How I Dealt With the Guilt of Coming Out

I came out October 2017 as non-binary and bisexual and to put it lightly, it wasn’t easy. Telling my closest friends was probably one of the easiest things because I knew that they wouldn’t judge me. But coming out to my family was a whole different story.

I had a lot of fear that I was going to be judged by them. Whenever news about something LGBTQ+ came on, they would make some sort of ignorant remark.

Unfortunately, my idea of what they would say came into light. But, it wasn’t as extreme as I thought it was going to be. I was yelled at even days after being out.

I remember every gritty detail that my father said. ‘There’s only two genders’ ‘It’s a man and woman’ ‘What do you find so appealing about kissing a woman?’

To this day, I don’t think he understands and the rest of my family doesn’t either. It is sad that’s the case for me and a lot of people out there.

I realized I wasn’t straight back in middle school when I was still closeted. I had feelings for girls, but I brushed it off for a long time.

I denied it for a long time because of the guilt I thought there was with coming out.

I kind of knew for almost my whole life that I did not identify with being cis. I wasn’t into ‘girly’ things. My head always drifted at video games.

But I never really knew there was a label that could make me feel like myself for a long time. I found it though.

Only my family has really acted weird since I came out. After that, not really anyone else.

I do believe that coming out is still an issue for people. It’s definitely easier than it used to be, but there’s still so much fear with it. Sometimes you never know how people could react.

I’ve had some friends kicked out of their homes for saying it to their parents. That’s crazy to me.

It’s still such a scary thing to do. But, at the same time, it needs to be done for the system to be breached and to normalize it.