I think back to my life growing up as a lesbian and, specifically, my feelings of isolation in the world, and, well, this video of Ellen Page on Ellen DeGeneres' show makes me really happy.
The video is as adorkable as it sounds.
I have to admit I had no inkling at all that Ellen Page might be a lesbian before she came out. Sure, with attractive famous women, I sometimes engage in a fair amount of wishful thinking that they maybe just maybe might possibly be bisexual or lesbian, even though I'm civil union'ed and would have absolutely no chance with them anyway. My point, I guess, is that my "gaydar" is quite awful.
And, on a much smaller scale, I can relate to the panic-attack-like feelings of that moment right before coming out, that Page refers to. In my case, the first time I said out loud that I was gay was to another young woman I had a hunch might also be gay. We were sitting in my car and, after 20 minutes of silent courage-building, I blurted, "I'mgayandIthinkyouaretoo, soareyou?"
So, that's wasn't at all awkward. It turns out she was gay, too, but didn't admit it that night. So my gaydar isn't that horrible, I guess.
In other queer lady news, I watched the movie Fingersmith again for the first time in like 6 years. Have you seen this - (or read the novel by the brilliant Sarah Waters)? Anyway, maybe I'm just at a different point in my life now, but I don't remember the movie being so campy the first time I watched it. I think it's a great movie, but also kind of hilarious, perhaps unintentionally.
The two female main characters show a lot of lesbian feelings. The "Gentleman" character was so very villainous, and we knew this from the menacing music and his leering looks that accompanied his every scene. When I got to this part, featuring all three of them, I could not stop laughing (note: For context, if you haven't see the movie, the two up against the tree are pretending to be in love and meanwhile the two women actually are in love, so the scene isn't as sinister at it looks). It was the culmination of all the campiness, and I loved every second of it.
Lastly, I've been noticing that movies and TV shows with strong lesbian themes are consistently among the most popular on Netflix, including Blue is the Warmest Color.
Now, mathematically speaking, the people who are making these films and shows so popular must surely be more than just LGBT people. Which of course makes me wonder how many bigots and opponents of LGBT equality are closet-watchers of LGBT media, leering at what they abhor and oppose, from the safety of their own living rooms.
Basically, I picture them as being like Gentleman, in the clip, above.
Showing posts with label Coming Out Stories. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Coming Out Stories. Show all posts
Friday, May 2, 2014
Monday, October 11, 2010
It Gets Better
[Cross-posted at Our Big Gayborhood]
The following narrative was inspired by Dan Savage's It Gets Better Project, which he formed in response to recent suicides committed by youths who were bullied for being, or perceived as being, gay. LGBTQ youth, especially those who are rejected by their families, are much more likely to attempt suicide than their heterosexual peers.
I grew up in a small town and I have known family rejection. I also know that it does get better. This is my experience.
[TW: Sexual Assualt; Homophobia]
***
I am in first grade and am walking down the hall with my best friend. I reach out to take her hand.
She pulls her hand away in horror, saying, "What are you, queer?"
Last year, in kindergarten, this was okay. Today, I learned that there are new rules. I have also learned that whatever queer is, I Am Definitely Not That.
***
Dear Diary,
Today was the first day of 3rd grade. Cute Redheaded Girl is in my class this year. If I was a boy, I would ask her to be my girlfriend.
**
It is the early 1990s. I am 13 and watching he news with my mom and my aunt. A clip comes on about Homosexuality In America. I become engrossed in this clip as I simultaneously try to squish myself into the couch so I'm less visible.
My mother turns to my aunt and says, "If my kids turn out gay, I'd kill myself."
They both look at me.
I pretend to be engrossed in the program.
Perhaps noting a look of terror in my face, my aunt adds, "But we'd still love you anyway."
My mom remains silent.
***
I am 14 and am going through some major awkward teen years. I have no interest in makeup, bras, or girly clothes. I'm getting a snack before basketball practice when I overhear two girls snickering.
"Is that a dude?" one of them says, about me.
"I don't know what it is," says the other.
Life sucks.
***
I am a sophomore in high school. I don't think much about whether I'm gay or not, but a few boys in my class think a whole lot about whether other students might be gay.
There are three of us who are selected as potential queerbaits and, throughout the course of the year, the Bullies institute a rotating interrogation schedule.
"Do you like boys or girls?" one of them asks me.
"Are you a fag?" another asks Dorky Sensitive Guy who, I recently found out, is not gay, actually.
"Admit it," they demand of us.
During the Spring of that year, a few of the Bullies corner one of the possible male queerbaits in boys' locker room and rape him with a shampoo bottle. The Bullies remain in school and on their various sports teams. Other students, out of fear or meanness, snicker at what happened to the queerbait.
I guess they showed him.
They showed all of us. I definitely wasn't a queerbait
***
I am 15 and on my Very First Date With A Boy.
I'm growing into a new body. Not necessarily mine, but a young woman's, nonetheless. People are somewhat nicer to me now that I appear to fit in the right gender box.
The Boy is a year older than me and he picks me up in his truck that is blaring Metallica. I'm not quite sure what I'm doing here or why I said yes. The guy, who I had previously never even had a conversation with, looked up my phone number in the phone book, called me, and asked me out. I guess I gave him props for that.
He's cute, tall, and, apparently, sings in a band. I feel neutral toward the Boy himself. Like, could we just drop this whole charade and play video games together like two normal people?
Instead, we go to his house and awkwardly chug some Red Dog beer before meeting his friends at the movies. We arrive at the theater and meet his friend Drummer and a girl with long brown hair who bears a striking resemblance to Alanis Morissette.
I shift out of neutral. Hello.
We take our seats in the theater. The Boy is on one side of me and Alanis Girl is on the other, preserving that rule that makes all straight guys sit as far apart from one another as possible. Which, when I thought about how it placed me next to Alanis Girl, actually turned out to be counterproductive if the whole point was to maintain optimal heterosexualization of teens.
Halfway through the movie, my date musters up the courage to grab my hand. The moment his sweaty palm touched mine, I knew it.
Alanis looked at my hand holding the Boy's and quickly looked back to the screen.
"No," I wanted to assure her. "Don't get the wrong idea. This isn't who I really am." And also, want to make out?
I am gay. I am definitely gay.
No big whoop.
***
I am at my dad's house the day after my Very First Date With A Boy. My dad is in the kitchen blabbing to me about some computer doohickey thingamabob that he just got.
My dad's voice mutes and my vision becomes spotty. I'm breathing, but I feel like I'm not actually taking in air. I lean back against the kitchen stove.
Minutes later, I open my eyes and see that my dad is cradling my head in his hands and his mouth is moving. I am lying on the floor and everything seems to have a white tint to it. My head hurts and I close my eyes. I don't understand why my dad is trying to wake me up.
"Fannie," he said, shaking my head. "You fainted."
I sit up and realize that I have a major case of the clammy sweats.
"You knocked your head on the stove," my dad said. "We better take you to the ER."
At the ER, the doctor asks me if I am on drugs or am pregnant. I briefly wonder if either of those shenanigans would please my parents more than the truth.
When I was 15, on My Very First Date With A Boy, I casually admitted to myself that I was gay. The next day, I had my Very First Panic Attack.
***
I am 16 and thinking that I don't care that much that I'm gay. It's more like the suckiest part about it is that other people care so much that I'm gay.
If I came out, I would lose all my friends and my mom would basically kill herself. Being gay seems to negate all of the good stuff about a person. It is what seems define a person as evil, sick, and wrong.
I would like to have a girlfriend, like how my friends get to have boyfriends. But, apparently, Everybody In The World thinks a girl liking a girl is the most disgusting thing ever. Surely, I am destined for a life without sex, love, and relationships. Which is also a sucky thing about being gay.
I wonder if things will ever get better. I frequently think about suicide. While I never go so far as to gather actual suicide supplies, I do think about the various ways I could kill myself. I also weigh the pros and cons of doing so.
Pros: Not being gay anymore.
Cons: Hurting my family, not being able to play sports, being dead is sort of final, not getting a chance to make out with Alanis Girl.
***
I'm watching TV after school. Flipping through the channels, I see a show with two girls playing basketball together. I keep watching because they are cute and sporty and there's this homoerotic element I'm picking up on.
When the two girls finish their game, they share an awkward sexually-charged moment full of heavy breathing and averted glances.
