it safely.
[–] cloudspinner 10 points

Also, don't forget to change your gender fluid every 50 twitter posts and dispose of it safely.

😆😆😆
[–] Committing_Tervery I ❤︎ terfs 16 points

Also, don't forget to change your gender fluid every 50 twitter posts and dispose of it safely.

Hahaha
[–] Tq231442 12 points

🤣 he'd probably had a long day at work and paying bills and taking care of her and was sick of hearing about her made-up idiocy lmaooo
[–] catspyjamas1 41 points

I do wonder why people seem to feel the constant need to "come out" with weird stuff that has no actual, real life impact to their parents. I'd feel very weirded out if I got the impression that my parents took an interest in my sex life. My parents are infamous over-sharers and masters of unfortunate wording. A while ago, my stepmother, clearly very agitated, asked my sister : "have you seen your father's erection?". This seemed somewhat extreme, even for their standards. My sister tried to be polite, it then turned out, my father had built a strange monument of steel scraps, pissing stepmother off. Our father's erection has made it into a running gag. Still seems less weird than expecting your parents to embrace your weird made-up gender identity.

[–] Medusa91 23 points Edited

I do wonder why people seem to feel the constant need to "come out"

Yknow when I was 17 I remember my friends making this huge deal about me telling my parents I’m bi. I didn’t want to because I figured even though my mum is homophobic if I bought a girl home she wouldn’t be rude enough to say something to my face in front of hypothetical girlfriend. My friends pushed me anyway, I told her, and she told me that if I was kissing girls I needed psychological help.

I just always thought it was such a wierd thing to announce. I know it seems to be a big part of LGBT+ culture but like? Why would I willingly offer up information that would make them be rude to me? Maybe it’s a bit different if you know that you will 100% be bringing home someone of the same gender and want to give them the heads up, but your parents arnt owed knowing your partner or anything about them.

I ended up (now in my 30s) with someone who’s a different race to me. I didn’t announce that either I just let them find out. We’re they rude? Yeah, did they gossip? Yeah, did it change anything? Nope. I’m still with my partner, I get defensive when someone says something racist and give them a good telling off and for the most part they’ve all learnt to keep their stupidity to themselves.
[–] buttermilk 14 points

I totally get you, as a lesbian. I don’t even come out at all generally, I don’t hide it or anything so I just let people figure it out through context clues lol. I don’t see why it should be a big deal
[–] UnknownBeignet 16 points

I'm gay, so I'll just give my 2 cents. "Coming out" is not always a big reveal type of thing. Sometimes it's just, "hey, how would you feel if I started dating a girl?"

Also, yes, dating is a huge part of life for most people. It's not uncommon for people to want to talk to their parents about it. I know many girls who go to their mothers for advice on dating men. That's not a type of conversation you can freely have as a gay person with your parents if they don't know and if you aren't sure how they'll take the information.

So yes, coming out is still necessary. Maybe not in a big reveal way, but then, most of the time I don't think people outside the teenage years really do that (in terms of homosexuality -- can't speak for the other TQ part...).

I agree to an extent that there's nothing wrong with just letting people deal with the fact of who you are and whom you're dating and just letting them figure it out. That works for some relationships (e.g., friends, acquaintances). But family can be a little different, and parents especially so, and especially if you want or have the kind of relationship with them where you discuss your dating life. Most will still just assume heterosexuality (though it's gotten better recently), and often they do have some emotional response to hearing you're gay. It's not always just a desire for a big reveal or whatever on the part of the person coming out. And historically it's been even more significant since coming home with a same-sex partner would have been an even larger shock when it was more taboo.
[–] emptiedriver 6 points

I guess until 40 or 50 years ago, the social understanding that you would grow up, get married and have a family was so ingrained that even in more liberal families it would be a continual expectation. And being gay or lesbian was a huge disappointment not (just) because it was sinful and all that, but because it meant no grandchildren - it was automatically an alternative lifestyle.

Now, you can be gay and still get married & have a family, and you can be straight but live in a polyamorous childfree kink-family, and they're considered unrelated. So "coming out" is way less relevant to potential grandparents...
[–] jelliknight 1 points

Its really odd eh? As a straight i never went up to my dad like "fyi, i like dick. Just wanted to share that with you." I hid my sexuality from my parents as looong as possible and vice versa, thank christ.
[–] Tq231442 9 points

"Have you seen your father's erection?"

💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀
[–] catspyjamas1 6 points

Sister said that she gathered from the angry tone that this was a biblical Ham situation and she was standing accused of having watched father having an erection for shits and giggles.

[–] notyourfetish 10 points

Your family should be a reality show. I would watch the shit out of that, and I don't even look at tv.
[–] thesnorkmaiden 19 points

This is basically my dinner table every night when one of my kids uses trans pronouns for a friend. My husband does NOT take it.
[–] Committing_Tervery I ❤︎ terfs 4 points

Lol, what kind of stuff does he say? Just curious

[–] thesnorkmaiden 1 points

Haha! Sorry - missed this question last night. So, he has a perpetual case of amnesia regarding trans kids. As soon as one of them come up (there are lots among my kids' friends groups), he's like "who??!" even though he's heard the name a billion times before. Then he'll be like "oooooh.... (dead name) yeah how's (real pronoun) doing?" And then the kids do some eye rolling and might correct him and he'll go off on how stupid it is, how it's all made up, calling it bs, how's he's not going to play that game, etc. There will be lots of casual swearing, but my kids are just kind of used to that in general. He's not exactly the nuanced parent, at least in this discussion, so I have to take that role. Honestly, I don't mind playing the name game or even really the pronoun game when it comes to my kids' friends. The trade off is that they listen to me when I take an opportunity to explain things (calmly!) about puberty blockers and surgery, or even the serious problems with adult TiMs.
[–] DoomedSibyl 16 points Edited

I love this. I had this conversation for made up bullshit terms with a millennial, assuring her that we either already had terms for these things or they didn’t need terms. And that the point of these new terms was to confuse people. Some examples:

Pansexual = Bisexual if referring to orientation or Polymorphous Perversity when referring to a person who will fuck anything.

Gender = Biological Sex or Sex Role Stereotypes depending on context. Pointed out that this was the main way people were being confused.

Transsexual = Transvestite. Because when you get right down to it, this is what it is, even when using cosmetic surgeries as part of the costume.

Kinks = Paraphilias and Perversions

You get the point. This young woman was astonished that us GenXers had any idea about this stuff. Eyeroll.

[–] aaardvark 4 points

Are you sure you weren't talking with a Gen Zer? Because most of us millennials grew up with all the same phrases as Gen X.
[–] DoomedSibyl 0 points

The woman in question was 30 at the time of this conversation (2020) born in 1990. I’d classify that as millennial. My son was born in 1989 and I consider him a millennial. He uses my phrases.

But you made me think. The woman in question hasn’t had a lot of education and was raised in a super religious family and community and hasn’t been exposed to a lot. The whole woke thing is at base a rebellion in terms of motivation.

[–] carpetplaydohx2 16 points

$10 says this dad was Gen X.

I can't say I think this was the most parent-y way to approach this, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't chuckle.

[–] penelopekitty 9 points

I'm GenX. I don't have kids but can imagine myself saying something similar.

[–] Korok 👹 problem? 4 points

I would be freaked out if my dad said that. Who talks to their kid that way? My dad is also physically cruel, so that’s the vibes I’m getting.

[–] zuubat 4 points Edited

Also based:

“Wow, no shit, OMG honey you ARE??!”

“I am too!!!!”

Followed by fist bump, big bear hug, fake wiping away of tears of joy …
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