Hello underachievers!
I have not filmed a proper YouTube video since March.
Do I look different?
I got a haircut!
And my teeth have moved just inside my mouth.
They've not gone anywhere.
I got Invisalign.
I need to make you guys aware of something,
it's super duper really important
and very dangerous:
I released a brand new song!
It's called "I Know Better" and you can stream it now.
And what I would say is that
it makes you want to shake your ass...
But in a depressed way.
But it's fun.
I think you guys would like it.
I think you should listen to it,
stream it below!
So, on to transgenderism.
The transgender agenda.
How did I fulfill it five years ago?
On the 14th of August, 2017,
I came out to every single person in my entire life.
That's not true, but I came out to most of them.
My method of coming out was by making a Facebook post
saying that I was trans,
and it wasn't just, "hey, I'm trans".
We'll get to what I actually said later,
but I feel like I should fill you in first.
So, I knew something was up in terms of my gender and my body
my entire life!
When I was five years old
I would tell kids on the playground
that my name was Alex and that I was a boy.
I would tell my brother that I was a boy.
I would put Play-Doh down my pants
and use it as a packer, because I felt like a boy.
There was a lot going on and, you know,
most of my life I've looked the way that I do now,
with short hair.
And I was incredibly transgender.
If I grew up nowadays, I would be diagnosed from birth.
Unfortunately, my parents didn't know much about being trans,
but fortunately, they were always very accepting
of whatever I wanted to do in regard to my self-expression.
So, you know...
I was allowed a "boy haircut".
I was allowed to wear "boy clothes".
And, for the majority of my life,
when I was living under my parents roof,
strangers would assume that I was a little boy
and my parents would have to correct them.
But, just because all that stuff happened,
does not mean...
That I came out in a timely fashion.
I am currently 23,
and I came out at the age of 17.
I came out four days before my 18th birthday.
Why?! Why did I wait so long?
If I was packing at the age of five,
why did I wait so long?
There are good amount of reasons.
And I'm not gonna go through all of them,
but, you know...
The classic happened.
Where, as a kid you're chilling,
and then, suddenly, get older and everybody
starts bullying you because you look like a little boy.
So that happened!
I would say that is the biggest reason
why I didn't come out for so long,
because up until the age of 13,
I was happy just doing my thing,
just having short hair,
looking like a boy, feeling like a boy.
I hit Senior school
and kids told me that I should change,
and they kept reminding me:
"Hey, you should change!
"Your hair looks bad.
"Why have you got boy hair?
"You should get girl hair".
Is what they said,
not verbatim,
but kind of the same thing.
So, you know, I repressed the whole thing
because I thought it would make my life much easier
and I tell you, it did not.
It made it much harder.
But yeah, when did I actually realize that I was trans?
and I hate being asked this question!
Because I feel like, with a lot of people,
there's not usually that, "Eureka, I'm trans!" moment.
A lot of it is just like, "oh...
"Oh, so that horrible feeling I've had in my stomach since birth,
"that's what it was?"
I discovered what being trans and what being non-binary was...
Maybe when I was like 14.
I went on the internet--
As, you know, other people do,
as you know...
And before you start saying it:
No, the internet did not trans me.
I had these feelings before I knew what Google was.
I found out what being non-binary was when I was 14,
and for a little amount of time,
I identified as non-binary,
because the idea of identifying as a man
and coming out and being like:
"Hahaha, I know I'm a little girl, but I'm a man!"
That really scared me,
so I was non-binary for a little bit.
And during that non-binary "phase",
whatever it was,
I came out to my mum.
I had already come out to my internet friends,
but they were all LGBTs.
They were the Ls, the Gs, the Bs and the Ts.
That was the easiest coming out ever,
because I was just like, "hey, guys, I'm this",
and they were like:
"Yeah... "Yeah, I know".
But no--
The first like, major person in my life that I came out to
was my mother.
And, how did I do that, you asked?
Did you write a nice little poem?
You send a letter--?
No! I sent her the Wikipedia link to what non-binary was...
From Wikipedia.
I sent her that message on Facebook Messenger
and she messaged back,
and was like, "is this you?"
And I'm like, "yeah, I think so".
And she was like, "okay, love you!
"Love you, regardless--
"Are you sure you're not a boy?
"You sure you're not just a guy?"
She was right.
Mothers always know best.
But, regardless, my mother was the first person that I came out to.
And she made it a lot easier for me,
because she knew I was a gigantic massive pussy,
and I was never going to come out to anybody else in real life via message.
Nothing, I would never do that!
So she took the liberty of calling out my brother,
being like, "by the way...
"Trans".
And my brother was like, "yeah, obviously, duh...