I hear the rattle of keys at the backdoor signalling that somebody just got home. My mom walks through the door. In a panic, I switch the channel to something less gay, like Full House. (Which, Full House, kinda gay now that I think about it.)
Anyway, as my mom goes about her after-work routine around the house, I surreptitiously flip between Uncle Joey and Stephanie Tanner's G-rated banter and this other show. I learn that this movie is called More Than Friends: The Coming Out of Heidi Leiter and, even though I think it's pretty cool, it is apparently part of HBO's "Lifestories: Families in Crisis" series because having a gay child is basically just like having a child who does drugs and kills people.
At 16, I want to go to there. I'm also starting to pick up on the fact that the "crisis" isn't so much that these girls are gay, but that other people are mean to them because they are gay.
***
I am 17 and sitting in the back of the bus with my teammates. We had lost a game and our coach, Dyke, was punishing us by not letting us talk on the way home. We didn't know if she was a lesbian, she just looked like how we all thought lesbians looked.
My friends and I began quietly talking and snickering on the bus. My Best Friend Who Later Turned Out To Be Gay Too had accidentally done the splits when she dove for a ball. We crack up each time we remember it.
"I said no talking," my coach yelled, ruining our fun.
We all shut up.
"Whatever, Dyke," I said, under my breath.
I think she hears me, but she turns around and sits down. What is she going to do, tell the principal that I called her what she was?
As I look out the window, my heart begins racing and I feel short of breath. On my walk home, alone, I begin crying. When I walk through the door of my house, my mom and her boyfriend are making dinner. They ask me what is wrong.
"Nothing," I said. I walk toward my bedroom.
My mom's boyfriend follows me.
"Did your coach....touch you, or something?" he asked. "Gay people do that, you know."
***
I am 17, bored on summer break, and being nosy in my mom's bedroom while she's at work.
Scanning her bookshelves, I see a book called Our Bodies, Our Selves that is from, like, the '70s. Amidst the chapters on pregnancy, sex, and women's health, is an entire chapter devoted to lesbians. For the first time, I see photos and read stories of Real Lesbians Who Actually Admit To Being Lesbians. They talk about what it's like to be gay and to have relationships and sex with other women. It basically becomes my hobby that summer to read that chapter over and over again.
I go back to my mom's bookshelf and, this time, find a book called My Secret Garden, by Nancy Friday. I open it up and see that it is a book of women telling their sexual fantasies. It includes an entire section on women who fantasize about having sex with other women.
I put that book away (after reading a large chunk of it of course) and come across a book that appears to be a Victorian novel. At first, I think, "Boring." But when I flip through it, I see that it is actually some sort of porn-without-a-plot book consisting of various old-timey characters having sex with each other, including several chapters where women get it on with other women.
At 16, I think it's ironic (a little too ironic) that my mom's kind of a homophobe who reads lesbian erotica.
***
I am 18 and am living in my small hometown during the summer between my first and second years of college. I have a serious crush on my best friend. After many months of angsty sexual tension, we kiss each other one August evening.
She becomes my first girlfriend.
Bonus of having a secret girlfriend: Unlike a boyfriend, she can sleep over with you at your parents' house.
Minus of having a secret girlfriend: Having to hide this totally awesome new thing about your life.
***
I am 21 and about to graduate from college in a somewhat large city. I have a girlfriend, a bisexual roommate, a lesbian sister (who knew?!), and a small gaggle of lesbian, gay, straight, and bisexual friends. I hang out in lesbian bars, an "alternative" coffeeshop, independent bookstores, and at lesbian sports leagues. I am contemplating going to law school so I can do civil rights for the ACLU or Lambda Legal.
As I become part of a new community and learn that I'm not alone, I gradually care less about what people opposed to homosexuality think about me. Instead of letting homobigots define me by my "sickness," I start naming their hatred and intolerance for what it is.
I am not out to my family, but life is great.
***
I am now in my 30s. Even though the ACLU/Lambda bit didn't pan out, I'm working succcessfully as a lawyer.
With the privilege of being financially independent and able to remove myself from or avoid homophobic situations, I see being gay as only a small part of who I am as a person. For, it is sexual prejudice that first marks us, then stigamatizes us, and finally seeks to humiliate and eradicate us.
My mom still refers to my sexual identity as my "chosen lifestyle," but she does assure me that she loves me anyway, she accepts my partner as a legitimate part of my life, and she now thinks it's bullshit that gay kids are bullied so often.
In hindsight, I see now that bloody feet, of both myself and other people before me, have worn smooth the path through which I have arrived at this point in my life. Unfortunately, it is still a path that nearly every LGBT kid has to trample themselves, as most of us are not born into families that are overjoyed to have LGBT children.
Americans, especially conservatives, talk a lot about preserving and defending the family, but I found that leaving my biological family was necessary for my own sanity and self-preservation. Biological intact families, that oh-so-celebrated "nuclear family," is oftentimes a source of great pain and rejection for many of us. So, over the years, I found true acceptance and love in the communities that I joined as an adult, both online and in the real world. Family becomes what we make it, not what we happen to be born into. Real family, we learn, is less about sharing DNA and more about sharing values.
I'd like to say that all of the people who were mean to me in high school and homobigots throughout my life are now losers, but really, only some of them are. Some of the bullies are actually cool now, having matured and learned that the world has bigger fish to fry than gay people. Others are still assholes, and maybe they're the ones running stupid homophobic blogs, but the best part of being an adult is being able to walk away from people like that when you need to.
My life isn't perfect now, but it's pretty damn good. It does get better. You are stronger, more beautiful, more right, than you might think.
The following narrative was inspired by Dan Savage's It Gets Better Project, which he formed in response to recent suicides committed by youths who were bullied for being, or perceived as being, gay. LGBTQ youth, especially those who are rejected by their families, are much more likely to attempt suicide than their heterosexual peers.
I grew up in a small town and I have known family rejection. I also know that it does get better. This is my experience.
[TW: Sexual Assualt; Homophobia]
***
I am in first grade and am walking down the hall with my best friend. I reach out to take her hand.
She pulls her hand away in horror, saying, "What are you, queer?"
Last year, in kindergarten, this was okay. Today, I learned that there are new rules. I have also learned that whatever queer is, I Am Definitely Not That.
***
Dear Diary,
Today was the first day of 3rd grade. Cute Redheaded Girl is in my class this year. If I was a boy, I would ask her to be my girlfriend.
**
It is the early 1990s. I am 13 and watching he news with my mom and my aunt. A clip comes on about Homosexuality In America. I become engrossed in this clip as I simultaneously try to squish myself into the couch so I'm less visible.
My mother turns to my aunt and says, "If my kids turn out gay, I'd kill myself."
They both look at me.
I pretend to be engrossed in the program.
Perhaps noting a look of terror in my face, my aunt adds, "But we'd still love you anyway."
My mom remains silent.
***
I am 14 and am going through some major awkward teen years. I have no interest in makeup, bras, or girly clothes. I'm getting a snack before basketball practice when I overhear two girls snickering.
"Is that a dude?" one of them says, about me.
"I don't know what it is," says the other.
Life sucks.
***
I am a sophomore in high school. I don't think much about whether I'm gay or not, but a few boys in my class think a whole lot about whether other students might be gay.
There are three of us who are selected as potential queerbaits and, throughout the course of the year, the Bullies institute a rotating interrogation schedule.
"Do you like boys or girls?" one of them asks me.
"Are you a fag?" another asks Dorky Sensitive Guy who, I recently found out, is not gay, actually.
"Admit it," they demand of us.
During the Spring of that year, a few of the Bullies corner one of the possible male queerbaits in boys' locker room and rape him with a shampoo bottle. The Bullies remain in school and on their various sports teams. Other students, out of fear or meanness, snicker at what happened to the queerbait.
I guess they showed him.
They showed all of us. I definitely wasn't a queerbait
***
I am 15 and on my Very First Date With A Boy.
I'm growing into a new body. Not necessarily mine, but a young woman's, nonetheless. People are somewhat nicer to me now that I appear to fit in the right gender box.
The Boy is a year older than me and he picks me up in his truck that is blaring Metallica. I'm not quite sure what I'm doing here or why I said yes. The guy, who I had previously never even had a conversation with, looked up my phone number in the phone book, called me, and asked me out. I guess I gave him props for that.
He's cute, tall, and, apparently, sings in a band. I feel neutral toward the Boy himself. Like, could we just drop this whole charade and play video games together like two normal people?
