Serena’s story inspired me to share my own coming out experience in honor of coming out month and the march for equality in D.C. this weekend. Coming out, as well as sharing those experiences with others, can be a liberating and self-actualizing process. It’s important to note, though, that the coming out process is not universal, nor is it something that we can all understand in similar ways. Attaching to the notion that we are all categorized because of sexual orientation seeks to ignore the infinite ways in which our lived experiences shape our lives in significantly different ways. With that being said, my comments here are not intended to essentialize coming out; to assume that my experience is the same as every gay, lesbian, trans identified, bisexual, asexual, curious, or queer person is to make a whole host of assumptions that are not only incorrect, but problematic in terms of opening space of possibility for gender and sexuality.
With that being said, I do think there are a lot of positive qualities about the sharing of knowledge production and self-discovery. Separating ourselves based on our differences closes off the possibility of building ethical human relationships based in compassion for one another’s lives. Coming out narratives seek to build bridges of intimacy between the sharer of experience and the reader who internalizes their struggle. These stories denaturalize heteronormativity because grief, in terms of who visibly receives it, is concentrated to certain people and places on the globe. The story of Gwen Araujo, for instance, exemplifies the tragic reality that gender violence is treated as a lenient crime within our social and political institutions. The lives of those living outside of strict confinements regarding gender and sexuality are reduced to sub-human status making violence against them not only possible, but justifiable.
To acknowledge the material reality of the other, and to avoid deliberate deafness to the voice of those who are not normally grieved, we have to confront the political task of making the marginal central in the development of an alternative framework. National Coming Out Month is vital in this sense because it makes visible what is currently banished to the periphery. Coming out narratives seek to break the public/private divide by challenging heteronormative assumptions about sexuality being a private issue, unrelated to political and public life. If Bill Clinton’s recent flop on gay marriage shows us anything, it’s that opening others to narrative has the possibility of decentering them from their heterosexual privilege. This isn’t to say that our obligation as a sexually oppressed people is to go around convincing the hetero’s of our viability, but rather, that the sharing of experience holds within it a revolutionary possibility of fundamentally altering human relations.
I remember my coming out story like it was yesterday. It was the summer after my senior year of high school, a time in my life when I was finally open to the limitless potential of who I could become. After spending 18 years of my life growing up in a socially and political conservative climate (Bakersfield….egh), where bumper stickers shouting in bold print, “God Burns Fags,” was the norm, I was ready for a different climate. California State University Long Beach was my college of choice, and the summer offered me an opportunity to visit the campus, figure out my living situation for the fall semester, and meet a whole host of new friends with progressive ideologies. As a disclaimer, at this point in my life I was already tuned into the possibility of being gay. I mean, let’s be real, I spent my high school career hanging out with women, reading feminist international relations in policy debate, and rocking out to Beyonce on the regular. On top of that, my random high school rendezvous with women clued me in on my lust for the cock real fast.
At this point in my life I was already coming to terms with my sexuality. When you spend your entire life fantasizing about men and then convincing yourself that it’s a phase, you eventually figure out that repressing those feelings is not only impossible, but also painful. I still hadn’t told anyone. I was secretly reading gay erotic literature and silently internalizing my fear of the public reaction to who I am.
In August, the month before school started, I was invited down to a party in long beach that was being hosted by my future roommates, Jen & Aly. We spent the entire night getting lush over cocktails and getting to know each other. I think it was after I started shaking my ass in the living room to a Britney Spears song that both Aly and Jen decided to grab me and take me into a back room. They proceeded to ask, “Are you gay?” Without hesitation I blurted out, “yes, yes I am.” From that moment on, it became increasingly comfortable for me to say it out loud and be proud of it.
About a year later I came out to my family. I think my mother already knew, but she cried regardless. My mom was crying because she was so happy that I finally felt comfortable enough to tell her about the aj bottled up inside, waiting to break free. She told me she was proud of me and that her love for me was unconditional. “Nothing as trivial as sexual orientation could ever change the love I have for you,” she replied. I was fortunate enough to have the love and support of my family, which made the world of a difference.
Although this is a reflection of when I “came out,” it is certainly not a complete description of my coming out experience. For me, coming out is a daily activity. In a heteronormative culture that defines sexuality in rigid terms of male-female relations, coming out is a regular part of our every day lives. When we aren’t busy coming out, someone else in the world is; our neighbors, friends, parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, sisters, brothers, cousins, co-workers, teachers, students. The stories are limitless; each of them sharing with us a different experience of resistance. For that reason, I wanted to share the stories of people who I know, and whose stories continue to impact my life in meaningful ways.
