Come Out, Come Out Wherever You Are*

Coming out can make a difference for all trans people. One of the biggest thing that change people minds against us to know a trans person.

Nobody Knew Model Teddy Quinlivan Was Transgender—Here's Why She Came Out
ELLE
As Told To Naomi Rougeau
March 7, 2018

Last September during New York Fashion Week, I came out publicly as transgender: first in an online interview with CNN Style, then on Instagram, since that’s what you do now when you have a life-changing announcement. If it came as a surprise to people, it’s because I’d already been working as a female model for the past few years.

I actually started taking hormones when I was 17. I grew up in Boston and knew early on that I was very much female, despite my anatomy. I would sneak into my mom’s closet and play dress-up. Unbeknownst to my parents, I would change into girls’ clothing and put on makeup once I got to school. I understood at a young age that fashion is about identity and self-expression, and that we convey gender through clothing. People would say, “Take that dress off; you are a boy!” But I’ve always been rebellious. I thought, Fine, you don’t want me to wear a skirt? I’m gonna wear one every day. I was viciously bullied for it. When I would defend myself, I’d be the one in trouble. Every time in the principal’s office, it was the same spiel: “If you don’t want people to bully you anymore, then conform.”
[…]
There’s a stereotype of transgender people based on what’s shown on Maury Povich or Jerry Springer. It’s that there’s something mentally wrong with them, that they are incapable of serving in the military or existing in the workplace normally. But that’s not true at all. I am proof—a successful model who happens to be transgender. And I think fashion, in terms of social power, is the most important industry. Advertising has tremendous impact in terms of who and what we find attractive. It’s a hard sphere to penetrate. But I have.

So I can’t stay silent while a reality TV president actively fights to prevent people like me from living a normal life. There is no evidence to support the notion that transgender people are being perverted in the restrooms of their choosing. If legislation is being made on my behalf as an American citizen, then it’s incumbent on me to speak up for the transgender taxpayers who deserve the same dignity and respect that a cisgender person receives. And if I’ve learned anything from Trump’s election, it’s that literally anything is possible in the twenty-first century. Why can’t a transgender person walk in a Versace show or run for office? She already has—and maybe, one day, I will.

Miqqi Alicia Gilbert says there is “out” and then there is “OUT!”

Once you are out you will never be back in the closet, if you Google my name there are “About 48,300 results.” Transgender Day of Visibility is on March 31 and I don’t know how you can be more visible than having over 48,000 results on Google.

You don’t have to be visible or out to make a difference but you do have to speak up for trans people, as Robin McHaelen the Executive Director of True Colors says “If you hear mean, intervene.”

You have to let your legislators know that anti-trans or anti-LGBT legislation is not acceptable. You have to let your school board know that bans on trans people in school is not acceptable. You don’t not have to be visible but you do have to speak up.

*But please, only if you are safe to come out and coming out is not for everyone… think before coming out because afterward nothing is ever going to be the same.