Instead, we go to his house and awkwardly chug some Red Dog beer before meeting his friends at the movies. We arrive at the theater and meet his friend Drummer and a girl with long brown hair who bears a striking resemblance to Alanis Morissette.
I shift out of neutral. Hello.
We take our seats in the theater. The Boy is on one side of me and Alanis Girl is on the other, preserving that rule that makes all straight guys sit as far apart from one another as possible. Which, when I thought about how it placed me next to Alanis Girl, actually turned out to be counterproductive if the whole point was to maintain optimal heterosexualization of teens.
Halfway through the movie, my date musters up the courage to grab my hand. The moment his sweaty palm touched mine, I knew it.
Alanis looked at my hand holding the Boy's and quickly looked back to the screen.
"No," I wanted to assure her. "Don't get the wrong idea. This isn't who I really am." And also, want to make out?
I am gay. I am definitely gay.
No big whoop.
***
I am at my dad's house the day after my Very First Date With A Boy. My dad is in the kitchen blabbing to me about some computer doohickey thingamabob that he just got.
My dad's voice mutes and my vision becomes spotty. I'm breathing, but I feel like I'm not actually taking in air. I lean back against the kitchen stove.
Minutes later, I open my eyes and see that my dad is cradling my head in his hands and his mouth is moving. I am lying on the floor and everything seems to have a white tint to it. My head hurts and I close my eyes. I don't understand why my dad is trying to wake me up.
"Fannie," he said, shaking my head. "You fainted."
I sit up and realize that I have a major case of the clammy sweats.
"You knocked your head on the stove," my dad said. "We better take you to the ER."
At the ER, the doctor asks me if I am on drugs or am pregnant. I briefly wonder if either of those shenanigans would please my parents more than the truth.
When I was 15, on My Very First Date With A Boy, I casually admitted to myself that I was gay. The next day, I had my Very First Panic Attack.
***
I am 16 and thinking that I don't care that much that I'm gay. It's more like the suckiest part about it is that other people care so much that I'm gay.
If I came out, I would lose all my friends and my mom would basically kill herself. Being gay seems to negate all of the good stuff about a person. It is what seems define a person as evil, sick, and wrong.
I would like to have a girlfriend, like how my friends get to have boyfriends. But, apparently, Everybody In The World thinks a girl liking a girl is the most disgusting thing ever. Surely, I am destined for a life without sex, love, and relationships. Which is also a sucky thing about being gay.
I wonder if things will ever get better. I frequently think about suicide. While I never go so far as to gather actual suicide supplies, I do think about the various ways I could kill myself. I also weigh the pros and cons of doing so.
Pros: Not being gay anymore.
Cons: Hurting my family, not being able to play sports, being dead is sort of final, not getting a chance to make out with Alanis Girl.
***
I'm watching TV after school. Flipping through the channels, I see a show with two girls playing basketball together. I keep watching because they are cute and sporty and there's this homoerotic element I'm picking up on.
When the two girls finish their game, they share an awkward sexually-charged moment full of heavy breathing and averted glances.
I hear the rattle of keys at the backdoor signalling that somebody just got home. My mom walks through the door. In a panic, I switch the channel to something less gay, like Full House. (Which, Full House, kinda gay now that I think about it.)
Anyway, as my mom goes about her after-work routine around the house, I surreptitiously flip between Uncle Joey and Stephanie Tanner's G-rated banter and this other show. I learn that this movie is called More Than Friends: The Coming Out of Heidi Leiter and, even though I think it's pretty cool, it is apparently part of HBO's "Lifestories: Families in Crisis" series because having a gay child is basically just like having a child who does drugs and kills people.
At 16, I want to go to there. I'm also starting to pick up on the fact that the "crisis" isn't so much that these girls are gay, but that other people are mean to them because they are gay.
***
I am 17 and sitting in the back of the bus with my teammates. We had lost a game and our coach, Dyke, was punishing us by not letting us talk on the way home. We didn't know if she was a lesbian, she just looked like how we all thought lesbians looked.
My friends and I began quietly talking and snickering on the bus. My Best Friend Who Later Turned Out To Be Gay Too had accidentally done the splits when she dove for a ball. We crack up each time we remember it.
"I said no talking," my coach yelled, ruining our fun.
We all shut up.
"Whatever, Dyke," I said, under my breath.
I think she hears me, but she turns around and sits down. What is she going to do, tell the principal that I called her what she was?
As I look out the window, my heart begins racing and I feel short of breath. On my walk home, alone, I begin crying. When I walk through the door of my house, my mom and her boyfriend are making dinner. They ask me what is wrong.
"Nothing," I said. I walk toward my bedroom.
My mom's boyfriend follows me.
"Did your coach....touch you, or something?" he asked. "Gay people do that, you know."
***
I am 17, bored on summer break, and being nosy in my mom's bedroom while she's at work.
Scanning her bookshelves, I see a book called Our Bodies, Our Selves that is from, like, the '70s. Amidst the chapters on pregnancy, sex, and women's health, is an entire chapter devoted to lesbians. For the first time, I see photos and read stories of Real Lesbians Who Actually Admit To Being Lesbians. They talk about what it's like to be gay and to have relationships and sex with other women. It basically becomes my hobby that summer to read that chapter over and over again.
I go back to my mom's bookshelf and, this time, find a book called My Secret Garden, by Nancy Friday. I open it up and see that it is a book of women telling their sexual fantasies. It includes an entire section on women who fantasize about having sex with other women.
I put that book away (after reading a large chunk of it of course) and come across a book that appears to be a Victorian novel. At first, I think, "Boring." But when I flip through it, I see that it is actually some sort of porn-without-a-plot book consisting of various old-timey characters having sex with each other, including several chapters where women get it on with other women.
At 16, I think it's ironic (a little too ironic) that my mom's kind of a homophobe who reads lesbian erotica.
***
I am 18 and am living in my small hometown during the summer between my first and second years of college. I have a serious crush on my best friend. After many months of angsty sexual tension, we kiss each other one August evening.
She becomes my first girlfriend.
Bonus of having a secret girlfriend: Unlike a boyfriend, she can sleep over with you at your parents' house.
Minus of having a secret girlfriend: Having to hide this totally awesome new thing about your life.
***
I am 21 and about to graduate from college in a somewhat large city. I have a girlfriend, a bisexual roommate, a lesbian sister (who knew?!), and a small gaggle of lesbian, gay, straight, and bisexual friends. I hang out in lesbian bars, an "alternative" coffeeshop, independent bookstores, and at lesbian sports leagues. I am contemplating going to law school so I can do civil rights for the ACLU or Lambda Legal.
As I become part of a new community and learn that I'm not alone, I gradually care less about what people opposed to homosexuality think about me. Instead of letting homobigots define me by my "sickness," I start naming their hatred and intolerance for what it is.
I am not out to my family, but life is great.
***
I am now in my 30s. Even though the ACLU/Lambda bit didn't pan out, I'm working succcessfully as a lawyer.
With the privilege of being financially independent and able to remove myself from or avoid homophobic situations, I see being gay as only a small part of who I am as a person. For, it is sexual prejudice that first marks us, then stigamatizes us, and finally seeks to humiliate and eradicate us.
My mom still refers to my sexual identity as my "chosen lifestyle," but she does assure me that she loves me anyway, she accepts my partner as a legitimate part of my life, and she now thinks it's bullshit that gay kids are bullied so often.
In hindsight, I see now that bloody feet, of both myself and other people before me, have worn smooth the path through which I have arrived at this point in my life. Unfortunately, it is still a path that nearly every LGBT kid has to trample themselves, as most of us are not born into families that are overjoyed to have LGBT children.
Americans, especially conservatives, talk a lot about preserving and defending the family, but I found that leaving my biological family was necessary for my own sanity and self-preservation. Biological intact families, that oh-so-celebrated "nuclear family," is oftentimes a source of great pain and rejection for many of us. So, over the years, I found true acceptance and love in the communities that I joined as an adult, both online and in the real world. Family becomes what we make it, not what we happen to be born into. Real family, we learn, is less about sharing DNA and more about sharing values.
I'd like to say that all of the people who were mean to me in high school and homobigots throughout my life are now losers, but really, only some of them are. Some of the bullies are actually cool now, having matured and learned that the world has bigger fish to fry than gay people. Others are still assholes, and maybe they're the ones running stupid homophobic blogs, but the best part of being an adult is being able to walk away from people like that when you need to.
