My brother's transgender. He's been out for a long while, but I don't remember when he did. His "coming out" was mostly between him and his parents and then he kind of just transitioned, so I wasn't ever directly involved, nor do I have a good estimate of how long he was out. I've known since I realized I was transgender that he would definitely be supportive. It took me way too long. So, we were up in New York this past week because of a family death. (Don't worry about that, everything's fine.) The final day of the trip, a joke sprang out, and it evolved, and we actually had started considering moving into her house. My brother's reasoning was because he didn't want to be in North Carolina if this bill-thing was passed. (I'm not sure if it's a bill since I'm not really caught up, but it's about people having to use the bathroom of the gender on their birth certificate - which does not excuse transsexual people.) He was going on a bit of a long-winded quiet rant with me about it. My heart was racing. I had no idea if I should say it. A thought and video kept playing on loop of me coming out to him in my head. All of my courage, thought, and energy went into saying the two words "I'm transgender." My heart slowly started calming down after that, and everything was peaceful. Heck, the discussion about it wasn't even stressing me out anymore. He...he knows...and he's just as supportive as I thought. That day, I realized, the pressure wasn't even about the process of coming out, it was just...saying the words. I'm not out to anyone else in my family yet...it'll take some more courage, but I know I can do it.
