Here I am, trying to be visible. I am trying so hard to live my authentic life right now, to live fully and honestly as myself. Yet every step I find myself telling lies. Not malicious, not "big" lies. But lies nonetheless.
I find myself coming out as a transgender man, asking for male pronouns and male privilege. But I know that I am not really male. Some days I feel more male, and most of the time I am happy to pass as male, but I am not and I don't think I ever will be.
However, I find myself answering the questions of "did you always know you were a man?", "do you feel like a man now?", "when will you have a beard/low voice?", with the untruths that I always knew in some way, yes I do, and I won't ever have a beard or low voice due to not taking hormones. I utter lies when I say that I'm devastated by this, when in fact I'm upset some days, horrified others, but mostly fine with it. I didn't ever imagine I would be able to take hormones, so it is no real loss. What I lament is that I won't ever fit society's vision of a man without hormones, so I won't be recognised as "not a woman".
I come out again and again, I remind people that it's "he", not "she". It fits better, but it's not my authentic self. It's not really me. I come out, and by doing so I hide myself again because I am not declaring my true identity.
There are few places I can truly be myself, and those are queer places, - not gay spaces, not straight spaces - but those spaces that welcome those of us who fall between the cracks. The "real" world, the world of work and bills and taxes, it has no place for me as a non binary person. There is no "NB" box. There is no Mx option on most forms.
I am doing my best every day to live authentically and yet I feel like I fail at each hurdle, though not for lack of trying. I wonder how to continue, when every day is so exhausting, yet I am still telling lies, to a degree. I wonder how authentic I can really be, without full honesty. And I wonder how to change the world so my true identity has a space.
LGBT* is becoming more seen, yet so many of us cannot be visible because the world will not see us.
Sometimes coming out doesn't mean being true to yourself, but true to the idea of what people expect you to be. Sometimes coming out means agreeing you feel trapped in the wrong body, because that is easier than trying to explain you are happy with the body you have and it is not "wrong". Sometimes coming out means still having to tell lies, to appease the fears of others, to sweep past their fear of the unknown. Sometimes, authenticity tells lies.