My life isn't perfect now, but it's pretty damn good. It does get better. You are stronger, more beautiful, more right, than you might think.
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Seda's Coming Out Story, Part II: "Don't You Miss Having a Dad?"
Yesterday, Seda shared her experience coming out to herself and to her partner. Today, she discusses the relatively recent process of coming out to friends, neighbors, and the world:
Thus began the most intense and challenging six months of my life. Through it all, Kristin and I stayed connected. We gave each other empathy, and cried in each other’s arms. We talked long into the night, almost neglecting the kids, in our efforts to stay connected, to understand and be understood. We both read all we could, and developed support networks online and, for Kristin, from the PPLP. I found a therapist who specializes in gender dysphoria, and surrendered my business for a job with our city’s planning department. And gradually, we began coming out to friends and neighbors.
This was a scary time because we were new in our neighborhood, yet the neighborhood was ideal for our kids. At least six of our neighbors have children near our own kids’ ages, and the kids play in a pack during the summer, moving from house to house and yard to yard throughout the day. We didn’t know how many of them would accept us and allow their kids to continue to play with ours. The burden of coming out with our neighbors fell mostly on Kristin’s shoulders, because we wanted to allow our neighbors to respond as they saw fit and it seemed that that would give them more leeway and comfort.
The next-door neighbors on one side came from Silverton, Oregon, where they just elected the first openly transgendered mayor in the nation. No problem.
On the other side, the wife/mom works for the Women’s Center at the local university. She immediately came to embrace me and say she wished she’d been getting to know me better.
A neighbor across the street said her cousin was transgendered.
We were completely embraced by our neighbors, and found, if anything, we were closer and more connected than before. We did lose a couple of friends who lived across town and could not reconcile their religious beliefs with the reality of a transwoman friend, but nearly everyone accepted me, and most came to say they like me better as a woman.
But the coming out process was not over, and now it was my turn.
My father died that summer, and in the fall I drove back to the ranch in Wyoming with my brother. I planned to come out to him during the drive. All through the states of Oregon and Idaho and half of Montana, I sat beside him, stewing on it almost constantly, finding any little excuse to put it off. Finally, on a long stretch of lonely interstate, I screwed up my courage and said, “I’ve got to tell you something really important about myself.” “What,” he responded, joking. “Don’t tell me, you’re gay.” “Not quite. The truth is, I’m a woman.” He was flabbergasted, and spent the rest of the drive trying to convince me I was mistaken. But that Christmas, he gave me two pairs of earrings he’d made himself.
At the ranch, I told my mom. She’s a Christian Scientist, and she looked at me and said, “Your identity is intact, and it doesn’t depend on gender.” I got up and hugged her.
My mother-in-law was shocked at first, and none too friendly. But after several months and a visit, she decided she likes me better as Seda, and our relationship is better than before.
Click here for my coming-out-at-work story.
All that remained was coming out to my kids. We did that after Christmas 2006, about the same time I started hormone therapy. They were six and three at the time. My eldest is fascinated with science, so we put it in terms of clownfish and parrotfish, both of which sometimes change sexes naturally. We told them that I’d always felt like I was a woman inside, and I was now going to start the process of changing, including dressing as a woman. Sam took it in effortlessly. For him, it was the same absurdity that everything is at that age, and was just something else new. Trin, the elder, drew a very sad face.
“What’s wrong?” Tears in his eyes, he replied, “Now that she’s a woman, Maddy won’t want to wrestle anymore.” Assurances that I would, indeed, continue to enjoy our wrestling matches comforted him. In the summer of 2008, I overheard him talking about me with one of his friends. “Don’t you miss having a dad?” his friend asked. “No. I like her better as a woman,” he replied.
As a transwoman, I don’t have the choice of being invisible that most gay and lesbian people do. The choice to present as I feel I am, instead of as society assigned me to be at birth, makes coming out into a continuous and very visible affair. I get strange looks, sometimes sneers, and the occasional weird proposition, like the time the woman said to me, “Two bucks to look under your skirt.” Nevertheless, I have found an incredible power in coming out. The courage to be who you are in the face of a society that disapproves gives others the same courage – and it changes minds as it crushes stereotypes and biases. But even beyond the social impact, and probably more important, is the personal impact – the way that coming out interacts with your deepest internal being. Coming out is social power – and it is also spiritual power.
I would like to thank Seda for sharing her story in Fannie's Room. Coming out takes courage, especially later in life when one's life and identity are already "established," so to speak. I share the sentiment of commenters here in that I too seek to better understand the experiences of our transgender brothers and sisters.
Thus began the most intense and challenging six months of my life. Through it all, Kristin and I stayed connected. We gave each other empathy, and cried in each other’s arms. We talked long into the night, almost neglecting the kids, in our efforts to stay connected, to understand and be understood. We both read all we could, and developed support networks online and, for Kristin, from the PPLP. I found a therapist who specializes in gender dysphoria, and surrendered my business for a job with our city’s planning department. And gradually, we began coming out to friends and neighbors.
This was a scary time because we were new in our neighborhood, yet the neighborhood was ideal for our kids. At least six of our neighbors have children near our own kids’ ages, and the kids play in a pack during the summer, moving from house to house and yard to yard throughout the day. We didn’t know how many of them would accept us and allow their kids to continue to play with ours. The burden of coming out with our neighbors fell mostly on Kristin’s shoulders, because we wanted to allow our neighbors to respond as they saw fit and it seemed that that would give them more leeway and comfort.
The next-door neighbors on one side came from Silverton, Oregon, where they just elected the first openly transgendered mayor in the nation. No problem.
On the other side, the wife/mom works for the Women’s Center at the local university. She immediately came to embrace me and say she wished she’d been getting to know me better.
A neighbor across the street said her cousin was transgendered.
We were completely embraced by our neighbors, and found, if anything, we were closer and more connected than before. We did lose a couple of friends who lived across town and could not reconcile their religious beliefs with the reality of a transwoman friend, but nearly everyone accepted me, and most came to say they like me better as a woman.
But the coming out process was not over, and now it was my turn.
My father died that summer, and in the fall I drove back to the ranch in Wyoming with my brother. I planned to come out to him during the drive. All through the states of Oregon and Idaho and half of Montana, I sat beside him, stewing on it almost constantly, finding any little excuse to put it off. Finally, on a long stretch of lonely interstate, I screwed up my courage and said, “I’ve got to tell you something really important about myself.” “What,” he responded, joking. “Don’t tell me, you’re gay.” “Not quite. The truth is, I’m a woman.” He was flabbergasted, and spent the rest of the drive trying to convince me I was mistaken. But that Christmas, he gave me two pairs of earrings he’d made himself.
At the ranch, I told my mom. She’s a Christian Scientist, and she looked at me and said, “Your identity is intact, and it doesn’t depend on gender.” I got up and hugged her.
My mother-in-law was shocked at first, and none too friendly. But after several months and a visit, she decided she likes me better as Seda, and our relationship is better than before.
Click here for my coming-out-at-work story.
All that remained was coming out to my kids. We did that after Christmas 2006, about the same time I started hormone therapy. They were six and three at the time. My eldest is fascinated with science, so we put it in terms of clownfish and parrotfish, both of which sometimes change sexes naturally. We told them that I’d always felt like I was a woman inside, and I was now going to start the process of changing, including dressing as a woman. Sam took it in effortlessly. For him, it was the same absurdity that everything is at that age, and was just something else new. Trin, the elder, drew a very sad face.
“What’s wrong?” Tears in his eyes, he replied, “Now that she’s a woman, Maddy won’t want to wrestle anymore.” Assurances that I would, indeed, continue to enjoy our wrestling matches comforted him. In the summer of 2008, I overheard him talking about me with one of his friends. “Don’t you miss having a dad?” his friend asked. “No. I like her better as a woman,” he replied.
As a transwoman, I don’t have the choice of being invisible that most gay and lesbian people do. The choice to present as I feel I am, instead of as society assigned me to be at birth, makes coming out into a continuous and very visible affair. I get strange looks, sometimes sneers, and the occasional weird proposition, like the time the woman said to me, “Two bucks to look under your skirt.” Nevertheless, I have found an incredible power in coming out. The courage to be who you are in the face of a society that disapproves gives others the same courage – and it changes minds as it crushes stereotypes and biases. But even beyond the social impact, and probably more important, is the personal impact – the way that coming out interacts with your deepest internal being. Coming out is social power – and it is also spiritual power.
