I missed National Coming Out Day
Oct. 12th, 2025 01:40 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mousmeOops. In my defense, I was sleeping after my night shift. I've been out for over 20 years now, which feels wild to me. How has it been that long?
Coming out these days seems more fraught than ever, which breaks my heart. We went through a honeymoon period for a while there, where it was becoming safer for 2SLGBTQIA+ people to be open about who they are and have the same shot at happiness and safety as cishet people, but that's been increasingly less true for the past ten years or so. I'm hoping (although I'm not super optimistic) that this is just a brief hiccup and that people will start coming back to their senses before the end of the decade. Right now the flavour of the day appears to be transphobia, but as others have pointed out, our trans siblings are the canary in the coal mine: they are being targeted first, but we're all kidding ourselves if we think that the rest of us won't be next.
Once my weight has stabilized a bit after my surgery, I am planning to get myself one of these t-shirts:https://steviesafespaces.com/product/you-will-have-to-go-through-me-tee. It was made famous by David Tennant, and is actually made by a queer creator who lives in my province! I am very excited about this.
I've only been buying the bare minimum of clothing for a few years now, and I don't plan on changing that a lot, but I am likely to need a lot of new clothes by this time next year. I'm going to mostly stick with my work "uniform" of black pants and a solid-coloured polo shirt, but I think I may invest in some fun t-shirts to wear when I'm not at work. I seem to recall that, when I've lost weight in the past, I've gotten cold more easily, so I want to pick up some flannel shirts to wear as a second layer, too, which is something I've always wanted to do. I've resisted it up until now because I've never felt comfortable wearing more than one layer of clothing at a time due to body image issues. Wearing layers has always made me feel bulky and awkward, but I'm cautiously optimistic that I will be able to get over that hang-up so that I can embrace a bit more of a butch look. I won't be able to replace my entire wardrobe in one fell swoop, but I am looking forward to a bit of a reset in that department. Once I'm confident I won't need my larger sized clothing anymore, I will donate the stuff that's still wearable and cut up the rest for rags.
Anyway, enough about clothes. It's not my usual thing, but occasionally I like to think about what I wear. ;)
I am just past the halfway mark of this night shift, and after that I have only one 12-hour shift before my time off work officially starts. I am officially Extremely Tired(TM) and cannot wait for this week of night shifts to be over. I've had stuff to do every single day this week that cut into my sleeping time, and the weekend has unfortunately proved to be no exception. I am really looking forward to sleeping as much as I want to on Monday. It's Thanksgiving Day here in Canada, so all the stores will be closed and no tradesperson in their right mind would schedule anything that day. Whenever I get up I will make a batch or two of soup to freeze in anticipation of my surgery. Tuesday the plan is to make even more soup, and all that should carry me through to the end of October.
For now, I just have to survive until the end of this shift. I will, of course, but it's going to suck.
Coming out these days seems more fraught than ever, which breaks my heart. We went through a honeymoon period for a while there, where it was becoming safer for 2SLGBTQIA+ people to be open about who they are and have the same shot at happiness and safety as cishet people, but that's been increasingly less true for the past ten years or so. I'm hoping (although I'm not super optimistic) that this is just a brief hiccup and that people will start coming back to their senses before the end of the decade. Right now the flavour of the day appears to be transphobia, but as others have pointed out, our trans siblings are the canary in the coal mine: they are being targeted first, but we're all kidding ourselves if we think that the rest of us won't be next.
Once my weight has stabilized a bit after my surgery, I am planning to get myself one of these t-shirts:https://steviesafespaces.com/product/you-will-have-to-go-through-me-tee. It was made famous by David Tennant, and is actually made by a queer creator who lives in my province! I am very excited about this.
I've only been buying the bare minimum of clothing for a few years now, and I don't plan on changing that a lot, but I am likely to need a lot of new clothes by this time next year. I'm going to mostly stick with my work "uniform" of black pants and a solid-coloured polo shirt, but I think I may invest in some fun t-shirts to wear when I'm not at work. I seem to recall that, when I've lost weight in the past, I've gotten cold more easily, so I want to pick up some flannel shirts to wear as a second layer, too, which is something I've always wanted to do. I've resisted it up until now because I've never felt comfortable wearing more than one layer of clothing at a time due to body image issues. Wearing layers has always made me feel bulky and awkward, but I'm cautiously optimistic that I will be able to get over that hang-up so that I can embrace a bit more of a butch look. I won't be able to replace my entire wardrobe in one fell swoop, but I am looking forward to a bit of a reset in that department. Once I'm confident I won't need my larger sized clothing anymore, I will donate the stuff that's still wearable and cut up the rest for rags.
Anyway, enough about clothes. It's not my usual thing, but occasionally I like to think about what I wear. ;)
I am just past the halfway mark of this night shift, and after that I have only one 12-hour shift before my time off work officially starts. I am officially Extremely Tired(TM) and cannot wait for this week of night shifts to be over. I've had stuff to do every single day this week that cut into my sleeping time, and the weekend has unfortunately proved to be no exception. I am really looking forward to sleeping as much as I want to on Monday. It's Thanksgiving Day here in Canada, so all the stores will be closed and no tradesperson in their right mind would schedule anything that day. Whenever I get up I will make a batch or two of soup to freeze in anticipation of my surgery. Tuesday the plan is to make even more soup, and all that should carry me through to the end of October.
For now, I just have to survive until the end of this shift. I will, of course, but it's going to suck.