"That's fine.
"I don't care.
"Love you, whatever".
And then he did the honors of telling my dad
because I was scared of doing that,
and my dad was like, "yeah, obviously...
"Not a big deal.
"Kind of obvious".
And so that was that!
That was pretty easy.
But I didn't ask anybody to call me "Noah"
or to use he/him pronouns,
because, you know, I was not out at school.
I was not out to anybody else at my life
and I just wanted them to know.
There's this fun story that I remember every single time
I think about coming out to my dad.
I had short hair my whole life,
looked like a boy my whole life.
There were a few years where I grew my hair out...
I started wearing girls clothes,
because people told me to wear specifically these clothes...!
And it got to a point where I was like:
"This is just making me more miserable.
"I'm gonna cut my hair off".
And I remember going to my dad and being like:
"Dad, do you think I would look weird,
"and like a boy,
"if I cut off my hair?"
And he said:
"Well, I don't think you really look like a girl anyway".
So...
That was just a fun moment.
But yeah, at this point in my life, August 2017,
I was only out to my internet friends,
I was out to my mom, my dad and my brother,
and I was out to a few people from school.
The most notable one was my roommate.
I went to a boarding school, by the way, a naval boarding school.
My roommate of five years,
a week before we finished school,
came up to me and was like, "so, you like men, right?
"You like boys".
And, at this point,
I was so tired of people thinking I was a lesbian.
I was like: "Yes, I love [ ]!
"I love men!"
And she was like, "okay, so you like boys.
"If you got a boyfriend,
"would you be his boyfriend or his girlfriend?"
I was like: "She [ ] knows.
"She [ ] knows--"
So, thank you, Sasha, for doing that,
because it would have been much harder to come out
if you had not done that.
But yeah, August 2017.
Now is the time, I had finished school,
I had left, we had been a few weeks from school
and, you know, it was time!
So, I made a big Facebook post!
Just for a little bit of context,
and why I didn't come out at school,
I feel like I don't need to explain,
but I feel like I do because some people don't get it.
As I said, I went to a naval boarding school.
It was not the place to come out.
There were two people that were out at my school
and they were out as gay,
and neither of them made the choice to come out.
They were outed by other people and...
You know, that was very unfortunate.
My school was heavily gendered.
It wasn't a single sex school,
but it was single sex boarding houses.
So I grew up in an all-girls boarding house,
and my school had a lot of "traditions"...
They liked "tradition",
they loved "tradition",
and they hated anything outside of it,
so like, a few things that happened, for example,
we would have school dinners multiple times a year,
where they'd give us food
and we would have to dance and act like Tories.
And, of course there was a dress code.
Girls had to wear dresses,
boys had to wear suits...
The usual day-to-day dress code was insane.
It was a naval school, so we wore Naval uniforms.
So like, I get it!
But the boys and girls had very different rules,
and I know this is the same in every single school,
but will I just say that,
there were rules about our hair.
Not just in terms of having natural hair colors,
but girls had to tie all their hair back,
they couldn't have any straggly bits here.
Boys couldn't shave their the sides of their head
lower than like a two, or something.
They were like, regulating the length of the shaved side of my school.
But everything was incredibly gendered.
And, not gonna lie,
the majority of the kids at my school were conservative,
so not only were we living in a conservative establishment,
where, of course, there'd be "tradition",
but I was also surrounded by kids that like...
Of all people, at that time,
they are not the ones to understand being LGBT.
So I had to wait until I finish school to come out,
because I knew I would not be safe.
I would probably be hate crimed a little bit.
I know for a fact my school would have no clue what to do.
They would have no clue what to do.
And they would not have handled it well.
And I know that for a fact,
I've been in contact with kids that are a few years below me
and they have not had any good experiences
coming out at that school.
So, anyway, there's your context,
let's get on to the post.
What did I say?
How did I come out?
"Contrary to popular belief,
"I'm not actually a lesbian
"(very much into dudes)".
We have a very strong opener.
And there was a reason for this,
and I'm sure a lot of people that were in my position can understand.
Because I was a girl and I had short hair
and I dressed "like a boy",
people thought I was a lesbian.
I don't know how many people thought I was a lesbian.
I did actually do a poll on my school account on Instagram
a few years ago, being like:
"Did you think I a lesbian when I was at school?"
Some of them did!
And before anyone says anything,
no, there's absolutely nothing wrong with being a lesbian,
but where my head was at, when I wrote this,
I was a boy!
Who only liked boys!
At this point in my life,
I didn't realize that I was attracted to girls,
because I was just-- There was too much going on.
A girl that likes girls is the complete opposite
to a boy that likes boys.
