- I just hope that whether it's through this work,
through social media
or just through in-person interactions
that my voice, my visibility, my experiences
can help someone to find themselves too.
- Hi there, My name is Addison Rose Vincent.
I use they/them pronouns and I'm the founder
and the consultant at Break the Binary LLC.
At Break the Binary LLC, I provide educational trainings
to organizations, businesses, schools, healthcare centers,
so many different places that are seeking
LGBTQ educational training and services.
Around the age of eight, I wanna say,
is when I really became familiar with my attraction
to other boys at the time.
At around five years old,
I was already dressing in my mother's clothing,
I was wearing her heels and dresses and at the time,
my role model was Dorothy from Wizard of Oz.
Looking back like I love how brave and unapologetic
I was as a kid, but there was a part and a point
where the bullying and the conditioning
kind of pushed me back into this box,
this role of being a boy, and as much as I tried to
succeed in it with sports and with activities
and with just trying to do so many different things,
I ended up really just feeling that shame
and internalizing so much.
And it took me until I was 17 years old
to really have the confidence and the courage
to tell someone for the first time that I was gay.
It was my English teacher, Mr. Linger,
over the first few months of class,
I recognized that he was taking a liking to me,
he was definitely keeping an eye
and definitely trying to like offer words of support
and offer spaces to chat and so we'd started
these little, like after class chats
where he would give me a space to just talk
and on October 11th, I sat down with him
and I started crying and I told him that
I thought I was gay.
He just comforted me and told me that,
it was fine that he was gay too
and he just gave me these words of encouragement
that have resonated with me to this day.
And at the same time, after I actually came out to him,
I looked over at this poster behind these bookshelves
in his classroom, and I saw that it said,
National Coming Out Day, October 11th.
And I put the two together that it was actually
National Coming Out Day and we looked at each other
and we smiled.
Growing up, we didn't have a lot of visibility,
but also we didn't have a lot of language.
I didn't know what trans was,
I didn't know what non binary was.
All I knew was gay, bisexual and straight.
At that time when I did come out,
the term that just most resonated with me
out of those three was gay.
But after going to college and even after coming out as gay,
I realized that there's so much more to the community,
but also to myself in terms of my identities
and how I fell under the LGBTQ+ umbrella.
So I came across gender.
And for me learning about what transgender meant,
what non-binary meant, those two terms resonated with me
so well, this label around not identifying
with the gender you were assigned at birth,
but also not identifying with either man or woman,
something in between, something outside of it,
some blend of both.
It just resonated with me so well.
So after coming out as gay in 2010,
I came out as trans non binary.
I wanna say, "officially"
but I was doing it the whole process till 2013.
It's been wonderful to embrace these new gender terms
and in that process too, my sexual orientation term,
evolved with my gender.
And I now use the term queer for my sexual orientation.
If you are someone who feels alone, maybe lost,
maybe feel like you've got no one to talk to,
or any resources, I want you to know a few things.
One, you are not alone.
There is an entire community wherever you go
especially online, that's waiting to embrace you,
love you, recognize you, support you, celebrate you,
and do everything that they can to make sure that you know
that you are seen and loved and appreciated.
Lastly, I think what I would say to you is just that
I've been there, pushing through it,
getting to this part today, getting to where I am
in my life today, it's so rewarding just to know that
I stuck around.
That I have a husband now who is incredible,
I have an incredibly loving family, community,
I'm successful and being with my work
and with my identity and who I am.
It's hard, I get it, I get it.
And I hope that seeing me and knowing that
pushing through is, it's so worth it.
I hope that you stick around.
I'm Addison Rose Vincent,
and I'm here to let you know that it gets better.