I would like to thank Seda for sharing her story in Fannie's Room. Coming out takes courage, especially later in life when one's life and identity are already "established," so to speak. I share the sentiment of commenters here in that I too seek to better understand the experiences of our transgender brothers and sisters.
Monday, January 5, 2009
Seda's Coming Out Story, Part I: "I Had To Transition or Die"
For the New Year, I'm going to try to re-vitalize my Coming Out series of posts and invite more people to tell their stories on my blog. If you'd like to contribute feel free to email me. I believe that coming out stories help other LGBT people become more accepting of themselves, and help our opposition better understand us.
When I invite people to write guest posts in Fannie's Room I'm always a little anxious. I'm very protective of my friends and family and I know that telling an immensely personal story puts one in a place of vulnerability. It's always my hope that even if commenters don't agree with everything that a guest blogger writes, they will at least be on their best behavior.
Today and tomorrow, I will post Seda's story. Seda is a transwoman who I first noticed commenting on a blog that opposes LGBT rights. What struck me was the gentleness of her voice and the respect with which she carried on conversations with those who disagreed with her even when these folks sometimes failed to show her the same respect in return. I'm honored that she agreed to share her voice on my blog. Not only is she a model of civility, but I think she can help all of us better understand what it's like to be a transwoman. Even within the LGBT community, confusion and ignorance exist with respect to gender identity and transgender issues.
So, here we go, below in italics, is Seda's story in her own words. I've divided this post up into two parts and will post Part II tomorrow:
Any coming out story is composed of three parts. First, you come out to yourself. Second, you come out to friends and family. Third, you come out to the world.
On the night of April 3, 2003, my dog woke me up, scratching and whining. Our duplex had caught fire. Flames shot thirty feet into the air out the next-door window. My partner ran outside with our sons, two years and six weeks old, while I called 911. It was a traumatic event that brought my mortality and the preciousness of life to an instinctive awareness.
I grew up on a ranch in Wyoming, about 25 miles outside of Laramie. My neighbors were the last of the old-time cowboys the Marlboro Man was modeled after, and I grew up in a macho subculture that made very clear, very early, and very often, that it was not okay for boys to act like girls, like girl stuff, or show any feminine desires or characteristics. I had no concept that transgendered existed, and didn’t even hear of homosexuality until I was sixteen. I learned at a young age to hide myself, and when I was teased for throwing like a girl or walking like a girl, I studied the boys and practiced until I could do it like them. I blended in and became invisible, in appearance just like the boys I knew. But I knew I was different. I didn’t fit in. As I grew older, I loved to steal my mom’s and sister’s clothes and wear them in private (and I was careful enough that I never got caught). By the time I graduated from high school, I was incredibly lonely, I’d never had a date, and I was doing drugs and alcohol at an alarming rate. Desperate to feel like the man I wasn’t, I joined the Marine Corps.
Over the next twenty years, I tried therapy, several religions, commercial fishing, logging, copious amounts of drugs and alcohol, marriage, and, finally, parenthood in an effort to feel congruent with my male body. Even after all that time, I remained in denial. By the time I’d been married 13 years, I’d cleaned up the booze, and I guess it looked like I had my life put together. But underneath that façade I felt a growing turmoil.
Three months after the fire, Kristin [Seda's partner] took the boys on a two week visit to her mom. As soon as she drove away, I ran out to a series of used-clothing stores and bought a bunch of skirts and blouses and other women’s clothing. I planned to spend all the time I could at home by myself, dressed in drag.
One evening, three or four days after Kristin left, I was dancing down the hall when I looked down, saw the skirt swishing around my calves, and realized, “This is me!” It was a moment of stark clarity, peace, and beauty. At the age of 42, the scales of denial I’d worn for over 25 years fell away. For a single moment, I felt a euphoria more intense than any I’d ever experienced before. It was the moment I came out to myself.
The next instant, I remembered that I had a wife and children whom I loved, and who loved and depended on me. I thought, “I need help,” and the next day I scheduled an appointment with a therapist picked more or less at random from the phone book.
I could not hide an event so momentous from Kristin, and told her about it as soon as she arrived home. She took it pretty well – it wasn’t a complete surprise to her, as she knew I’d crossdressed before – and I began what became almost two years of therapy. Unfortunately, I didn’t find a therapist who knew anything at all about gender dysphoria, and, though I dealt with childhood trauma issues quite successfully, at the end of that time I quit, hoping that my desire for crossdressing and being a woman would just go away. Even though I had told Kristin about my gender dysphoria, I was still trying to overcome it and live as if I were a man, so though I’d come out to her in one sense, in another, I hadn’t, because I hadn’t made any commitment. I got rid of my women’s clothes (“purged”), and together Kristin and I bought a house and moved into a new neighborhood.
Despite my efforts, gender dysphoria continued to grow, and by the summer of 2006 I was growing quietly more desperate and suicidal. It was at this point that an event of incredible good fortune occurred. Kristin took the boys on another long trip, but this time she went to the Parent Peer Leadership Program (PPLP) family camp, sponsored by BayNVC, where she spent two weeks in intensive training in Nonviolent Communication, including giving and receiving empathy, and building a network of trusted friends.
While she was gone, I grew increasingly desperate. I had started my own design business following my former employer’s retirement at the end of 2005, and I was becoming dysfunctional. I couldn’t concentrate on my work. Most of my waking hours were spent in either researching gender transition or plotting a suicide that would appear to be an accident and would never cause my boys to believe their daddy had killed himself on purpose, along with how to arrange adequate resources through insurance to ensure that my family would have enough. At that point, I realized I had a choice. I could either transition, or abandon my family by suicide, nervous breakdown, or alcoholism. I contacted a transwoman on the internet, via Lynn Conway’s “Successful Transitions” website, and began a relationship that became instrumental in guiding me through my own transition. When Kristin returned home, I came out to her again, but this time with the news that I was not a man, and I had to transition or die.
This story will continue tomorrow.
When I invite people to write guest posts in Fannie's Room I'm always a little anxious. I'm very protective of my friends and family and I know that telling an immensely personal story puts one in a place of vulnerability. It's always my hope that even if commenters don't agree with everything that a guest blogger writes, they will at least be on their best behavior.
Today and tomorrow, I will post Seda's story. Seda is a transwoman who I first noticed commenting on a blog that opposes LGBT rights. What struck me was the gentleness of her voice and the respect with which she carried on conversations with those who disagreed with her even when these folks sometimes failed to show her the same respect in return. I'm honored that she agreed to share her voice on my blog. Not only is she a model of civility, but I think she can help all of us better understand what it's like to be a transwoman. Even within the LGBT community, confusion and ignorance exist with respect to gender identity and transgender issues.
So, here we go, below in italics, is Seda's story in her own words. I've divided this post up into two parts and will post Part II tomorrow:
Any coming out story is composed of three parts. First, you come out to yourself. Second, you come out to friends and family. Third, you come out to the world.
On the night of April 3, 2003, my dog woke me up, scratching and whining. Our duplex had caught fire. Flames shot thirty feet into the air out the next-door window. My partner ran outside with our sons, two years and six weeks old, while I called 911. It was a traumatic event that brought my mortality and the preciousness of life to an instinctive awareness.
I grew up on a ranch in Wyoming, about 25 miles outside of Laramie. My neighbors were the last of the old-time cowboys the Marlboro Man was modeled after, and I grew up in a macho subculture that made very clear, very early, and very often, that it was not okay for boys to act like girls, like girl stuff, or show any feminine desires or characteristics. I had no concept that transgendered existed, and didn’t even hear of homosexuality until I was sixteen. I learned at a young age to hide myself, and when I was teased for throwing like a girl or walking like a girl, I studied the boys and practiced until I could do it like them. I blended in and became invisible, in appearance just like the boys I knew. But I knew I was different. I didn’t fit in. As I grew older, I loved to steal my mom’s and sister’s clothes and wear them in private (and I was careful enough that I never got caught). By the time I graduated from high school, I was incredibly lonely, I’d never had a date, and I was doing drugs and alcohol at an alarming rate. Desperate to feel like the man I wasn’t, I joined the Marine Corps.
