What follows is a transcript from Elladan's video, which you can watch here: https://youtu.be/XRfDsCblt80
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My name is Elladon, and I use they/them pronouns.
For me understanding my feelings and understanding how that
related to my identity took a painfully long time. I think it was only feels
painfully long because of how obvious it should have been. When I was young, I
had thoughts like: transgender individuals can have gender confirming or gender
affirming surgery, and I can't have that because I’m not transgender. And that
was really upsetting. I n my head at maybe 13 years old, I wished I could get
gender affirming surgery but knew I never could because it was only for
transgender people. I didn't realize that maybe wanting that could have been a
clue.
I would always present a certain way and when strangers
would "misgender" me, I found it really exciting and thrilling I had
a list I had a physical list every time someone "misgendered" me with
the opposing gender to um my assigned one at birth. I would go home and write
it in my journal because I was so thrilled about it.
And there there's a lot of other signs. I know I always
wanted to shop in different sections and my moms like you can't shop there
those clothes aren't for you.
Those thoughts never left. I just adjusted my presentation
to fit them. But for me growing up anything related to LGBT was very taboo,
very negative, Like I knew in my head, if... I was afraid. I had friends who
were part of positive space and different groups at school, and while I
personally didn't have anything against it, I was like afraid to openly support
it because I knew I would get in trouble. Like there would be negative
consequences for me and also, I could pass as just straight and not interested.
So that's what I did.
At one point in high school, I had gone to my friends and
said, I’m not transgender but, could we try using this new nickname I’ve picked
out and these pronouns? Which they didn't do, but the fact that I was thinking
hey let's switch up my pronouns and not use my birth name again could have been
a good sign.
I became more and more aware that these were identities that
existed, but I wouldn't connect them to myself, but I was also not "the
other." I didn't feel the need to do a binary transition so I couldn't be
trans, and it wasn't until quarantined, I moved out from my family home and I
was living with a roommate and I started watching just YouTube videos. They
were on my recommended, and a lot of them were transgender TikToks, or memes,
just like relatable transgender content. So, I would start watching it
thinking, this isn't supposed to be relatable to me but all of it was. So, I
kind of got the idea in my head. And then I found out about non-binary.
Pretty much the moment I found out about non-binary, I went,
oh! Okay. This is what I am. It makes sense. And pretty much the moment I
figured that out, I started making phone calls to my doctor first, before my
family. I was like I want to get this train rolling. So probably within the
same week of me learning what non-binary was, and that it existed, I was making
phone calls to get hooked up at the gender clinic, to get a gender therapist,
so I could start getting surgery and just doing all these things I’d dreamed of
since being a kid. I was like, okay this is on the table for me. It's
happening, and it's happening as soon as possible. The phone calls to family
came later.
Life before learning that I was non-binary and that there
was something I could do about it was difficult, because I knew I was unhappy.
I had not even really hit puberty yet and there were things about my body that
I knew I couldn't live with. So, I remember thinking, the medical field today,
they could change someone from a man into a woman, or from a woman into a man,
but they can't help me. Because like I said I didn't realize there were options
for people. I didn't realize people like me even existed, and that made me so
mad. I would sit in my room and cry. They were angry tears, because I felt like
forgotten, ignored. I felt frustrated with my family, but they didn't know...
actually they did know. My family knew I wanted to do this these medical
procedures and they always kind of wrote it off as just a phase. I didn't care
if I wasn't allowed to dress a certain way or if I had to keep my hair a
certain way. But thinking that I couldn't choose what to do with my body and
that it had to stay a certain way, it was unbearable.
So, for me coming out happened pretty much the same way that
calling my doctors for medical transition did which is within probably a few
days of discovering what non-binary was, I was telling people about it.
So, I called my dad first and his reaction was more or less,
I’m so glad you finally felt comfortable telling me. Apparently, he'd figured
it out a while before. And then I told my brother. After that... He didn't
understand at first, because we'd actually had some conversations in the past,
like he struggled to understand transgender, but he didn't understand like,
neo-pronouns, and all these other genders, because I remember growing up, I
just seen a lot of genders on Tumblr, and I will say, I was one of the people
who was confused by them. I thought like, there can't possibly be this many.
