Lucy Grey: Gendernaut

I’ve posted a lot tonight, but I’ve found myself with a wealth of time, and decided to try hewing down my mountain of drafted posts. No matter what I do, though, I find that number of drafts hovers around 50, like a moth fluttering around a lightbulb. Ah, well. Having lots of drafts waiting to be posted is better than not having anything at all, I guess. I just wish Tumblr’s queue was working so I could queue items and spread them out instead of posting them as I finish them.

But on to more interesting matters. My area’s Pride event is coming to town next week. Dulcinea and I are planning to go—I’m excited and nervous. It’ll be my first Pride event, and I want to show my support. Also, it’s an opportunity for me to go out en femme. My first opportunity. It’ll be like a big coming out party, and I can’t wait.

The only concerns I have are running into people who know me. Dulcinea and I both have a considerable number of lgbt friends, and it’s pretty inevitable we’ll run into them. Actually, a couple have already mentioned something about bringing us to Pride, completely without knowledge of my particular situation. This brings me to an interesting dilemma. Part of me wants to be a sort of genderfuck and surprise the crap out of these friends, but another part (the one Dulcinea sides with) is worried that people may take this as mocking “legitimate” lgbt people. Not that I am, or would be—but these friends have only known me through my male, cissexual filter; suddenly showing up in drag may be a bit of a put-off for them, and it’s not something I want to do.

So, what do I do? I’m going to Pride en femme. But it’s looking more and more that I need to come out before Pride, if I want to avoid offending my friends. 

This brings me to another idea: have a very small coming out party with my friends (the ones I don’t want to offend) before Pride. Which means some time next week, before the weekend. It’s only now, after considering this idea, that the immensity of coming out has hit me. It makes me nervous, just thinking about it—I’m anxious about my friend’s questions, whether they’ll accept me, whether I’ll look like a total fool to them, if they’ll pick my entire demeanor apart. I’m overwhelmed. But being overwhelmed doesn’t stop the necessity of this; I want to avoid hurt feelings and misconceptions—doing this can head most of those negative waves off before even getting to Pride.

I still want to surprise the balls off my friends, though.