Coming Out — Honoring Fear, Grief, And All The Parts of You
Everyone else around you can’t wait. You overhear strangers talking about who they hope to run into at Dolores Park during Pride. You’re around friends getting things together for Dyke Day in Highland Park. There’s also the excitement around the smaller things. Your partner who’s looking forward to a book talk on queer movements and class struggle in LA. A friend, excited about watching a cult classic that was part of their gay awakening. You even notice more people walking around free to be who they are.
You join in on the pride festivities and embrace the experience of letting go with loved ones to music, dancing, laughter, community. But as things wind down, you wonder if you could show up as freely at the next family party. With your partner who doesn’t know that you’ve been questioning if you’re trans or non-binary. With co-workers who don’t seem to care about the attacks being made on the LGBTQ+ community.
You can’t shake the part of you that’s afraid of everything slipping away if you don’t keep what you’re uncovering to yourself. There’s also a part of you that pushes back, the one that no longer wants to be boxed in, confined by a version of yourself people still believe you to be.
The internal conflict that surrounds coming out.
IFS Therapy understands this internal conflict as two parts of yourself that are trying to protect you. One part is protecting you from rejection, the other from living a life that doesn’t feel true to who you are. This is a common experience for those who are exploring their sexual orientation or gender identity for the first time. It’s also an experience for us in the LGBTQ+ community who may be exploring new relationship dynamics or uncovering new layers to our identities.
It’s possible aging and illness are making you reconsider coming out to the family member you told yourself you’d never come out to. Maybe you’re exploring what it means to be bi or trans, when you’ve always been known as a cis gay man. You want to stay true to yourself, but the anticipation of loss, rejection, and the grief that might follow is keeping you stuck.
You feel pulled to choose between showing up as yourself or maintaining the security of what’s familiar. But what if you could have both? Exploring LGBTQ+ identity and coming out through IFS Therapy means finding ways to feel safe and authentic while you navigate all that remains unknown and out of your control.
Coming out. At your own pace. On your own terms.
The thought of coming out makes you question your relationship with yourself, with others, and with grief. It pushes you to confront internalized homophobia, biphobia, or transphobia. It makes you anticipate all the possibilities of what might change, both the good and the bad. What feels the scariest is the unknown. The anticipation of what might change, break, and disappear the moment you name who you are out loud to yourself and others.
The part of you that compares is exhausted. Constantly pitting you against who you are now and the last time you came out to someone, to a friend who is finding a way to show up unapologetically as themselves, to a story about a young person who came out as trans before starting high school, and to timelines and a sense of readiness that feel so far out of reach.
Through LGBTQ+ Affirming IFS therapy, the goal isn’t to push you to arrive at a conclusion or to come out. It’s to help you understand what your identity and coming out means to you, and to build a deeper relationship with the parts of you that desire safety, authenticity, and belonging.
A question you might find yourself exploring in an IFS session is: What have I done to help me feel safe and like I belong? In what ways is this influencing my life?
Start IFS Therapy for Coming Out & LGBTQ+ Identity Exploration in Los Angeles
For those who are exploring new layers to their sexual orientation and/or gender identity, having a space to freely explore the parts of you that carry hope, grief, and internal conflict is the first step. If any of this resonates, fill out the contact form to schedule a free 20-minute consultation.
During the consultation there’s no pressure to come out to me or to have a clear label for how you identify. It’s truly an opportunity to discuss all the different parts of you that show up during this moment in your life, and all the curiosities that you hold. We’ll talk more about what’s brought you to therapy for LGBTQ+ identity exploration, and what it would feel like to embrace your identity on your own terms.
Chris Datiles (he/him) is a Queer IFS therapist in Los Angeles. He works with adults who give a lot and are ready to receive. Offering LGBTQ+ Affirming IFS Therapy, he helps clients understand the parts of themselves that are navigating inner conflict and seeking a sense of belonging. Specializing in LGBTQ and BIPOC adults and couples, he sees clients in person in the Arts District and online throughout California.
More on Chris’s approach · Schedule a free consultation