Over the next twenty years, I tried therapy, several religions, commercial fishing, logging, copious amounts of drugs and alcohol, marriage, and, finally, parenthood in an effort to feel congruent with my male body. Even after all that time, I remained in denial. By the time I’d been married 13 years, I’d cleaned up the booze, and I guess it looked like I had my life put together. But underneath that façade I felt a growing turmoil.
Three months after the fire, Kristin [Seda's partner] took the boys on a two week visit to her mom. As soon as she drove away, I ran out to a series of used-clothing stores and bought a bunch of skirts and blouses and other women’s clothing. I planned to spend all the time I could at home by myself, dressed in drag.
One evening, three or four days after Kristin left, I was dancing down the hall when I looked down, saw the skirt swishing around my calves, and realized, “This is me!” It was a moment of stark clarity, peace, and beauty. At the age of 42, the scales of denial I’d worn for over 25 years fell away. For a single moment, I felt a euphoria more intense than any I’d ever experienced before. It was the moment I came out to myself.
The next instant, I remembered that I had a wife and children whom I loved, and who loved and depended on me. I thought, “I need help,” and the next day I scheduled an appointment with a therapist picked more or less at random from the phone book.
I could not hide an event so momentous from Kristin, and told her about it as soon as she arrived home. She took it pretty well – it wasn’t a complete surprise to her, as she knew I’d crossdressed before – and I began what became almost two years of therapy. Unfortunately, I didn’t find a therapist who knew anything at all about gender dysphoria, and, though I dealt with childhood trauma issues quite successfully, at the end of that time I quit, hoping that my desire for crossdressing and being a woman would just go away. Even though I had told Kristin about my gender dysphoria, I was still trying to overcome it and live as if I were a man, so though I’d come out to her in one sense, in another, I hadn’t, because I hadn’t made any commitment. I got rid of my women’s clothes (“purged”), and together Kristin and I bought a house and moved into a new neighborhood.
Despite my efforts, gender dysphoria continued to grow, and by the summer of 2006 I was growing quietly more desperate and suicidal. It was at this point that an event of incredible good fortune occurred. Kristin took the boys on another long trip, but this time she went to the Parent Peer Leadership Program (PPLP) family camp, sponsored by BayNVC, where she spent two weeks in intensive training in Nonviolent Communication, including giving and receiving empathy, and building a network of trusted friends.
While she was gone, I grew increasingly desperate. I had started my own design business following my former employer’s retirement at the end of 2005, and I was becoming dysfunctional. I couldn’t concentrate on my work. Most of my waking hours were spent in either researching gender transition or plotting a suicide that would appear to be an accident and would never cause my boys to believe their daddy had killed himself on purpose, along with how to arrange adequate resources through insurance to ensure that my family would have enough. At that point, I realized I had a choice. I could either transition, or abandon my family by suicide, nervous breakdown, or alcoholism. I contacted a transwoman on the internet, via Lynn Conway’s “Successful Transitions” website, and began a relationship that became instrumental in guiding me through my own transition. When Kristin returned home, I came out to her again, but this time with the news that I was not a man, and I had to transition or die.
This story will continue tomorrow.
Friday, January 11, 2008
Coming Out Fridays! From the Baby Jesus to Baby Dykes
The following guest blog is part of Fannie's Room's "Coming Out Stories" series. In the following post, regular reader and sometimes commenter, "Hammerpants" recounts her coming out process. Knowing "Hammerpants" in real life (one could say that she's my "committed friend"), I thought that many would find her perspective and self-realization interesting. See, she was raised in an Evangelical Christian environment, which means that she used to be all about the baby Jesus and stuff. She is no longer part of this religious movement, proving quite nicely that one can become an ex-Evangelical ;-)
On a serious note, I find it brave and admirable that during college, she sought out information that conflicted with the religious views she was very devoted to her whole life. By realizing and accepting that she was gay, "Hammerpants" simultaneously left a safe comfort zone where everything was already figured out for her and entered a scary morally ambiguous world. While many Evangelicals find it easier to live in a world where right and wrong are black and white, she actively searched for shades of gray.
Anyway, enough of me talking. Here is her story in her own words (It's sorta long, but worth it):
"First I want to thank Fannie for this opportunity to share my personal Coming Out story. At first I was hesitant to write this because writing to an audience about anything is an act of vulnerability, let alone the act of writing about something so personal. But if at least one person can relate to or find comfort in or know a little but more about gay and lesbian people because others and myself tell our stories, then it is worth it.
Its been 5 and a half years since my personal Coming Out and, since then, I've realized that coming out isn't just a difficult talk with your parents or a rough Ani-infused semester in college when your heart is shattered by your new worldly feminist best friend turned crush who you've recently realized has a secret lover who is also your roommate. Yes, it very likely involves those things, but really only at first. For most openly gay people, Coming Out happens daily. Fortunately, it usually gets easier than those first few runs of clumsy and emotional self-disclosure to close friends and family. But the choice to be honest about ourselves and our lives is one that we confront every day with neighbors, co-workers, real estate agents, doctors, lawyers, grocery baggers, new friends and new family.
So, I will tell the story of my first Coming Out—the time I chose to be honest with myself.
For me, there was one distinct moment in my mind when I said with surprising ease, "Ah, yes, that is who I am." The seconds that followed gave way to the most peaceful clarity of thought that I had ever known. It didn't last log, but it was an instant of peace. For a brief second, the world made sense. It was as if the first 19 years of my life I was trying to put together a jigsaw puzzle but the pieces didn't quite fit so nicely. And in a moment, they snapped into place. I could be happy. I could envision a family, a partner, a life. In this moment, I was more human and the more alive that I had ever been. The months leading to that moment were angsty, desperate, and, more than anything, scary. But the exchange of that dark journey for my first sense of true honesty was worth the surrender.
I was an independent child who, like most children, had very strong feelings about who I was and how I wanted to present myself. Whenever I could, I would sneak into my older brother's closet and steal his clothes to wear to school. I loved wearing boys clothes and I think it wasn't until the third or fourth grade that I realized I actually wasn't one of the boys in school. I mean I always knew I was a girl, but that was a mere technicality. I sat at the boys table for lunch, I played with the boys at recess, I identified with male hero figures in history and on TV. I felt limitless when it came to gender. I never felt like I was viewed differently for being a girl because I never really felt like other girls. Later, as I entered fourth, fifth, sixth grade, I had much difficulty. I felt expressly different from other kids. I did not know why. But I do remember crying at night, telling my mom with all the self-assurance I could muster, "I am different." I learned quickly that its okay--actually cute-- to be a tomboy until a certain age. After that age, people don't view it with the same endearment. So I caught on and started dressing more girly. I wore makeup and made a close group of girl friends in junior high. Finally, I felt like I belonged.
All along I was raised in an Evangelical Christian household. We were not subscribers to Focus on the Family, but I did grow up believing in an absolute Truth and a message of salvation, embodied by the Word of God. I did believe that it was by the grace of God that I was blessed to know this Truth and that sharing this message was part of my purpose in life. I did believe that people are inherently sinful and, alone, incapable of good. For I could only do good in this world by seeking out God's will and letting it be my compass. I felt like I was a child of God just as all of my fellow Christians were. It was with this firm grounding that I set off for college, trading the comforts of California for the foreign terrain of Chicago.
Things changed quickly.
Once dutifully arriving my freshman year, my earnest intent was to find a nice local church where I could meet and have fellowship with other Christians. Any good Christian knows that having well-grounded Christian friends is fundamental to a good walk with Christ. As the Sundays passed though, I found myself surprisingly not wanting to go to church and I began to objectively wonder why. Objective is the key word here. I tried to examine my feelings without judgement or guilt, but to just say, "Why am I feeling this way?" Looking back on it now, the best answer to that question is that I was beginning to realize that my life is my own and if I want to go to church, I am doing it for myself. Prior to my new-found freedom, I never had expressly felt like my faith was chosen by anyone else. At this cross-roads, I recognized more ownership over who I was and who I'd choose to become than I ever had before. That realization of ownership opened up the next chapter: reevaluation of everything I'd assumed I already knew.
