So like OMG, this is the worst thing that can happen, when you’re out with people, friends, family, or just the public eye; because, it’s so embarrassing, harmful and makes you feel so small. Being out-ed is something I have to deal with on a regular basis, and I am sure thousands of trans-people have to deal with the same hurtful situation too. Honestly, feeling like you’re the smallest person in the room is horrifying in so many ways; you begin to look around to see who else heard and what peoples’ reactions are. The person or persons’ that were told begin to look at you in a different way and while it seems after the first time it will not be a shock but it still is every time. Then it like it goes downhill from there all the time, peoples first reaction is not always pleasing and it takes time for people to adjust to it if they can in the first place. Believe it or not, here is a situation that happens to me many times over with my own Mom, but I will stick with just one example.

I enter the famous store Wal-Mart like any other person on a regular day, dressed like every other woman, and looking fairly decent, though I know I don’t pass 100%, people still refer to me as female and majority of woman don’t bother me when I use the female restroom, which is a nice feeling to pass enough to fit in, which is all I want to do. Now, of course, I bring my Mom, my wife and my kids which are perfectly fine typically, however, my Mom still has not mastered calling me by She/Her and it has been well over a year and several months. Although, I have to compliment her at the same time because she always calls me by my girls’ name and nothing else, so she doesn’t Deadname me anymore, (This alone is a major Plus). Anyways, to continue my story… We are all walking around Wal-Mart and looking at things in all sections of the story and finding many cute and wonderful things. After all, Wal-Mart is a wonderful store to find almost anything you want at a bargain in my opinion. So like we move on and get split up while looking at things and my mom will sometimes find things and point to my wife and explain things. My wife asked “where is Naomi at” and my Mom looks over in my direction, of course, I can still hear her and points at me and says “He’s over there!” This is loud enough that many people can hear it, and I feel so small, so tiny in a massive store. I feel like all of sudden everyone in the entire place is looking at me, trying to identify me as male, which I am clearly not. Normally, I will just try to keep doing what I am doing to ignore it and press on as if it didn’t happen, but my anxiety has gone from a 3 to a 10 in a matter of seconds. I feel like the room closed in on me and the world is watching, even if it’s only one person that heard. My wife will normally correct my Mom, or my children will, which I adore but it still feels painful. I just stand there talking to my wife, and from that point on when I am in the store, I try to stay away from my Mom, I try to keep some space because while I am so scared of other people watching, I am hurt by her even if she is not meaning to do it.

This happens to so many of trans-people, and we have to live in fear of people outing us in public, telling us that we are not a woman. Girl, we are woman, we have gone through so much to be able to pass, to be natural, and look beautiful. Trans-guys do the same to pass as a guy and it affects them in the same way as it does me, though they may feel more aggression while I just want to start crying. Honestly, it might be expensive, it might be a hard journey, but I bet you we as transgender people spend a lot more money trying to be perfect to our gender identity than any WAB or MAB. I know it might not mean much but all we want to do is be identified by our identity and be recognized as any other.

The last thing we want other people to do is to take away our freedom by telling other people our personal, private lives. This is something that should be our right to tell who we want to and not tell who we don’t. Why is it anyone else’s prerogative to tell someone else our business, I mean would you want us telling your business to someone we don’t know, or your family or friends? Honestly, I don’t think so, but who I to say anything accept about myself.