WELCOME TO THE CLUB!!!
We’re so happy that you felt comfortable coming out of your shell to acknowledge and love the beautiful and powerful snail that you’ve been all along.
By acknowledging your queerness, you are inheriting a legacy of panache and radical self-love unbeknownst to many of the other people who inhabit this planet. To clarify, this panache, or “flamboyant confidence of style or manner,” doesn’t mean that you have to be ready for RuPaul’s drag race—gender is a spectrum (or doesn’t actually exist, depending on who you ask), and identifying as trans or gender non-conforming does not mean that you have to be a high-heeled diva with legs for days; there are quiet queers, nerdy gender non-conformers, opulent trans folx, and everybody in between. Your panache is a knowledge of and comfort within your body, brain, and soul (if you believe in such things), unlike anything you’ve ever experienced. Acknowledging your queerness is a commitment to getting to know and love the real you more than anything else.
We are so, so, so excited to have you here. Websites like this didn’t exist when we were kids—and truth be told, some of us didn’t have the language to talk about being transgender or gender non-conforming until we were in our twenties. So much has changed, even within the last five years: there are people who look like us on TV. There are people who know our struggles running for office and serving as political officials. We have musicians and poets who speak to our experiences and scholars who study our oppression. Being trans isn’t always glorious, but it’s certainly easier than it ever was before.
Being transgender means a lot of things, but mostly that your life will hopefully never be the same. We hope it means that you’re happier and healthier in ways you never could have imagined. While you may have had different kids of community before, we hope you can bask in the knowledge that there are folx out there who understand and support you in ways that other people who love you never could.
We love you.
We are proud of our identities and yours, and want to provide extra support to you in this coming out process. This website is for you. It was made with love and meticulous detail, and hopefully it fills in a myriad of gaps and makes your transition or coming out process safer and more celebratory.
As we mentioned before, there are innumerable identities and gender presentations in this world, and every single one deserves its own considerations and resources. For the purposes of this website, we’ve broken these identities into three categories: transfeminine, transmasculine, and non-binary & gender non-conforming. Keep in mind that everybody transitions at a different pace, and to be kind and patient with yourself and others throughout the process.
Feel free to peruse all or any of the three pages, depending on how you or your loved-one identifies, and learn about the vast diversity within our community. If you have further questions or have suggestions about things we should add to these pages, feel free to contact us!
“When it comes to age, I just feel like puberty is, like, the most horrible time of anyone’s life.”
Sam Smith
Out of Yer Shell 