Coming out is a concept which has been foreign for me. For as long as I can remember, I always just was. I didn’t try to compartmentalize my experience into what someone else thought I should be. When I realized I was attracted to women as an assigned female at birth person, I simply flowed with it. When I realized I was not female, but genderfluid-I flowed with that truth as well. When I realized I was two-spirit, I stepped forward into that truth.

For me, the experience has been similar in remembering, discovering, and accepting other identities about myself like being an empath, a healer, an ambivert. The more I live my life and let go what doesn’t intuitively feel right, the clearer specific truths about myself have become. The more I live my life and let go of rigidity, the clearer it becomes that binary modes of thinking are outdated, that the idea of black and white thinking is outrageously absurd. In this way coming out is really a journey of a lifetime. It can apply for any form of identity which doesn’t fill the “traditional” mold we are told things should be, which is socially constructed anyways.

Coming out brings this false notion of hiding and/or withholding information from other people. That they should know if I am queer, trans, or anything that is not heterosexual or straight. That they should know all these intimate details about myself without first establishing a relationship of trust. This in itself is a dehumanizing act which can be influenced by the emotions of fear, envy, and/or guilt. Emotions which are hard for one to take accountability for within themselves. However, when left unchecked these emotions can wreak havoc on not only your own life, but on those outside yourself as well.

I have been reflecting on what it means to come out and it always comes back to being a process and not a one-time event. It is a journey about self-discovery and self-love.

I have realized that I have never come out because I have always been too busy going inward. Deeper into the depths of my soul, spirit, and heart so I can emerge as my own true being.

The excerpt of my prayer “Genderfuck” which says “Fuck your binary ideology” is about going against those rigid ideas which are constantly being imposed on us. It is about reframing those parts of ourselves which are deemed “abnormal” and connecting it to our own emergence process, much like the butterfly’s transformation. One that every person goes through.

We all are on a journey of remembering and emerging into our truest most natural form. This looks different for each person and deserves respect. What we see in the media, schools, and institutions, are mostly comprised of folks who have been given authority and a voice. There are many people who have and are currently rendered voiceless, but that does not mean that they do not exist. That they are not human. 

We are humans. Humans who love. Humans who are magnificent. Humans who are rising.

We as humans have similarities and differences which allow us to have unique gifts and talents. Although we have a common thread of our shared humanity, it is within the differences where the fabric can come to life.

This emergence process requires us to really look into the depths of our souls and begin embracing the parts of ourselves which has been cast into the shadows, so they may be brought to the light.

It is within this part of myself where my soul shares the prayer of “Fuck your binary ideology”

23 minute Visualization Meditation:

1. Take 3 deep breaths, breathing in only until your belly is filled, and then slowly releasing.
2. Imagine a raging yet contained fire. This fire challenges the notion of binary thought by existing as tamed yet untamed at the same time.
3. Approach this fire in the way which feels best for you and ask for it to destroy any outdated baggage you have been  carrying. Give yourself the space to really see what these modes of thinking are.
4. Now allow yourself to get close enough that you begin to sweat, and maybe even get burned by the flickers. This heat and burning is cleansing, which leads to creation. Allow yourself to feel what will be replaced. Once you feel satisfied, gently bring yourself back and journal, talk, express your experience in the way which is most natural for you.