Like all newcomers to college, I met a lot of people. Most importantly, I met a lot of people who were different from me. They came from different countries, different points of view, different upbringings. A few of the people who I got to know very well were types of people who, had I been in California and had it been six months prior, I never would have taken the time to know for the simple reason that they were the opposite of who I wanted to be. From what I could tell, they were not Christian, they were a bit rebellious, and they were, well, gay. With a good deal of hesitance, I let myself engage in conversation, just a little. A tiny part of me was curious and a large part of me was scared, mostly because I began to see myself in them. After a few months, a few of my gay acquaintances became very good friends. I learned that they were very good, honest, passionate people. Their kindness came at face value. No expectations, no judgement. They were just good, decent people who sought to understand and to be understood. And the paradox of it all was that they were supposedly the enemy, or at the very least the sinners who who most in need of redemption. They did not know God. And yet they seemed more Christian than most of the Christians with whom I grew up. It was so strange. Everything felt turned on its head.
I was confronted with serious questions with serious implications: Did I think that they were sinful for being gay? Did I think it was wrong? Well I thought it was wrong. Was I wrong? But who was I to say what was wrong when the people who were supposed to be wrong were really the kind loving ones and the people who were supposedly the right ones always made me feel like I was so wrong? I did not know. So I did the only thing I knew to do to find out what was actually right and true. I read the Bible. I went through every last book and I took note of all of my favorite Bible verses, many of which I had memorized in Bible school. I wrote many of the passages in my journal and most of all I scoured the pages for any hint of what God actually said about gay people. I already knew what other people said. I wanted to draw my own conclusions. I read it all. All of the quoted verses about men lying with men and blah blah blah. And after that I still knew nothing. Except that in my heart I knew that these were good human beings. And for the first time, I knew a few non-Christians for whom I did not pray in hopes that they would become Christians. I did not want them to change. I began to see for myself that the compass for knowing right and wrong and good and bad comes, at least partly, from within.
For the first time, I let myself be the judge. I did like it... until I realized what I was actually thinking: gay is a-okay. More than that, what I choose to believe about this world and this life is up to me. Panic set in. If it was okay for other people to be gay, then its okay for me to be gay. Am I gay? Just because its okay for me to be gay doesn't mean I am gay. Why do I think I might be gay? Suddenly a flood of pubescent memories stole me away. There was that time when I spent the night at Jessica Bergman's house in the 8th grade and all I could think about was kissing her. Then there was that obsession with the Ellen show (not her talk show but the old sitcom) and especially that one episode that my parents and I watched together when she came out. There was that deep yet distant feeling in my gut that night that one day I would do the same. And then there was that secret hope that Megan and Carrie from my high school basketball team were secretly having a lesbian love affair. They did have matching tattoos. More than anything there was a deep uncomfortable longing every time I thought of the possibility.
Following rigorous existential analysis of my feelings, my psyche, and my beliefs with the aid of some good books for about 4 months, it was in one of those uncomfortable longing moments when I just stopped. It was too much and I wasn't getting anywhere. I just tried to picture myself 20 years from that very place in time. Who would I be? What did I want? How did I see myself? With a flinch and a deep breath, I let myself picture another woman walking beside me, holding my hand. That was THE moment. The moment of instant relief. I said, "That's what I want." After that, nothing else mattered. There was no book to read to figure out what to do. I knew--very very deeply--what was true.
Up until that point I had felt like a spectator in life, never feeling like any of the world's offerings were for me. And now I felt alive. That time was very scary. What was scary was not so much the prospect of my being gay, but rather coming to find that I have power to choose what I believe and how I will live. The idea that what I knew most deeply in my heart to be true conficted with my one source and resource for Truth and direction was devestating. Everything that I had known in life added up to this not adding up at all. That is when I chose my new Truth over my old one: that if God did exist, He made me who I am. And I now I know who I am.
About two weeks after my personal coming out, I chose to come out to my new best lesbian friend (aka, my very first crush). She had become a good friend. She was kind and gentle and listened for 2 hours straight as I just talked and talked, sitting on her bed, petting her roommate's orange cat. At the end of the night, she let me down easy. She knew I liked her and I knew nothing would happen between us but what she gave me I have treasured since that night. It was a calm, ready ear and a deep understanding.
Later that year I came out to my parents. That time was very very difficult. The day after I told my mother, she looked right into my eyes and with fresh tears on her cheeks and from her gut and with a raspy voice she said, "I knew. I knew all along." Later that night, my dad told me that my mom had worried about my being gay since I was 5 years old. She would mention it to him often throughout my childhood. She really did know. Despite their inklings, both my parents stuggled with the news. I think they still struggle. But they have come to see that I am no different from and am actually more so the little girl who refused to wear a dress and arm wrestled the boys.
There may be people who read this story and say, "See its a choice. She chose to be a lesbian." To you I say, "I chose honesty over deceit." I chose happiness over emptiness. There may be some people who say, "It was those gay friends of hers who convinced her to be gay." To you I say "it was my gay friends who did not feel the need to convince me of anything." There may be some who say, "She gave into the temptation and doubt and was not steadfast in her faith." To you I say, "that's damn right."
My first coming out was very internal. It began as a deep struggle between my heart's belief and my heart's longing. In the end they became the same thing. I do very seriously belive that there is much room for God, gods, goddesses, no god or a lingering question of the existence of a god-like being in the lives of gay and lesbian people. Likewise, there should be room for gay and lesbians and bisexuals, and queer people, transgendered people, and questioning people as well as people who know and love and embrace people who are different from them in the church or place of worship of any god(s) or God or whatever. This was my personal journey through what had appeared to be and what I had previously believed to be two foes. Since, I have taken to not really knowing what I believe in terms of god or God, but I do acknowledge that its just downright silly to ever feel like I have knowledge or belief or faith that is superior to or more true than anyone else's. It's still a work in progress.
'Faith is not being sure. It is not being sure, but betting with your last cent... Faith is not a series of gilt-edged propositions that you sit down to figure out, and if you follow all the logic and accept all the conclusions, then you have it. It is crumpling and throwing away everything, proposition by proposition, until nothing is left, and then writing a new proposition, your very own, to throw in the teeth of despair... Faith is not making religious-sounding noises in the daytime. It is asking your inmost self questions at night and then getting up and going to work... Faith is thinking thoughts and singing songs and making poems in the lap of death.'"
- Mary Jean Irion, 1970
from "Yes, World: A Mosaic of Meditation"
available from www.alibris.com
Thanks "Hammerpants," for sharing.
On a serious note, I find it brave and admirable that during college, she sought out information that conflicted with the religious views she was very devoted to her whole life. By realizing and accepting that she was gay, "Hammerpants" simultaneously left a safe comfort zone where everything was already figured out for her and entered a scary morally ambiguous world. While many Evangelicals find it easier to live in a world where right and wrong are black and white, she actively searched for shades of gray.
Anyway, enough of me talking. Here is her story in her own words (It's sorta long, but worth it):
"First I want to thank Fannie for this opportunity to share my personal Coming Out story. At first I was hesitant to write this because writing to an audience about anything is an act of vulnerability, let alone the act of writing about something so personal. But if at least one person can relate to or find comfort in or know a little but more about gay and lesbian people because others and myself tell our stories, then it is worth it.
Its been 5 and a half years since my personal Coming Out and, since then, I've realized that coming out isn't just a difficult talk with your parents or a rough Ani-infused semester in college when your heart is shattered by your new worldly feminist best friend turned crush who you've recently realized has a secret lover who is also your roommate. Yes, it very likely involves those things, but really only at first. For most openly gay people, Coming Out happens daily. Fortunately, it usually gets easier than those first few runs of clumsy and emotional self-disclosure to close friends and family. But the choice to be honest about ourselves and our lives is one that we confront every day with neighbors, co-workers, real estate agents, doctors, lawyers, grocery baggers, new friends and new family.
So, I will tell the story of my first Coming Out—the time I chose to be honest with myself.
For me, there was one distinct moment in my mind when I said with surprising ease, "Ah, yes, that is who I am." The seconds that followed gave way to the most peaceful clarity of thought that I had ever known. It didn't last log, but it was an instant of peace. For a brief second, the world made sense. It was as if the first 19 years of my life I was trying to put together a jigsaw puzzle but the pieces didn't quite fit so nicely. And in a moment, they snapped into place. I could be happy. I could envision a family, a partner, a life. In this moment, I was more human and the more alive that I had ever been. The months leading to that moment were angsty, desperate, and, more than anything, scary. But the exchange of that dark journey for my first sense of true honesty was worth the surrender.
