Country & city: The Netherlands, Nijmegen

Name/nickname: Sophie

Age: 26

Gender: female

What did you come out as (gay, bi, transgendered, use any terms you like here)? transgender

What other words would you use to describe yourself? individual, woman, lesbian, friend daughter, sister, grand-daughter, student, liberal, activist, European, cosmopolitan,

How old were you when you first realized your identity? about 9 years old

How old were you when you first told someone? at age 20

Did you plan it? If so, how? No I didn’t really plan it, it simply came to be

What made you choose that person to tell? she was my girlfriend and so the person most close to me, and in whom I could trust my long lasting secret



Can you remember exactly what you said? No

How did you feel? somewhat embarrassed, but as it was a gradual coming out I also felt trusted

What was the person’s reaction? Can’t really remember, how she exactly reacted, she was okay with it, although she found it hard to be the only one in on it

What did they say? She had certain question, wanting to know what I wanted to do with the feelings I had

What was your relationship with the person like afterwards? We stayed together, although it did become more clear to me that I wanted to transition. We broke up two weeks before my 21st birthday, but for other reasons.

What’s it like now? I don’t have any contact with her, for a while after breaking up we stayed friends, kept in touch, went to visit her, but our contact got lost when our lives connected less and less. She did keep supporting me during the time we were in touch.

If you’ve been outed unwillingly, who did it? There’s two different instances, the first one was after I’d come out to my mom, she told my brother and little sister without my knowledge of doing so. 
The second one that stood out was when a friend of mine told another friend, of both of us, at a time when I had already started my transition, and this other friend, she didn’t know I wasn’t a cisgendered girl. 

What happened? Well I learnt from my brother to whom I had planned to come out to at that occasion that my mom had told him in her emotional state over my coming out. My sister later told me the story how my mom told her, which she thought was quite inappropriate of her, because it was at a restaurant of a department store.
At the other occasion we went out together (some friends and I) and the other girl didn’t know, and stayed over at my friends’ place (at the next-door building) and by the next morning when we had breaksast together my friend had told her, but I was in the blank on that, but gradually got my suspicions. I don’t hold any grudge against my friend about it, because well they’re both supportive and actually don’t make an issue of it. It did make me think, because the more people can’t tell my transgenderd status from my appearance the more I have to rethink my degree of openness and how to communicate that to my friends whom know people whom not in on my status.

What were peoples’ reactions? Well overall peoples reactions were quite okay, some had questions, others thought I was really courageous, and some (mostly family) had their worries, but all respect me as far as I know

If you’ve experienced homophobia etc, please give an example. Well there were some instances of namecalling, mostly by ignorant youth. In total that happened about 5 times of which I was aware, but I guess there was a lot more talk and looks behind my back. The first time I went out as a girl, was a quite a scary experience when I sat on a train from my house to the central station (only 3 minutes) and a whole bunch of adolescent guys (possibly football supporters) and although I didn’t sit in cabin part where most of them sat I was noticed and some of those guys had some laughs and one of’m felt like shouting “transvestite”. It was quite uncomfortable and I’m glad I’ve never been in such a situation again, although I’m not someone whom evades crowds. It was an incident, and luckily no real harm was done.

Since coming out, how “out” are you in the following areas of your life:

Educational institution: fully out to those who know me, but as I’m living as me there’s also people unaware of my past, and I’m quite fine with that.

Job: n/a

Family: entirely out

Friends: also entirely out, some know me from before, but most haven’t known me as a guy, which I’m glad about

What does being out mean to you? Being myself, as uninhibited as I desire to be, not making a secret of myself, and being proud of whom I am

What differences, if any, did your cultural background make to your experience of coming out? Well there is a degree of individualist and liberal thinking that made it easier for me along the way of coming out, because the responses were overall positive, but it I did take almost 10 years to come out because I thought it was something which wouldn’t be accepted, so there were aspects of my culture which though me that being different as in defying the gender dichotomy wasn’t something that would be accepted. It shows how highly a child can be influenced to think of itself as an obscurity

What does the concept of the closet mean to you? Obscurity, hiding yourself, fleeing from your feelings, denying yourself to be the person you are, and a lot of fear

What advice would you give someone wanting to come out? You can only be yourself by being yourself, you only need to convince yourself, be proud of yourself, you deserve to be, and know that there’s a community out there whom will support you!

If you could do it all again, would you do it any differently? If so, how? I don’t think I would do anything differently, sure there are things I regret, mostly giving in to fear of people not accepting it for so long, but I’m happy to be where I’m now at in my life, so doing anything different would not have made a great difference in the end.