And I did not enjoy being misunderstood!
But people for real thought I was a lesbian,
even though I denied it.
I literally had a shirtless poster of Tom Daly on my wall.
He was shirtless and had abs!
And maybe they thought I was compensating
for the fact that I knew that people thought I was a lesbian.
But no, for real.
That was this kid three years below me, which--
By the way, I'm not a fan of hierarchy,
and I don't think it should be normal for like, younger kids
to fear older kids, but like...
This kid three years below me came up to me,
and was like, "oh, so you're a lesbian, right?
"What do you think about this?"
I was not a lesbian.
I was not a lesbian!
People seeing me as a lesbian made my dysphoria go off the charts,
because if somebody saw me as a lesbian,
they're like, "oh, that's a girl!
"Yeah, a little bit masculine,
"but still very much a girl!"
"It's a bit more complicated than that,
"but yeah, I'm transgender.
"To put that straight--"
Str8.
"I was born as a girl,
"but I've always felt like a dude inside".
That is like, the most basic way to explain being trans.
It feels almost infantilizing.
Like, I wouldn't say that now.
But like, I get it.
It was 2017 and the people that I was dealing with--
They did not know-- Well, they must have known!
But they did not know any LGBT people.
I remember I was FaceTiming my friend once
in my boarding house
and a girl came in the room and she was like:
"Oh, my God! Is that a gay person?
"I've never met a gay person before".
I had to make this as base level as possible, okay?
"Probably hasn't come as a shock to most of you,
"but I thought I should probably let everybody know
"before they get confused".
So, this is the thing:
I have seen a lot of people on Facebook,
on Instagram, on social media,
not come out as trans but just change their name
to a name that fits the gender that they identify as,
but not the one that they were born as.
And like, they just don't tell anybody about it.
That would make my anxiety insane.
Like, I can't imagine being like:
"Oh, yeah, by the way, it's Noah!"
I did not want people asking questions.
But yeah, people would have been confused
if I just changed my name,
but I was also planning on starting testosterone
and getting top surgery,
so I was definitely gonna look a little bit different
to how they remember me being.
"It's not something that I chose,
"it's just something that's always been there
"and if I could do anything about it to get rid of it,
"I would, but I can't".
That's really sad.
And I get it, I get it.
That is absolutely how I felt.
Being trans, for me, was literally like a curse.
It felt like the worst thing that could possibly happen to me,
because I spent every living moment
in an insane amount of discomfort.
Like, the older I got
the longer I went without coming out to people,
the longer I went knowing who I was
and knowing what I needed to do
in order for me to be comfortable.
The longer I went knowing that and doing nothing about it,
it would it just drove me insane.
Literally the only thing that kept me going
throughout the last few years of my school life
was the fact that I knew that, when I finished school,
I could come out and I could medically transition
and I could not have to live with boobies,
and, you know, a lot of other stuff!
But that is absolutely how I felt, like...
If I could change being trans, I would, I would get rid of it.
It was like having an extra limb.
I was like: "if I can chop it off...
"I'll do it!"
And, what I'm about to say would bother the person
that was writing this coming out post so much...
But if I could get rid of being trans now,
I wouldn't.
Just because I'm at a point in my life where I'm like...
Look, being trans doesn't really impact me that much.
I don't think about it unless I go on the Internet,
or I read the news...
Which is a lot, but, you know...
In terms of how I feel about myself,
it's not something that I think about.
I have an established life now.
I've been with the same person for five years,
I have the friend group that I have,
I do what I do...
And getting rid of being trans, like, that--
I would just be a completely different person.
And I kind of like who I am right now!
So like, I wouldn't!
I wouldn't change that.
That doesn't mean that the dysphoria doesn't suck sometimes,
but it's really cool to me
that I've gotten to a point in my life where like,
I don't feel like that.
And I know a lot of people that are watching this
will absolutely feel like that.
I completely get where you're coming from,
I completely understand that...
It won't always be like that, I promise!
I also feel like I had to say that in the Facebook post,
because I was super worried about what people from my school would think.
They were not the type of people, as I said,
to know an LGBT person.
And I remember the conversations people had around me.
I remember what they said about gay people,
I remember what they said about trans people...
They thought they were triggered snowflakes,
they thought they were crazy people,
they thought they'd been indoctrinated by the internet.
And I wanted to make it clear that,
if I could change this undesirable part of me,
because that's how I felt it was,
I would do it!
Like, I'm on your side!
Like, I know you want to get rid of trans people.
I want to get rid of my transness too!
"Unfortunately, it's a real thing".
"And I hadn't told anybody at school because,
"let's be honest,
"[school] probably isn't the best place to come out".
