If you decide to invite your friends and family, It’s important you do it in a way that makes you feel comfortable and safe. What’s the best way to tell your family and friends for you?   For me? Slowly, slowly, slowly.    Friends knew first, but I was really privileged in being involved in a lot of university  and queer circles where i could start asking people to use they pronouns without it necessarily being a formal announcement. Over time i started asking everyone to use those pronouns, but it was a very gradual process.    With family, I came out as a lesbian in high school, then bi, then queer. Each time, I talked to my mum first, very gently and over a few days. Then my dad. We're working on gender neutral pronouns together-- which takes a fair bit of energy and time on my part, I have to say. Personally, I'm glad I waited to disclose my gender identity until I had lots of other folks around me who affirmed my gender and i guess myself.  ... View more

Do you think you have to invite everyone in? Why or why not? Definitely not! I think there are absolutely no rules about you and your identity-- only you really know what's right, appropriate and safe for YOU.    I think there's a lot of pressure on folks who don't fit the white/cis/hetero/able bodied mould to like 'declare' your difference to everyone, and that's got way more to do with the way that mainstream society feels about difference and absolutely nothing to do with what you owe people.  ... View more

Such good points. Although i think it can be really kinda fabulous and amazing to ask certain kinds of questions right? Like when someone asks me for my pronouns, I'm always like yeah, this how it should be!  ... View more

I think it can be really handy to think about whether or not it's safe to invite folks in, what the worst outcome could be, and what you might be able to do if that happens-- for example, if you decide to invite in with your folks, what would the worst that might happen? What measures could you take?    It can also be really useful to road test things like new pronouns or names with some close folks you feel comfortable with. ... View more

Also maybe it would be cool if some of that asking became common practice? Like asking for pronouns, for example... ... View more

What are some of the challenges people face when inviting people in? OMG there can be so many!    For me when we talk about inviting in, the most important thing to think about is intersectionality. This is the idea that even though we might share one kind of experience, but our other experiences might be-- like for example we might be both be queer, but you might be a person of colour. Our experiences of discrimination are sort of intersected  by other parts of our identity.    The thing is that coming out or inviting in is an intersectional experience. So if you're a person who is white and able bodied and your parents are both english speaking and went to university, your experience of inviting your parents into that part of your identity will be pretty different to the experience of, say, a person who is from a non-English speaking background, or a person who is queer and has a disability.  ... View more

Heya everyone! My name is Jessie and I work as a Sex & Gender Diverse Access worker at Liverpool Women's Health Centre (South West Sydney #represent-- feel free to get in touch if you're in the area!). I'm a nonbinary trans person and I identify as genderqueer and pansexual. Those are two pretty complicated identifiers to 'come out' with so my feelings about coming out are a bit complicated! I'm really stoked to be able to be here, so i'm so so happy to answer any and every questions you might have and chat away.    To me, "coming out" is a bit complicated: it can mean sharing a part of yourself with another person-- be it your gender identity, sexuality, whatever-- but it can also mean a whole lot of pressure for folks who aren't cisgender, heterosexual, able bodied and/or white to "come out" and declare their identity to everyone all the time every day.   ... View more