Part of the LGBTQ+ community, here! I’m an asexual biromantic trans guy. Nobody is “sexy”, but I can develop feelings and form romantic relationships with all genders. I could technically also call myself panromantic, but I have preferences and bi is a more comfortable label for me personally. As it is, I only tell people the bi part unless another aspect of my identity is immediately relevant and I have to speak out about it. I don’t like having to have to explain asexuality to strangers (I’m all for educating people, but it’s exhausting when people demand it) and I don’t want people to suddenly start treating me differently than they would any other man. Not when I just hit a point where strangers see me as male more often than not.
Although I was raised Lutheran Christian, I’m not religious now. As far as I remember, the church I went to was accepting? They didn’t say anything negative about LGBTQ+ people, and the teacher for my Confirmation classes, in which everyone was a girl or closeted trans guy, once told us that “God should be first in all of your relationships, even with your boyfriend or girlfriend”, so that was inclusive. I like to think it was accepting by default. I have friends of various religions, and I try to educate myself on other peoples’ beliefs, but I don’t hold to any of them.
My advice to people is to be careful who you come out to. You shouldn’t feel pressured to do so, and if you don’t want to come out to everyone at once, make sure the person you’re talking to is not only supportive, but also able to keep a secret. Coming out is an ongoing process with a lot at stake, and you want to make sure the people you start with are people you can trust. I’ve been less careful than I’m suggesting, since I can’t resist the urge to out myself with puns.
That being said, coming out in high school was a bad experience and I’ve lost all of my friends from that time, went back in the closet, and got them back after playing it off as a joke, only to cut off contact with them once I got a better support network. When I left the small town where I grew up and went to university in an actual city, most of my new friends were trans anyway. I met most of them at a trans support group at the local Pride Center before the center itself got taken over by TERFs and in the local goth and folk punk scenes, which kind of explains it if you’ve ever been involved in counter culture in a major city. That made existing and being out a lot easier.
I didn’t come out to my family until after I moved out. I had no clue how they would react, since they never talked about LGBTQ+ issues and I was scared to ask. I technically “came out” by dating a woman and transitioning using my parents’ health insurance (but my own money for the copays, of course). Although it turned out well for me (my father doesn’t care either way and my mother’s apparently an ally), I don’t recommend that because in hindsight, lots of things could have gone wrong.
A message to all of you: There’s no rush to figure out your identity! Sexuality and gender can be complicated, and questioning things is especially normal when you’re a teenager, which a lot of people on the forums are. I didn’t have myself figured out for a long time, and it took me even longer to accept myself. These things take a while, and that’s alright.