After Ariadna Bates came out publicly as transgender on February 2, all was quiet at first. The third-year student at Southern Adventist University had already come out as nonbinary in September 2021, an announcement that largely came and went without drama or repercussions. Yet now, she told her followers on Instagram and friends on Facebook, there was another chapter in her life. “Non-binary was safe,” Bates wrote. “But 6-year old me knew better. 12-year old me knew there was more to it. 18-year old me was terrified of intimacy with my partner because of what I had to come face to face with. 20-year old me knew, deep down, it wasn’t over with that coming-out post last semester.” Bates told her followers that from now on, she would use she/they pronouns and identify as female.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at http://spectrummagazine.org/node/11652