{"id":1426,"date":"2018-11-16T13:38:30","date_gmt":"2018-11-16T18:38:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/?p=1426"},"modified":"2018-11-16T13:38:30","modified_gmt":"2018-11-16T18:38:30","slug":"the-deep-complexities-of-coming-out-as-transgender","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/2018\/11\/16\/the-deep-complexities-of-coming-out-as-transgender\/","title":{"rendered":"The Deep Complexities of Coming Out as Transgender"},"content":{"rendered":"

In <\/span>Tomorrow Will Be Different: Love, Loss, and the Fight for Trans Equality, <\/span><\/i>by Sarah McBride, Sarah explains what coming out as trans felt like to her. She says, \u201cI was about to jump feetfirst into a world that I wasn\u2019t sure I was prepared for\u201d (McBride 2018, 4). The words in this sentence hold a lot of meaning to the truth of what coming out as trans entails. Saying \u201cI was about to jump feetfirst\u201d evokes sentiments of suicide. When someone is typically jumping off of something tall (as jumping into a world would appear to be), they typically don\u2019t plan on continuing to live. This provides symbolism for how coming out as trans would be like living a completely new life, in a new world. Everything from how someone perceives you and treats you, to the opportunities that you have in the job market significantly change as a transwoman. In a study conducted by the National Center for Transgender Equality, they found that one in four trans identifying people report being fired from their job on the basis of their gender identity (McBride 2018, 4). I could only imagine how scary it must be to lose all of the protections of stability that one experiences in their life. Sarah knew that she identified as a woman, but didn\u2019t know how her life would be altered based off of how others perceive her. While Sarah\u2019s life as a man ended, her life as a woman was just beginning. In this sense, \u201cdeath\u201d represents both renewal and loss. It represents renewal in Sarah\u2019s connection to herself, and the alignment of her outside persona with her identity, and loss in that she is losing all of the privileges that she knew to have as a man. This statement allows the reader to see that coming out as trans is a deeply complex thing, that has much bigger life altering implications than just changing one\u2019s personal pronoun. \u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Additionally, the words \u201cinto a world I wasn\u2019t sure I was prepared for\u201d are significant to a reader’s understanding of Sarah\u2019s experience. Specifically, the use of the personal pronoun \u201cI\u201d has a large effect on the reader’s understanding of being trans. Often times, society chooses to focus on the experience of others who are affected by someone\u2019s transition, while truthfully the person who needs the most attention is the trans-person themself. In Sarah\u2019s experience coming out, when she told her mom, her mom said, \u201cI can\u2019t handle this! I can\u2019t handle this!\u201d(McBride 2018, 26). The \u201cI\u201d in this statement, being her mother shows lack of acknowledgement for the experience of Sarah during this transition. When Sarah referenced her personal feeling of lack of preparedness for the life ahead of her, it allowed the reader to recognize that this transition is really about Sarah, and not the lives of the people in her life. From analyzing this quote, the reader can gain a deeper understanding that coming out as trans is something that alters every aspect of that person\u2019s life. it is scary, new, vulnerable, and completely personal. Coming out is about the individual, and by thinking of how oneself, independent from the person coming out is affected, that person is completely disregarding the difficulties and challenges faced by that individual coming out. <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

McBride, Sarah. 2018. <\/span>Tomorrow Will Be Different: Love, Loss, and the Fight for Trans Equality. <\/span><\/i>New York: Crown Archetype. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Tomorrow Will Be Different: Love, Loss, and the Fight for Trans Equality, by Sarah McBride, Sarah explains what coming out as trans felt like to her. She says, \u201cI was about to jump feetfirst into a world that I wasn\u2019t sure I was prepared for\u201d (McBride 2018, 4). The words in this sentence hold … Continue reading The Deep Complexities of Coming Out as Transgender<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3847,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[125359],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1426","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2018-blog-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1426","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3847"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1426"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1426\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}