Coming Out : a Coming Out Guide For Trans Young People

We are continually given messages throughout our lives about what it means to be a girl or boy, woman or man. Families, friends, teachers, adverts and magazines tell us that we are supposed to look, dress, behave and feel a certain way just because we are biologically male or female. In reality, though, people look, act and feel both masculine and feminine to varying degrees regardless of their physical body. Very rarely are we told that how we feel inside might be different to how we look on the outside. As a result, most people who feel like this, grow up feeling worried, ashamed, scared or just somehow different.

Transgender people are people whose gender identity – who they are internally or their ‘innate’ gender – is different to their physical body or the gender they were assigned at birth. The term transgender, however, describes a whole range of people and takes many forms from cross-dressers to transsexuals to people who reject male and female genders altogether.

This guide has been written by transgender young people, who have drawn on their own personal experiences to make the process of coming out as a trans young person easier for others. Whether you are certain that you are trans or are unsure about your gender, this guide is written to help you understand your own feelings and how to share them with others when you feel ready.

Coming out is different for everyone, and although we hope this guide will help with that process, it won’t provide you with a definitive answer to all your questions or tell you the ‘right’ way to do it. What it will hopefully do is give you some useful tips, highlight other people’s experiences and provide useful links to further information and support.