Dear Diary, Today I Came Out of the Closet

CW: Homophobia, discussion of gender, and religion.

I realize I use this space to process my thoughts and feelings. And boy howdy do I currently have a lot of both of those. It’s hard to just focus on one specific part.

I think a big topic I’ve been delaying processing is that I came out to my family several months ago. I came out to them as non-binary and bisexual. It wasn’t entirely voluntary, but I did do that willingly to choose the WHEN instead of being forcibly outed at a time when I wasn’t emotionally able to process the entire thing.

My oldest is autistic and often has no filter. I love them but the social world is not their forte. There are also other circumstances I can’t get into that have a high chance of forcibly outing me. So, I sent the following message knowing that information.

“I’ve thought about the idea of “coming out” for a while now. Debated back and forth whether or not it’s something I want to be public. And in many ways, I don’t need to be public around much of my identity. I’m married to a woman and have no intention of changing that. My spouse is a wonderful human, and I’m glad to have her by my side. I also can easily pass. In the town I currently live in small feminine touches like hair, jewelry, and nails are all easy to pass off or ignore.

However, in many ways I want to tell my family that they have a queer family member. Hinting or pushing my spouse on the topic isn’t okay and I’d like to confront some of that head on. I’m at least a bit bisexual, and in another life I quite feel like I could have ended up with anyone (regardless of their gender). Provided that I had a deep connection with the person. I assumed that was how everyone felt, but I didn’t quite realize that was not the assumed normal. That doesn’t not change or diminish my current love for my spouse.

I’m non-binary. Which means for myself that I don’t strongly identify with male or female. I just don’t 100% feel masculine or feminine. Any pronouns are fine but I would prefer to go by they / them and NJ if you can respect that.

This isn’t trauma related. Nothing happened to me to “make me gay” I’ve just always been this way. Having a better relationship with my father or “more masculine” role models wouldn’t have changed that. I’ve just been able to have some time to reflect on my life in ways that have made it clear that this has been a part of my life for a while now.

That was the message sent out. Looking over it now a couple of months later I can see that I way over explained some things and other things or terms I used my siblings and parents would completely not understand. (Such as “passing”)

I tried so hard to do this in a way to communicate that I’m not angry or mad. I also wanted to communicate that I’m willing to discuss all of this in depth with my family, and I know I said those words exactly when I messaged my siblings.

My mom spent many conversations prior to this implying or asking many different things around my gender to my spouse. Questioning if I was medically transitioning or having gender related surgeries. She also has asked or implied that I could be gay when she was discussing with my wife why she (my mom) thinks our marriage is in trouble. (This “Advice” wasn’t asked for in any way. My mom tends to ramble in very painful directions at times). However, she had never directed those questions at me and always would do this with my spouse. I knew whenever I came out, I wanted to mention or bring up those repeated attempts at pushing my spouse into saying something.

However, despite the clear past curiosity and snoopiness of my mom, when I actually spoke out publicly both of my parents completely ignored the message. And I have shit ton of feelings about that as I know they received the information. In fact, my mom messaged me regarding an unrelated topic several days after this. And my dad messaged me about a month later about an unrelated topic following this. Specifically, that he had seen someone from my old boy scout troop in the store. After seeing both of their responses I immediately just went back to no contact again blocking their numbers.

I know their beliefs. And I fight often within my own self the echos of those beliefs that I was raised in. The belief that there are only two genders. And the belief that their deity has chosen exact roles for both of those genders. I also grew up in deeply homophobic churches and communities. “Smear the queer” was a game my boy scout peers thought nothing of playing. I heard sermons frequently discussing how hurricane Katrina was a punishment from god on the US for how we had “strayed from our Christian values.” (The main values mentioned were often gender or sexuality) Hell I know I heard someone in my faith community echoed the talking point that god was using Muslim terrorists (9/11) to get the US to turn away from their sin of “sexual immorality.” The fact that the US seemed to be moving toward more acceptance of gay marriage was a big factor there. Hell, even the college I attended (PCC) would very publicly kick you out if they knew you were queer.

Pornography or sexual immorality—The Bible indicates that all sexual activity outside of marriage is sin. Therefore, the following is considered to be sexually immoral: fornication, adultery, homosexual behavior, or any other sexual perversion. Also, any involvement in pornography or sexual communications, including verbal, written, or electronic, are prohibited. (1 Cor. 6:9–10, 18–20, Matt. 5:28, Heb. 13:4, Rom. 1:26–27, Ps. 119:37, 1 John 2:16

That was a direct quote from Pensacola’ Christian College’s 2013-2014 “Pathway to College Success.” Their current 2025-2026 Pathway resource directly cites “Transgender identification” as reason for immediate dismissal from the college.

In regard to direct recent homophobic things I’ve heard from my family. I’ve also heard my mom comment many times that a strong male role model would have prevented “this” in me. And she’s directly stated in the past that men are only gay because they are SA or lack a strong male role model.

Suffice to say I heard and internalized it. I didn’t necessarily know much about myself early in life (I think some part of me knew it just wasn’t safe to do so). But suffice to say I deeply understand and know what my parents believe. And it’s hard knowing that your parents hate who you are inside. And while I’m glad I didn’t get a hateful tirade in response, I think a deliberate attempt to ignore it only reaffirms my previous beliefs about the hate within my parents for the queer community.

My siblings had mixed responses but mostly also ignored it. My most religious sibling directly used my legal name in response and basically let me know that she’d be praying for me with or without my consent. Not a single one of my five siblings have asked me anything or spoken with me privately about the message. And they certainly have made no attempts to use NJ or they / them in communication with me. (I honestly wasn’t expecting to see that, but it would have been a pleasant and very respectful surprise).

Something also to process is that I video chatted one of my siblings (months after this event) and she started visibly crying based on my appearance (inferred on my part to be fair – this wasn’t directly stated). I have long purple hair with visible ear piercings all my other facial and physical features would normally be assumed to be male. Earings, nail polish, and hair were enough to cause a visible negative reaction…..it’s a weird thing to consider at this stage in my life. As almost always I am perceived in my urban environment as male by strangers. I think it helped me to remember that there were so many small pressures placed on my physical appearance while I was within fundamentalism. And every small detail of my appearance was constantly judged and evaluated.

I feel like I poured out my soul and was just ignored.

My family is historically awful at discussing anything and I know they ignore their problems. But it’s another thing to see it happen with something so deeply important to me. I have a lot more thoughts on this specific topic, but I think that needs its own specific post. For now, I think I’m just sitting with the grief that popped up while processing this past interaction. Slowly taking this all one thing at time.