A lot of emails I get are from someone starting with "how..."

How do I know my measurements?

How do I walk in heels?

How do I meet others like myself?

How do I find the courage to go out en femme?

And the big one:

How do I come out to my partner?

All of these questions have varying levels of difficulty when it comes to an answer. Some are super easy, like how to find your measurements. Get a measuring tape and done. Walking in heels requires the same thing your entire life requires: balance, confidence, and momentum.

But coming out? That's not easy. There are a lot of wrong ways to do this, but another element of difficulty is that every person is different. We all have different communication methods and styles and how we discuss difficult and big things with our partners takes a lot of love and honesty. Every couple is different and there are different dynamics between all couples. The only real advice I can give someone when they are struggling to come out to their partner is that we need to be empathetic and honest and kind. Afterall, this revelation will forever impact your relationship and will lead to a lot of questions and possibly some tears and anger. We need to acknowledge that our partner may very well feel that we were not honest (and they are right in most situations) and that we should have come out to them BEFORE wedding vows were exchanged or a mortgage was secured.

For some, *this* aspect of us is a dealbreaker. Our gender identity is a lot for our partners to process and work their way through. Our partners are not obligated to accept this side of us. Harsh? Yes, but it's the truth. We all have boundaries in our relationships and there are some things that we just can't accept, unconditional love or not. Coming out to your partner after a few weeks of dating is one thing, waiting until the two of you have a cute little house in the suburbs and four kids is another. 

The reality is that almost all of us have some boundaries of what we want or willing to accommodate in a relationship. If I was dating someone and they said they wanted an open relationship that would be a dealbreaker for me. I don't want an open relationship but I would be glad that they told me that in the early weeks of the relationship instead of after five years of marriage.

Knowing that our gender identity, our kink (if this is a kink), or our simple love of panties, is something that could ultimately end a relationship is freaking scary. It's no wonder why we are so reluctant to come out, even if it means we are denying a part of ourselves that is authentic and brings us happiness and makes us whole.

But we still know we need to do this. We know we need to be honest with our partners and we need to live our lives authentically. We are tired of the closet, tired of lying, tired of being unhappy. We know we need to come out, but again, HOW?

I've written a LOT about coming out and these articles focus on how not to do this and about what we need to consider and prepare for. 

Hannah McKnight: Coming Out, Part 1

Hannah McKnight: Coming Out, Part 2

Hannah McKnight: Coming Out Part 3

Essentially besides being honest and prepared and empathetic there's no real way to come out. There's no roadmap, no instructions. Just being prepared and kind since we know that this revelation will likely change EVERYTHING. When we come out, we are telling the most important person in our life our biggest secret. And why is it a secret? Because we've been told (directly and indirectly) that this aspect of ourselves NEEDS to be a secret. We've been told from the moment that we were born that boys don't wear pink, boys don't wear skirts, boys don't... well, I could go on.

We were raised in a world where movies and television shows portrayed "boys who wore girl clothes" as humor or as perverts.

The world screamed at us that THIS IS WRONG and in an order to protect ourselves from this intentionally manufactured shame, we hid. We kept our wardrobe hidden. We daren't reveal our heart to anyone. We were told it was wrong and many of us believed it. We felt so much shame that the joy we felt was smothered by it. We carried this shame, this potential embarrassment, this secret our entire life.

And we hated that.

Why does a world cruelly tell us that this part of ourselves that brings so much happiness is wrong? Well, social norms and our society's stubborn commitment to gender as a binary of course but let's not get into that right now.

We are faced with countless choices each and every day. A lot of these choices are small, like what we will do for lunch, but the big life choices aren't as common, such as making the decision if you will apply for that new promotion that just opened up. But the biggest life decisions are choosing what you will listen to. Our brains tell us a million things each day. These things can be encouraging (you should totally apply for that job! You'd be amazing!) or frustrating (I don't know if I feel like soup for lunch, maybe I want tacos??) or just as cruel as what we are told our entire lives when it comes to what we are "supposed" to wear.

I hate it when my brain turns against me. LIke, it's supposed to be on my side, isn't it? I hate it when my brain tells me that I can't wear that dress because I would look horrible in it, but this is progress compared to what my brain USED to tell me. When I was younger there was an inner voice that told me that I need to keep *this* a secret from the entire world otherwise I'd be condemned to live a lonely life. I never felt shame about who I was, but I knew that the world wanted me to feel ashamed. I didn't keep this side of myself a secret because I thought it was wrong, but rather it was because the rest of the planet thought it was.

We have to decide who we listen to. We need to choose which people (and which internal thoughts) we listen to. It's easier said than done but we need to ignore those that tell us that we aren't allowed to wear what we want to wear. There's nothing inherently wrong with crossdressing or being non-binary or identifying as transgender. Yes, there will always be those who tell us otherwise but as hard as it is, we need to ignore them. We need to CHOOSE to ignore them. Again, easier said than done, but it CAN be done;

Our hearts likely tell us wildly different and contrasting things when it comes to who we are. Shame (but our hearts tell us this because our entire lives we are told we have to feel this) and happiness. It's okay to listen to happiness, lol. After all, shouldn't we listen to what makes us happy?

When we come out we often do so with the burden of this shame. We know that the world has told us that this side of us is wrong, BUT we also know that the person we are coming out with was told the same thing. We know that they may be predispositioned to believe that we are confused, wrong, perverts... I mean, isn't that what they were taught as well?

The point to all of this is that when we come out, we can also choose (again, I know this isn't easy) to talk about the joy, not the shame, of what we feel when it comes to who we are.

Coming out is done, in a way, for us to, well, control the narrative surrounding our gender identity. As far as I know, I have never been "caught" and I am terrified of this happening. Not because I feel shame or anything like that, but if someone learns of my wardrobe preferences or my gender identity, I want them to learn of this from me. I want them to understand (as much as one can) who I am. If I am in male mode and someone sees my panties peeking out of my jeans they will likely assume a lot of different things and they might decide to share this information with everyone.

Annnnd that would be bad. I don't care what someone THINKS of me, but the reason I am not out to everyone in my life is because there are some in my life, my family, and my place of work that will not understand or respect who I am. We all grew up with the aforementioned movies that had "boys who wear girl clothes" portrayed as perverts or something similar. These people could, and some likely would, likely make my life a living hell. I don't need that. There's two people that come immediately to mind at my job who would do everything they could to ridicule and humiliate me. And one of them is very, very high up in the organization. An otherwise decent person, but her hatred and contempt towards the LGBTQ+ community is legendary and well known... so I guess she is not a decent person after all.

But I digress.

It sounds silly, but whenever I came out to someone, I never thought about coming out by sharing how happy this part of me made me feel. It was usually acknowledging that this side of me was unusual or strange or misunderstood... negative things. I suppose I wanted to acknowledge the collective perception that people like myself had. I kept empathy in mind, which is super important. I felt, and still do, that since the world has told the person I was coming out to that there was something "wrong" with me, I needed to be gentle and acknowledge that I was sharing something about myself that they themselves had been told is wrong.

It's been over ten years that I've come out to someone. I've changed a lot and learned a lot about myself since I last nervously said to someone that I had something that I needed to tell them. I don't see myself coming out to anyone else (well, choosing to do so anyway) in my life but if I did so, I can control the narrative by sharing the joy that embracing myself brings.

This side of us is wonderful... and it's okay to tell others that.

Love, Hannah