Published October 1, 2017
Today is my birthday. In a sense, it’s also Carly’s. Hi. I’m Carly.
I am a transgender woman, and I’d like for you to use she and her when you refer to me. Mine is a journey from trying to live as a man toward an acceptance of the authentic self that has been wanting to come out for a long time. I’m excited and relieved to be telling you a little bit about her.
It’s challenging to find the words to share how I came to this realization and turning point in my life. Much of it has been painful, and that pain came from the failed efforts to live the way I’d imagined the world expected me to live. There is joy in saying to you now that the pain is giving way to happiness, a liberation of a secret that no longer feels like it must be a secret.
This coming-out story is a collection of moments, memories that retrace parts of the narrative without necessarily sharing specifics about the work and heartache that came with mining those moments. They are threads from a tapestry.
You could stop reading here without missing the main point — that I’m trans. There is no “reveal” beyond what I’ve said. The rest is a curvy revisiting of those threads as I process an important transitional birthday the best way I know how.