This was a year ago, but this whole situation makes me want to never open up to anybody ever again. I already have a hard time being vulnerable and coming out to my sister made it worse. When I came out to my sister, I didn’t plan it. What happened was I was visibly upset and my sister wanted to know what was up. I told her what was on my mind. What made me upset was something else so I’ll just leave that part out. I ended up talking about my gender and I told her that I’m nonbinary.

Basically she said that she doesn’t see the point in it. “why can’t you just be a masculine woman”. She wanted to understand so she was asking me questions which is fine. It’s great that she wants to understand, but I couldn’t really respond. Idk I froze up. This was my first time being that vulnerable with family so I couldn’t function. Before this, she said we didn’t have to talk about my gender and stuff if I didn’t want to, but I wanted to seem like I was confident and I wasn’t just saying that I’m nonbinary because of videos online. I feel like that’s what she thinks or maybe she thinks it’s a phase. She was asking stuff like “What’s your definition of a woman?” “If a woman can do and be all these things, why can’t you just be a different woman” (I wanted to respond to that and say “because I’m not a woman” but I think that would have made it worse) Then my sister said “My friend says shes nonbinary and she was talking about how society forces you to act and be a certain way, but it doesn’t. You can be your own person and be whatever woman you want to be” or something like that.

Before I even mentioned I was nonbinary I mentioned that I thought I was a trans man a while back so she was talking about me being a trans man (again that was before I corrected her) and what she said made me really upset. It was like she was trying to scare me out of being trans. “They gon’ put you on that table and cut you up!” “Are you sure? Being on testosterone means facial hair and stuff..” Thank you so much for informing me. I had no idea that being on testosterone would make me grow more hair on my face and make me look more masculine even though that is the whole entire point of me wanting to go on testosterone at that point. 🙄 I’m honestly kind of hurt. It was hard hearing her say these things and I feel weak because of that. I feel like I should have been able to answer her questions but I didn’t know what else to say except “I don’t feel comfortable being seen as a woman or a man”. I froze. At least she asked if I had any preferred pronouns at the end of the conversation. I do but I said no. Idk I just feel like I can’t be my full authentic self around somebody who doesn’t fully understand. “You don’t have to understand my gender and thats okay. As long as you treat me like a human being we are fine.” But that only works on strangers. This is my family. I need them to understand my gender identity. I’m thinking of trying again but I need advice for round 2 of coming out. I’m just scared.