Jaryn Holbrook Janeway, MBA (they/them) is Out Youth’s Director of Programs & Operations. They are also a co-author of Trans+: Love, Sex, Romance, and Being You, a growing-up guide for trans and non-binary youth. To celebrate Coming Out Day on October 11, 2024, we sat down with Jaryn to discuss their coming out journey and advice they’d like to share with LGBTQIA+ people on the cusp of their own coming out journey.
Could you share a bit about your coming out journey? What led you to that moment?
What's important in my story–and the stories of primarily every youth I've worked with–is that we all have the big “coming out moment”. But, our lives are all about the little moments where we have to come out too. My first coming out: I was 14 and my sister was upset with my mom, and, while comforting her, I came out to her. I immediately regretted it and the next day told her I was lying. Months later, they were driving back from a cheerleading competition. My sister was in the backseat, and my mom was up front and was talking about all sorts of things. But in the course of their conversation, my mom had mentioned what a good brother I was. My sister, without thinking, was like, “No, he's not. He lied to me and told me he was gay.”
That night, I was trying to mind my own business and watch Saturday Night Live. My parents came into my room, and I finally told them. Ultimately, I was safe. They affirmed that they still loved me. Things still changed. That still happens today, but I'm hoping that it's changing enough that it becomes a non-issue.
Were there specific people or resources that helped you feel ready to come out?
I must have been 11, maybe 12, when I started coming to terms with the fact that I was different. Back then, we didn't have a whole lot. There weren't gay books in the school library. There weren't gay books in the public library. The most representation we had on TV at that time was Ellen, who had come out on her sitcom, and then Will and Grace. Specifically with Will and Grace, we have to acknowledge that those were caricatures of what gay people are. I relied on the Internet a lot: chat rooms and support websites. I’m pretty sure PFLAG was a website I ended up on.
I'm really glad you asked that question because what I remember most about that time was being comforted by other people's stories. They did make me feel less alone, even stories that didn't end well. There was almost a completely universal agreement that coming out was hard.
What was the most challenging part of coming out, and how did you overcome it?
I'm going to go back to where we started, which is that coming out is not a singular experience. We have to come out over and over and over again. While I came out as a gay boy at 14, I came out to my mom again at 19 as genderqueer (maybe). I was at home the summer after my freshman year of college and we were talking. I was like, “I really want to be a parent,” and she was very affirming of it. I was like, “No, I don't think you understand. I want to have a baby.” She's like, “I get it. You want to have kids.” “You don't understand. I want to carry a baby. I want to give birth to a baby.” She didn't know what to do with that. That's in no way to blame her. I don't know that I would have known what to say in her position.
Then, I came out as a trans woman five times, as I couldn't get over the trans narrative. Then, a pandemic happened, and I came to realize again my sexuality has always been one thing, but my gender identity’s always been another. I even wrote a book about gender. I know that gender is a performance.
What I'm coming out into at almost 40 is an understanding that I've been doing gender for everyone else. I wasn't doing gender for me. And that's a hard thing to admit given the life that I've lived and the work that I do. Even in those moments of doubt–and admittedly some shame about getting myself wrong so many times–is knowing that I've been able to turn it around and use it for good at Out Youth. This line that you've probably heard me say a thousand times: We will always be there for our youth and their families, no matter how many times they might change. And it's not that we think that gender identity or sexual orientation is a choice. It’s an acknowledgment that we are always unfolding and that to hold space for everyone in our lives to become who they're supposed to be is an honor.
How has coming out impacted your mental health and sense of self?
Coming out is terrifying. To hold on to that secret takes a lot of mental and physical energy. Specifically mental–it takes its toll. The analogy I always use with our youth is that, imagining the brain as a computer, hiding pieces of yourself takes so much RAM. It's also been helpful with parents because I explain that your kid has been walking around using 90% of their available brain capacity to constantly police themselves–what they say, what they look like, how they dress. They are spending so much of their energy to hide in plain sight. The magical thing that we get to witness at Out Youth is when a youth finally lets go. The word that we hear so often is “blossoming”. My favorite was the mom who came in one day and said, “It's like my kid exploded. I didn't think it was possible for a person to be more themself. And my kid is now.” Because they don't have to waste all that time and energy.
The first coming out is hard, and the one after that is a little easier, in general. That's what older queer folks forget. If I asked you to put anything in this article, it would be this part: as older folks who don't have to confront coming out over and over again, it's easy to forget that we're coming out all the time. Just because it's easier now because you've had lots of practice, doesn't mean you're not still doing it.
What we hear a lot is, “The kids today have it so easy.” It's not easy. It’s different.
What are some things you wish you had known before coming out?
I had to have a first coming out over and over again. But at nearly 40, I wish I had done it for me. It's not to say that I never did any of my coming out for me. I've never done a coming out that was only for me. I have spent so much of my life trying to be what everybody else wanted or needed me to be.
I think a fairly universal experience at least amongst trans people of my generation is that we spent so much time and energy trying to figure out who we were that we never took time to figure out who we wanted to be. Gender is such a gigantic construct that goes unseen by the vast majority of humanity, but we all participate in it all the time.
As trans people, we feel compelled to figure out how to present ourselves in the world to feel safe and to feel true. I don't know that we get the chance to figure out what we want to be when we grow up like other folks do. It's a subtle difference because I'm not saying that who we are as trans people is not part of that. But if I was not who I am, I would not have ended up at Out Youth. I wanted to go to MIT and study robotics and build robots that went to space. And I'm here. Which is amazing. There is not a day that I wake up and don't feel lucky to have ended up here. And that's not to say that had I gone and built robots, I would have been miserable. We don't have the same experience as others because we don't have the luxury of figuring out what we want to be as we emerge.
Gender is so ingrained. When Out Youth did the Take My Hand Texas campaign in 2017, one of our board members asked “besides locker rooms and restrooms, what other places do trans folks encounter gender in a way that might not feel safe?” I distinctly remember in that meeting, I just said “everywhere.”
For me, I encounter it where I get uncomfortable. I encountered it this morning on the way to this meeting. I stepped out my front door and the UPS guy showed up. And as I turned around to put the package he gave me inside, he shouted over his shoulder, “Have a good day, ma’am.” It's not big, but it was gender. It's everywhere. We have to wiggle through it all the time and it's uncomfortable.
If you could say one thing to someone who's struggling with the idea of coming out, what would it be?
I can't promise that it's all going to be okay. But in the end, I hope you find it worth it. Because I did. And our stories are not going to be the same. They can't be. But for all the times I struggled and worried about coming out – I've lost people, and it sucked, and it felt lonely at times. But in the end, it's always been worth it, because as far as I know, we only get this one life. And it has been worth being myself.