Like why are people doing this? But when I told him I was kind of, I’ve done
research now. I’ve watched YouTube videos. I got on Facebook with a more open
mind. And so, I was able to talk to him about it and he came around pretty
quickly. So, I remember when I first asked him to use a nickname when I was in
high school, he was not on board with that. None of my friends were. None of my
family was. So I thought, I'll tell him that, you know, I’m non-binary, and
that I’m gonna medically transition. But he probably won't be cool with
changing my name and pronouns, because that doesn't seem like him. But within a
week he... well within a few days, he was making an effort and I’d say within a
week, he'd probably stopped getting it wrong altogether. So, after that I told
my other siblings, and well, yeah, and they were all on board. They were really
supportive. They didn't screw up at all.
My mom found out last. I was really stressed. I didn't want
to tell her. I was kind of hoping I could just fly under the radar and see how
long it took her to notice. But I knew that if I got surgeries or started
hormone therapies, she'd clue in and she had the type of personality where she
felt I was deliberately hiding something from her, which I would have been.
Then it would be a worse reaction than if I just came out and told her.
So the initial conversation with my mom went very poorly. We
got into a big argument, and she told me I was not thinking things through and
making a bad decision, and that it was very spontaneous. There was definitely a
lot of painful conversations and emotions and discussions that happened between
us. And there was definitely more than a few times where I thought like, this
is it. She's gonna cut me off. I’m gonna cut her off. Like this relationship is
not going to continue.
She got over it quickly. She called me within a few weeks
and started talking about it, and then after that, she started doing her own
research independent of me. And she was sending me videos by non-binary
YouTubers, asking me questions like, is this you? Does this describe you? Is
this your experience? And so, we started being able to have a conversation
about it. From then on, it's like, every week she does something that surprises
me.
I know as a kid growing up, I’d always wanted to use
nicknames and it made her really upset. She felt like she put a lot of thought
into my name, and I was also named after someone who had been very important to
her. So, the most significant thing for me was when she started calling me a
name that I preferred. And then even more shocking was when she started using
my gender-neutral pronouns.
So, I didn't expect her to ever accept me but honestly
within a month she was giving her best effort. And her best effort has turned
into genuine support.
Things did eventually go well with everyone.
I’d say coming out to the world, like coming out publicly,
has not inherently made things harder, but if anything, it's made things a
little bit easier. But coming out to myself has made a lot of my dysphoria
worse and it's given me a lot of regret. Which is just funny because like I
said I’m pretty young and I know a lot of people take much longer to kind of
discover this, but I’ve always had this feeling that I’m wasting my life.
Because I took a few extra years for high school, I took a few extra years for
college, and all this time, I feel this immense pressure of time, thinking I’m
wasting my life, I’m running out of time to accomplish anything. I look at the
accomplishments of like teenagers and kids in their young 20s and I think, look
at all they've done, and I’m so much older, and I’ve done nothing. So, I have a
lot of impending doom hanging over me feeling like my life is almost over.
So, I do know that I’m sitting here looking back going, this
isn't a surprise, this isn't new, everyone saw it coming, all the signs were
there, I should have put pieces together. Like, so I think a lot, how would my
life have been different If I’d gone on hormone blockers? What if I tried to
get surgery years ago? What if I’d known this about myself?
I had teachers at school pulled me aside and asked me what
pronouns do you prefer, and I was like, why are you asking me that? Like, don't
ask me those questions! And yeah, I had a lot of visceral pushing it away for
so long, but now that I am accepting it, I’m mad that I didn't do it sooner.
Which retrospectively is a bit of a privileged thing to say that, like, the
most upsetting thing about coming out is that I didn't do it sooner? But it's
true. The most upsetting thing about coming out is that I didn't do it sooner.
it's hard to pinpoint any one way that coming out has made
things better. It's more of an overall feeling. It's like, my life has somehow
changed, which it has but... it's difficult to really say how or why.
I got a legal name changed. I got my gender markers changed.
