Uncloseted Media published this article on Nov. 8.

By ASHERAH BARTON | In July 2022, when I was 18, I was forced to come out as transgender.

I remember the car ride through Oregon, back from the DMV, where my state ID had my deadname and the wrong gender marker on it. My mom started interrogating me when I mentioned offhandedly that I didn’t want to have kids.

“Are you gay? Bi?” she pressed me.

I shook my head no.

“No? Well, then what the hell are you?”

My mom kept questioning me until I told her I was trans. I didn’t want to come out to her. I knew her beliefs as an ex-Catholic, and I had already heard her misgendering her trans coworker and had even found a transphobic book, “Irreversible Damage,” on the kitchen counter.

She dismissed me. She told me it was a phase. When I started

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