I’m generally of the opinion that coming out is a continually ongoing process. Both as we perpetually redefine and come to better understanding ourselves, and as we meet new people and enter new environments we have to keep coming out, over and over, every day anew.
That being said, I think a big event for me was when I came out to my parents.
I’d already been dipping my toe in the water, trying out being openly gay through my online interactions. By my junior year of high school I’d told a few friends and word had spread, but I was really against “the talk”. I hated the drama that I’d conceptualized as coming packaged with declaring that I was gay. I didn’t want the production, the tears, the intimacy of the disclosure. I think this all loops back to my social anxiety, but I figured if you weren’t tipped off by the necklace and the t-shirt, you weren’t going to get a confession out of me.
I was the only openly gay guy in my graduating class, and there was a totally awesome spunky manic pixie lesbianidifranco my age. We decided it was high time our high school had a gay/straight alliance, and we went for it. Having a lot of friends in Leadership helped me get our club petition passed with surprisingly little controversy, considering the conservative nature of our school. We got a room and a faculty advisor and were very pleased with ourselves, even though our regular members at the time consisted of just the two of us.
But a day or two later I came home from school to find my parents sitting around the kitchen table looking very grim. The vice principal had called them to tell them about the club I was starting, and they were deeply concerned for my reputation. You don’t want the other kids at school to think you’re a homosexual, do you? Keep in mind my parents were painfully in denial, to the point where I’d done just about everything short of leaving dildos around the house just to see if they’d figure it out. Despite all my best efforts, here we were, having “the talk”. What I really wanted to do was rage at them, to hide my fears over this admission beneath a thick veneer of affected righteous fury. Instead I settled for as level and composed as I could muster, praying my voice wasn’t squeaking as I explained Everyone who matters already knows I am, except for you. And my siblings, but that would come later. It really is an ongoing process.
My mother wrung her hands and my father desperately looked for anything to fix his gaze on that wasn’t me. They told me in hollow voices that everything was going to be ok and they still loved me. Later we went out for shaved ice so they must have meant it.
Eleven years later and they still haven’t come to terms with it completely. They never mention it voluntarily, even by the most oblique references. Sometimes my mother talks about girls and I patiently remind her that I’m still gay. I suspect she prays at mass every Sunday for me to be healed, or something along those lines.
But I know that coming out had a positive impact beyond just being honest and not hiding myself from my family. Both of them voted against Proposition 2. And at the last family reunion my conservative uncle from Idaho asked me if I was seeing anyone. When I told him no, he pointed out that there’s a lot more of us folk in the big cities and suggested I move someplace more welcoming. Later in that conversation he called Sara Palin “that idiot”, so I have hope for the future.
I think it’s important to take that risk, even with the awkwardness and the embarrassment and the occasional risk. We have to come out – to parents, friends, coworkers, etc. because it humanizes the gay “other”. It breaks down the myths and the distortions that drive conservatives to the ballot box. It is necessary to the progress we need to stop the things that are affecting our lives, our freedoms, our happiness. I’m cribbing heavily from Harvey Milk at this point, so I’ll stop, but I just want to leave you with that. There is nothing better we can do for all of us than come out.
Freedumbring 