And I remember thinking when I got my name changed, I didn't think it would be
a big deal, because I’ve been going by, you know, a different name my whole
life. And when I got the paperwork, I got so scared. I was like did they say
no? Did I spend weeks stressing? I was like, how long's it supposed to take to
get it back? What are they gonna say? And when I sat down on my bed and opened
it, I just started crying.
There were hard parts where I know after coming out to myself,
I somehow felt that I see myself this way now. It's so obvious. Of course, the
rest of the world will. It didn't occur to me that the entire world wouldn't be
on the same page. So, I remember, I got a new job at one point, and I went in
there like, fully presenting as non-binary. I had a pronoun pin. I used my new
name on my application. And I just immediately got misgendered the whole time.
And I did not have the confidence to tell them. I just sat there, and I was
like oh... oh... the world doesn't know? Why did I think they would know? So
that was kind of a wake-up call.
It's like, just because you and your family know, the
world's not going to see you differently right away. Like they don't care how
you feel. They just care how you look, and that's what they're going to go off
of. So that was hard.
One thing that changed is how I look. I used to present very
firmly the opposite gender of what I was, because I did not like being gendered
and I thought, well, if people are going to do it anyway, I want them to do it
this way. And now that I kind of understand myself better, I don't feel the
need to do that. I’m happy to just wear whatever I want to. Do what makes me
happy. To look how I want to look.
So, growing up, like as a teenager, a lot of everything I
did was to put on a front and to look a certain way to the rest of the world.
And it's like all of that is gone now. I’m so comfortable just being me.
I’ve stopped taking medication for anxiety and depression
and I felt better than I ever have. I heard all these anecdotes about people
who suffered from anxiety and depression their whole life, and then they
started transitioning and it got a lot better. Because a lot of that
unacknowledged feelings was what was causing... that was the root of the
anxiety and the depression. And I remember thinking, well, that won't happen to
me because this isn't why... I mean I’ve been anxious and depressed since I was
a tiny kid. Like I don't like my gender, but I don't think it's killing me.
Turns out it kind of was killing me.
And since coming out and starting to do all these social and
physical changes, I feel better. I feel healthier even. My family says I smile
more. There are days where I wake up and I think, I’m happy! I’m doing well.
One day I was cleaning my kitchen and I stopped and in my head, I thought, I’m
thriving! And I’ve never thought that before in my life. But almost every day I
can sit there and go, I’m thriving. So.
I grew up very afraid of taking risks and very afraid of
changes. So I had very little confidence in myself. I had a lot of body image
issues, which led to other confidence issues. But overall, I was not a
confident little child. And ever since making this one major decision, it's
like, everything about myself has opened up. I have made a lot of decisions I
would have never made in the past. I feel like my life has just begun. I feel
like, before, I was waiting for my life to end, which is literally true. I had
no plans to end it myself, but every day I woke up and thought, if, you know,
if I get hit by a car today, there's nothing that I'll regret about it. Whereas
now I realize... I had a severe depressive episode just a few days or weeks back,
and even in the midst of it, I thought to myself, I have to get out of this
because I have things to look forward to!
I’m getting my driver's license, which... I did my written
test at 16 and let it expire because I was afraid to set foot inside a car, and
now I plan on living in a van and traveling all over North and South America,
because I’ve always wanted to see the world. So.
One of the most important things I think people can do, is,
not just let people experiment but encourage it. When I was a kid um one of my
biggest regrets is that I didn't know this about myself sooner. And as a kid,
all the signs were there. But I didn't recognize them. And the people around me
didn't recognize them. And the people around me were very invested in the
community, but it feels like when I was amongst them, I got overlooked. And I
think it's so important that we just normalize these things, because even if
something is just a phase or if something is just someone experimenting,
there's no harm in that. If I’d had this information sooner, if I’d known about
these possibilities, they don't teach it in school, most parents don't talk
about it unless you have a friend or a family member who's openly part of the
LGBTQ community, it's generally swept under the rug, and you grow up not
knowing what options exist.
I think this information should just be available for
people. Because having the information doesn't make you a certain way, it just
gives you possibilities to pursue if that's what you want to do. I’m really
excited about my future which I never thought I would say.
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