As I said, the only kids at my school that were out were outed.
They weren't treated well.
And, you know what?
I'm not naming any names,
but I have actually been in contact with a few kids
from the years below me
because they know that I'm trans and they're like:
"Hey, how the hell did you survive school?"
Another terrible stories
about what goes on at the school that I was at,
a member of staff literally told a kid that,
yes, they would go to hell if they came out,
or if they were who they said they were,
which is just an insane thing for a teacher to say to a child.
But yeah, I don't think anybody that went to my school
would disagree that it wasn't the most accepting place.
There were specific things that were banned...
"I'm very very grateful to the mates
"that have supported me this whole time.
"Honestly, they're perfect".
Still feel the same way.
"I'm not saying this to get attention or anything
"and I'm not like this because of the internets influence
"as some people may have expected".
Yeah, I was super worried that people would think that
I was doing this for attention.
Looking back, they would have been insane to think that.
Like, I have always just been the way that I am.
"I'm gonna go on hormones
"and eventually I'll have surgery,
"but don't be worried about me making a sudden decision to
" 'change my gender'
"because it's been something I've thought about my whole life
"and I've been to several appointments and assessments
"to make sure it's not something that I've made up in my head".
Yeah...
Yeah, this is a point in my life
where I put a lot of value on what like,
doctors and nurses had to say about transgender people.
And I get why I felt like that,
because my entire life
I feel like I was the most transgender person ever.
And I would see people that had less dysphoria than me
coming out and going on hormones and getting surgery,
and I was incredibly jealous of them!
So if I went to a doctor and they validated how I felt,
and they were like, "hey, like, here is a true fact:
"You are literally, by definition, transgender".
It just it made me feel better about myself.
And it also made me feel less crazy,
because if a doctor told me that the way that
I was feeling was fine, then it was fine.
But yeah, you know how I feel about it now,
is that like, nobody is gonna know how you feel inside
more than you do.
But yeah, I just wanted people to know that this was legit.
Like, I was legit transgender
and I was doing it in the most legit way possible.
And you can't have a problem with it
because a doctor said that it was fine.
"I's fine if you're not gonna accept me for who I am".
Is it?
"But I'd prefer if you unfriended me now
"so I don't have to deal with people who aren't gonna respect me".
Kind of setting a boundary there.
I mean, like, I did have a few people unfriend me.
I'm still not sure who they were,
but yeah, I was so apprehensive.
If I did this now, if I was coming out now,
I'd be like: "Hey, I'm Noah now.
"He/him pronouns, please.
"Nothing else, bye".
"I would also very much appreciate it
"if you called me 'Noah' from now on,
because that's the name I've gone by for quite a while now".
And that was a lie,
because I had gone by "Noa", not "Noah",
because that was a part of my life where I was like:
"Oh, I gotta be different.
"I gotta change it up!
"Maybe remove the 'H',
"maybe that makes a little bit cooler".
"Noa" is how you spell a girl's name,
so that's not...
That's not what I was going for.
"And like I said earlier, I'm not a girl".
Good shout, Noah.
"So using he/him pronouns would be good".
"That would be good".
I get why I was like this.
I get why is apprehensive.
It's just sad, reading it.
"I'm not expecting anybody to get it straight away,
"cos that's unreasonable,
"but it's always good to try!
"So yeah...
"Sorry for not saying anything earlier.
"If you have any questions
"(I'm guessing you do),
"please message me and ask them,
"I'm not gonna get offended".
So, that was my coming out post.
I still remember those feelings.
I felt, at that point in my life, I was very uncomfortable.
My entire life revolved around being trans.
But yeah, the response was all positive.
There were a few people
and I don't understand how they managed this,
but they'll be like: "Oh, congratulations [birth name]!
"Proud of you!"
They didn't mean it in a bad way,
but they just-- I don't know how they did that.
I had to delete the comments.
As I said, lost a few Facebook friends.
Don't care about that.
I also got some really nice messages
from people that I wasn't even friends with
that were just like:
"Hey, if I ever made you uncomfortable,
"if I ever made you feel a type of way about that, I'm sorry".
That was really nice.
And, finally, I had somebody
that copied my coming out post word for word
but just added in their information,
which, at the time, I was really pissed off by.
But if you want to do that,
if you want to use my coming out post,
go ahead!
Probably don't...
But yeah, that's the end of the video.
How did you come out?
What did you do?
Want to tell me how you did that?
Have a good day or don't.
See you later, losers.
Goodbye!
If you're staying...
There's a gap in my teeth, obvious.
Stays...
Is it obvious?
They shaved--
They shaved between my teeth for the Invisalign,
but can't stop looking at it!