Chandler Wilson’s Coming Out Story

As a little kid, I never realized that my experiences were different from the other kids because, quite frankly, no one ever noticed or told me they were.

I am a nonbinary AFAB person which means that my gender identity is neither 100% male nor 100% female, and I was Assigned Female At Birth.

I was a pretty androgynous child.  I loved to wear a mixture of “girly” clothes and “tomboyish” clothes.  I think because of this mixture, no one ever realized I was trans.  I enjoyed wearing “girl” clothes, but I also enjoyed wearing “boy” clothes – or at least as boy-ish of clothing I could get my hands on.  I wore a lot of t-shirts and shorts.  And my favorite article of clothing was my yellow skort—what a look. 

“The words boy and girl simply didn’t mean anything to me yet”

But because of this androgyny with no discomfort—just fluidly moving through life—I never really noticed a difference between me and the other kids when I was younger.  Gender was just simply never on my mind growing up.  No one ever really noticed a physical difference between the boys and girls.  On the few occasions where groups were separated into boys vs. girls, I’d go to the girls side but never felt uncomfortable.  The words boy and girl simply didn’t mean anything to me yet.

However, all of that changed when I started puberty.  Ah yes, puberty.

I had to start wearing a very unnecessary training bra going into 6th grade after my parents voiced concerns about the idea of me changing clothes in the gym locker room without one. Then, I had my first period during my 12th birthday heading into 7th grade.

I started to feel myself building up a protective wall to hide who I truly was—without even realizing it.  I never felt like I wasn’t myself—just that the real me was locked away deep down encased in a shell.  After I came out as transgender at 16, I finally felt myself start breaking through that shell.

I came out as transgender to myself the first time when I was 14 years old.  My older sister had recently come out as a transgender woman, and I, wanting to be a Good Ally to my sister started researching transgender identities and issues.  I stumbled upon the word bigender at 14.  Suddenly, things about my past started making sense. 

” I wanted to exist equal to the two and be a fluid mixture of both feminine and masculine characteristics”

I never really felt uncomfortable being seen as a girl and doing the things the other girls did, but I just wanted to also blend in with the boys and do the things that the boys did.  I wanted to exist equal to the two and be a fluid mixture of both feminine and masculine characteristics.  Bigender wasn’t exactly the right term for me, but I identified with it for a year in secrecy.  At 14, I did the Big Chop and cut off all of my long, curly brown hair.  I never looked back.  I began wearing more masculine clothing and starting to feel more myself.

I hid my transgender identity for a few years and didn’t come out to my family until after I came out to myself again.  This time, finally, as agender.

In realizing this about myself, I felt incredibly alone.  As any young, scared, and newly out queer teenager often does nowadays, I turned to the internet for resources.  I went to YouTube and searched for agender YouTubers to try and find other people like me, and the sad reality is that… I found nothing.

After looking for a YouTuber I could relate to and not being able to find one, I decided I was going to have to step up and be the representation that I needed.  If I was a young and scared agender kid with no one to look up to, I just figured there had to be other young people like me who were also desperately looking for some sort of role model.  I decided if there were no out agender YouTubers, I was going to be the first.

I uploaded my YouTube video, “What is Agender?” for my channel on March 15th, 2015 and had massive waves of support.  Everyone was looking up to me as a role model and asking for my advice about identity and how to come out, except I hadn’t exactly… done that yet.  Oops.

So, after having a wave of support and finding that community of folks experiencing life similarly to me, I gained the courage to come out to my mom.

When I finally decided to come out, I approached it rather methodologically.  I knew that my father was unaccepting of my sister’s transgender identity, and so I waited and planned to tell my mom first.  My mom had been expressing a rise in her support gradually over the past few weeks leading up to my coming out.

I uploaded my Coming Out As Transgender Agender video April 5th, 2015 at 16 years old.

I had been going by my new name, Chandler, in half of my classes at school, and I knew that my parents could tell something was up.  In my coming out video, I felt like I needed to prove myself and over-explain myself to my mom.  I wasn’t too worried that she wouldn’t accept me, more so worried that she would never understand. And I was definitely worried that it would cause conflicts in our family.  Which, honestly, it did.

I don’t remember ever officially coming out to my father.  I’ve definitely said the words “I am transgender” to him on more than one occasion, but he definitely knew about my trans identity and was against it before I ever said it out loud.

“Through coming out and living my truth, I have enabled myself to freely be myself”

Coming out is very rarely easy.  Truthfully, I’m glad that I waited a few years to come out when I wanted to.  My relationship with my mom has grown exponentially stronger.  She accepts me for who I am and supports my self-expression.  She uses the correct name and pronouns and supports my transgender friends when I introduce them to her. Through coming out and living my truth, I have enabled myself to freely be myself.  It has taken a long, loooong time to get to where I am today, but I am proud of this journey—even the incredibly hard parts.

Coming out is also often romanticized.  I want to dispel the myth that LGBTQ people have to come out.  You are not obligated to come out to people you do not trust.  You are allowed to choose who you do/do not tell.  My advice is always to make sure that you will be safe. 

Know that there are so many people in the world who identify similarly to you.  You are never alone.  If you come out to family and it does not go well, know that you will only face that negativity for a small fraction of how long you will be alive.  You will be able to reach adulthood.  You will be able to lead a happy, healthy, and successful adult life free from an unsupportive family.

Chosen family is so important in the LGBTQ community as many of us have faced hardship while coming out.  If you worry that you may not be safe, it is okay to wait.  I did.  And even then, I often wish I had waited longer until I was an adult and independent.  You are not faking it or lying or hiding by practicing self-care and ensuring your safety.  Breathe.  There is no rush.  You will find community.  You will be okay.

To those of you who aren’t out yet:

I see you.  I’ve been there too.  It’s going to be okay.  You have a whole world of us who love and support you.

Coming out stories