I’m getting more confident in myself and starting to come out to more people, but I feel like I don’t know how to? It always feels awkward.
Obviously for some people it might need to be more of a conversation, but for friends that I know will be supportive, does it need to be anything more than a text saying “hey, fyi, I’m trans. This is my new name and pronouns”?
That’s about right.
I’ve had a handful of past students have this conversation with me. I’m in “whatever floats your boat” crowd, so I basically ask what they’d like to be called and if they have any preferred pronouns. Then, I remind them I have enough trouble learning names on the first pass, but we’ll work it out after I screw up a few times (it’s just me being old brained, not malicious).
Then I make sure to say their name a few times as we wrap up to start learning whatever it is, and move into other topics. I’m not their therapist, so I’ll just be as normal as possible in the face of change. No worries, you do you and I’ll forget any old names/faces soon enough anyway once I stop using them.