Kristina Bell shares her story,
I came out when I was 18. It was my freshman year of college, my first semester. My mother and I were shopping, and we went to Wendy’s for lunch. She sat down and asked me, “So are you Lesbian, or what?” And I replied … “Yes.” My mom didn’t scream or cry or anything to my face, she was just like “uh, why?” And then didn’t let me talk. Over the weeks, I had some terrible medical issues that meant I was spending a lot of time going back and forth between Long Beach and Bakersfield because my mom’s office provided testing that I would have otherwise not been able to afford. During that time, my mother told me I was not welcome home for the Winter Break. She threw a prayer book at me. She and my sister told me I’m going to hell. My dad made jokes about trying to steal my girlfriend. So, coming out was at the time, really terrible as far as my family was concerned. But, I had Aj, Aly, Katie, Amanda (likes Dragons), and Sarah Crach around me to make me feel comfortable and like a normal person, and most importantly – loved. I feel like coming out made a lot of my friendships stronger, but put a strain on my family relationships.
Now, I prefer to just BE out.
Anthony shared his story,
Still haven’t officially told family, though I suppose it’s an open secret.
As for friends – the summer after my Junior year of high school I went to a speech camp in West Texas. I got “pretty friendly” with one of the other campers and since I was the only person from my school I didn’t feel the need to be secretive about it. Over the course of the next year other speechies from El Paso told my teammates, who told people in my school. Only people close to me had the nerve to ask if the rumors were true, so I never had to out-and-out lie to anyone.
It’s a little unconventional, I guess, in that I never “came out”, but at the time I was 17 and in a conservative (and heavily Catholic) area and I was always so angry – angry that I couldn’t be open, angry that people bullied me, angry that I felt excluded, angry at the kids who would openly say in class (in front of teachers who never bothered to admonish them) that they would kill their gay sons or that the US should ship all the gay people to Afghanistan and nuke the country, that I refused to participate in the process altogether because if straight people didn’t have to do it, then I sure as fucking hell wouldn’t either.
Christine Parker writes,
I had had a crush on my straight best friend in high-school for a very long time… and she didn’t know. But, she was curious to know what it felt like to kiss a girl. So one day after debate practice, she kissed me. She pulled away, I wanted more, and she noticed. We talked later and she asked, “So, what… are you bi, then?” I skirted around the question (because I didn’t want to admit it), but as I was rambling, I began to realize that I shouldn’t deny it. I ended up telling her, “I think of it more as gender-blind, but yeah… I guess I am bi.” She hugged me and told me that no matter what I was, we’d still be best friends.
I told my mom after having cried my eyes out watching “Milk” at the movies. I just sat her down and told her that the movie really inspired me to be honest with her. She wasn’t mad or angry or anything. To be honest, I felt like she didn’t care at all. She told me that she thought it was a, “personal issue that people don’t need to talk about” and continually asked me if I, “was sure.” This happened in February – we haven’t talked about it since.
Clint Osterholz’s story goes like this,
I came out three times. Once on accident, once unintentionally, and once with purpose. When I was in 7th grade, my mom found some porn I’d been looking at which was gay. Although I didn’t know it at the time, she took that as my coming out–and also took my internet away. Then in 9th grade, I confessed to her that I had a crush on a boy at school, which in my mind was confessing my bisexuality. She gave me wise counsel, and I never mentioned it again. And lastly, in 10th grade, I told my mom that I was gay. She sort of blinked at me, sweating and tingling with anxiety as I was, and said softly, “Yeah, uh, you told me awhile ago.”
I can’t help but end with a quote that has helped me through some of the toughest parts of coming out. Audrey Lorde writes, “I have come to believe over and over again that what is most important to me must be spoken, made verbal and shared, even at the risk of having it bruised or misunderstood.”
Coming out is a process that every person reserves the right to come to on their own terms. I just hope we can continue to reshape our culture in a way that is inviting of that process.
Dominant discourse within the institution of religion tends to paint an image of women as docile servants of man and the lord. This is why religion, for the most part, makes me squeamish and uncomfortable. I just can’t get down with the idea that women are a bunch of damsels in distress. 
