Coming out for trans people is different. I don’t even know if I would describe it as a coming out. More of a coming in. And that coming in part is when you begin your transition. Transition never stops, it isn’t even one thing. It is everything , all the time, in all the ways. Letting yourself be known is how I would describe trans people who inform someone they are trans.
Letting yourself be known more clearly. Letting yourself be known by history, letting the other person know that it wasn’t a 1+1 situation that produced the marvelous being in front of you, it was a complex equation that led to a sum of one. It was the unicorn amongst the horses. The outlier that blends in.
I feel and I know that when trans people let themselves be known, they risk the other person negating the entirety of their identity. The trans person is saying I’m a transwoman or I’m a trans man. The person hearing this is translating that to this is really a man dressed like a woman. This is a woman dressed like a man. The simple beings that most people are compute it this way. In an instant it puts you in the realm of costume artist, drag queen, drag king, fallacy, a freak, a liar, a fraud, a threat.
Coming out as a descriptor works better for gender normative performing cis people who identify as LGB. In those cases because the default person is cisgender and heterosexual, LGB people who are on sight seemingly cis and het “come out” as lesbian, gay or bisexual. For trans people come out has a tread of reveal one’s self, one gender as not true. Instead , I think letting one’s self be known is a better way of phrasing it. I am a woman of trans experience. I am still a woman but I happen to also be trans.
The nuance of it all is probably why I don’t lead with my trans identity. Meaning I don’t introduce myself and let someone know right away that I am trans. I don’t actually tell everybody . You will get to know me as I present myself, you will get to know me for me. And if I deem you someone who won’t switch up on me because you learn my history, I’ll let you in to me letting myself be known as a fuller fleshed out human.
Big Black Trans and Beautiful 