When I was thirteen, I came out as a lesbian to my family. When I was fifteen, I came out as nonbinary. I now identify as neither. I'm an aromantic pansexual transman.
I figured "coming out" shouldn't really be something you have to do, and I just kind of act like they already know what I am, but they really think I'm still a lesbian even though I've definitely expressed my attraction to men (at least I think I have). And I much prefer he/him pronouns but in the end I don't really care, so I just let them use they/them on me. I talk about my transition goals to essentially pass as a cisman, and categorise myself in with boys, but they still think I'm nonbinary.
This is about to turn into more of a vent than just a simple question about coming out, sorry about that. Pre-warning, it's mostly discussion of transphobia, specifically towards transmen.
Coming out gets a little more complex now that I've realised over these last few years that my parents really hate men, and in fact I think the only reason I thought I was a lesbian in the first place is because they'd ingrained a fear (or even disgust, maybe) of men into me. Being nonbinary is also safer because, even though it's shitty to think this way, it does allow my parents to think "oh they're still a girl, just a little to the left". Not the way a lot of nonbinary people work, but unfortunately it seems to be the way my parents think.
So one of my parents is a transwoman, and ever since she came out, she's been saying all the time "why would you ever want to be a man?" or even before she came out and when I came out as nonbinary she asked why I'd ever want to be anything other than a woman. She's also said "why you would ever want to be attracted to men?" She often says this stuff jokingly, but it hurts. She even passes off undeniably transphobic things about transmen as a joke. She's a self-described radical feminist (as if majority of radfems aren't transphobes) and, I can't tell if it was a joke, but she has said a few times that she thinks the world would be better if men just didn't exist. I recognise, now, that forcing your own discomforts about your gender onto your kids is not okay. Also, while she never deadnames me, she still hasn't changed my contact name on her phone and it makes me really uncomfortable to see. I wonder if she was trying to live vicariously through me. I know she's working through her trauma of being closeted trans for so many years, and I know she's still settling into the acceptance of her own gender, but I really wish she could do it without shitting on the other side of the binary.
Then my other parent is a ciswoman who's not quite so man-hating as the other, but she's said some very hurtful things in her time. Like when I came out as nonbinary she told me she'd lost a feminist, as if only women can be feminists?? She made womanhood out to be such an important, precious thing and manhood to be something disgusting that for a while I still considered myself "a woman, but not a man. A boy, but not a girl". It's entirely fine if that's how you view your gender or you just want to express your gender like that, but for me it came from a place of internalised shame and disgust. Then I think unrelated to the man-hating she told me I should wait to do any transitioning until at least I'm 18 in case I change my mind, and now I'm 18 and she's still fucking telling me to wait (but I know it's not her decision). And I've brought up never having had a crush before (well I've had one crush, but that was years ago), and she's of course told me that I just "haven't found the one" or I don't know what a crush or romantic love feels like. She's even said, essentially, that aromantic people are robots.
I know the answer is "only come out if it's safe to do so", but I have no idea what the outcome will be. But I want them to see me as their son and not a lesbian because it makes me dysphoric and I want gender euphoria instead. I also wonder if they'll start to change their viewpoints if I officially come out. Though I still don't know how I'm supposed to come out again, it just feels like it'll take too much energy. I just don't want them thinking I'm a nonbinary lesbian my whole life.