I was an independent child who, like most children, had very strong feelings about who I was and how I wanted to present myself. Whenever I could, I would sneak into my older brother's closet and steal his clothes to wear to school. I loved wearing boys clothes and I think it wasn't until the third or fourth grade that I realized I actually wasn't one of the boys in school. I mean I always knew I was a girl, but that was a mere technicality. I sat at the boys table for lunch, I played with the boys at recess, I identified with male hero figures in history and on TV. I felt limitless when it came to gender. I never felt like I was viewed differently for being a girl because I never really felt like other girls. Later, as I entered fourth, fifth, sixth grade, I had much difficulty. I felt expressly different from other kids. I did not know why. But I do remember crying at night, telling my mom with all the self-assurance I could muster, "I am different." I learned quickly that its okay--actually cute-- to be a tomboy until a certain age. After that age, people don't view it with the same endearment. So I caught on and started dressing more girly. I wore makeup and made a close group of girl friends in junior high. Finally, I felt like I belonged.
All along I was raised in an Evangelical Christian household. We were not subscribers to Focus on the Family, but I did grow up believing in an absolute Truth and a message of salvation, embodied by the Word of God. I did believe that it was by the grace of God that I was blessed to know this Truth and that sharing this message was part of my purpose in life. I did believe that people are inherently sinful and, alone, incapable of good. For I could only do good in this world by seeking out God's will and letting it be my compass. I felt like I was a child of God just as all of my fellow Christians were. It was with this firm grounding that I set off for college, trading the comforts of California for the foreign terrain of Chicago.
Things changed quickly.
Once dutifully arriving my freshman year, my earnest intent was to find a nice local church where I could meet and have fellowship with other Christians. Any good Christian knows that having well-grounded Christian friends is fundamental to a good walk with Christ. As the Sundays passed though, I found myself surprisingly not wanting to go to church and I began to objectively wonder why. Objective is the key word here. I tried to examine my feelings without judgement or guilt, but to just say, "Why am I feeling this way?" Looking back on it now, the best answer to that question is that I was beginning to realize that my life is my own and if I want to go to church, I am doing it for myself. Prior to my new-found freedom, I never had expressly felt like my faith was chosen by anyone else. At this cross-roads, I recognized more ownership over who I was and who I'd choose to become than I ever had before. That realization of ownership opened up the next chapter: reevaluation of everything I'd assumed I already knew.
Like all newcomers to college, I met a lot of people. Most importantly, I met a lot of people who were different from me. They came from different countries, different points of view, different upbringings. A few of the people who I got to know very well were types of people who, had I been in California and had it been six months prior, I never would have taken the time to know for the simple reason that they were the opposite of who I wanted to be. From what I could tell, they were not Christian, they were a bit rebellious, and they were, well, gay. With a good deal of hesitance, I let myself engage in conversation, just a little. A tiny part of me was curious and a large part of me was scared, mostly because I began to see myself in them. After a few months, a few of my gay acquaintances became very good friends. I learned that they were very good, honest, passionate people. Their kindness came at face value. No expectations, no judgement. They were just good, decent people who sought to understand and to be understood. And the paradox of it all was that they were supposedly the enemy, or at the very least the sinners who who most in need of redemption. They did not know God. And yet they seemed more Christian than most of the Christians with whom I grew up. It was so strange. Everything felt turned on its head.
I was confronted with serious questions with serious implications: Did I think that they were sinful for being gay? Did I think it was wrong? Well I thought it was wrong. Was I wrong? But who was I to say what was wrong when the people who were supposed to be wrong were really the kind loving ones and the people who were supposedly the right ones always made me feel like I was so wrong? I did not know. So I did the only thing I knew to do to find out what was actually right and true. I read the Bible. I went through every last book and I took note of all of my favorite Bible verses, many of which I had memorized in Bible school. I wrote many of the passages in my journal and most of all I scoured the pages for any hint of what God actually said about gay people. I already knew what other people said. I wanted to draw my own conclusions. I read it all. All of the quoted verses about men lying with men and blah blah blah. And after that I still knew nothing. Except that in my heart I knew that these were good human beings. And for the first time, I knew a few non-Christians for whom I did not pray in hopes that they would become Christians. I did not want them to change. I began to see for myself that the compass for knowing right and wrong and good and bad comes, at least partly, from within.
For the first time, I let myself be the judge. I did like it... until I realized what I was actually thinking: gay is a-okay. More than that, what I choose to believe about this world and this life is up to me. Panic set in. If it was okay for other people to be gay, then its okay for me to be gay. Am I gay? Just because its okay for me to be gay doesn't mean I am gay. Why do I think I might be gay? Suddenly a flood of pubescent memories stole me away. There was that time when I spent the night at Jessica Bergman's house in the 8th grade and all I could think about was kissing her. Then there was that obsession with the Ellen show (not her talk show but the old sitcom) and especially that one episode that my parents and I watched together when she came out. There was that deep yet distant feeling in my gut that night that one day I would do the same. And then there was that secret hope that Megan and Carrie from my high school basketball team were secretly having a lesbian love affair. They did have matching tattoos. More than anything there was a deep uncomfortable longing every time I thought of the possibility.
Following rigorous existential analysis of my feelings, my psyche, and my beliefs with the aid of some good books for about 4 months, it was in one of those uncomfortable longing moments when I just stopped. It was too much and I wasn't getting anywhere. I just tried to picture myself 20 years from that very place in time. Who would I be? What did I want? How did I see myself? With a flinch and a deep breath, I let myself picture another woman walking beside me, holding my hand. That was THE moment. The moment of instant relief. I said, "That's what I want." After that, nothing else mattered. There was no book to read to figure out what to do. I knew--very very deeply--what was true.
Up until that point I had felt like a spectator in life, never feeling like any of the world's offerings were for me. And now I felt alive. That time was very scary. What was scary was not so much the prospect of my being gay, but rather coming to find that I have power to choose what I believe and how I will live. The idea that what I knew most deeply in my heart to be true conficted with my one source and resource for Truth and direction was devestating. Everything that I had known in life added up to this not adding up at all. That is when I chose my new Truth over my old one: that if God did exist, He made me who I am. And I now I know who I am.
About two weeks after my personal coming out, I chose to come out to my new best lesbian friend (aka, my very first crush). She had become a good friend. She was kind and gentle and listened for 2 hours straight as I just talked and talked, sitting on her bed, petting her roommate's orange cat. At the end of the night, she let me down easy. She knew I liked her and I knew nothing would happen between us but what she gave me I have treasured since that night. It was a calm, ready ear and a deep understanding.
Later that year I came out to my parents. That time was very very difficult. The day after I told my mother, she looked right into my eyes and with fresh tears on her cheeks and from her gut and with a raspy voice she said, "I knew. I knew all along." Later that night, my dad told me that my mom had worried about my being gay since I was 5 years old. She would mention it to him often throughout my childhood. She really did know. Despite their inklings, both my parents stuggled with the news. I think they still struggle. But they have come to see that I am no different from and am actually more so the little girl who refused to wear a dress and arm wrestled the boys.
There may be people who read this story and say, "See its a choice. She chose to be a lesbian." To you I say, "I chose honesty over deceit." I chose happiness over emptiness. There may be some people who say, "It was those gay friends of hers who convinced her to be gay." To you I say "it was my gay friends who did not feel the need to convince me of anything." There may be some who say, "She gave into the temptation and doubt and was not steadfast in her faith." To you I say, "that's damn right."
My first coming out was very internal. It began as a deep struggle between my heart's belief and my heart's longing. In the end they became the same thing. I do very seriously belive that there is much room for God, gods, goddesses, no god or a lingering question of the existence of a god-like being in the lives of gay and lesbian people. Likewise, there should be room for gay and lesbians and bisexuals, and queer people, transgendered people, and questioning people as well as people who know and love and embrace people who are different from them in the church or place of worship of any god(s) or God or whatever. This was my personal journey through what had appeared to be and what I had previously believed to be two foes. Since, I have taken to not really knowing what I believe in terms of god or God, but I do acknowledge that its just downright silly to ever feel like I have knowledge or belief or faith that is superior to or more true than anyone else's. It's still a work in progress.
'Faith is not being sure. It is not being sure, but betting with your last cent... Faith is not a series of gilt-edged propositions that you sit down to figure out, and if you follow all the logic and accept all the conclusions, then you have it. It is crumpling and throwing away everything, proposition by proposition, until nothing is left, and then writing a new proposition, your very own, to throw in the teeth of despair... Faith is not making religious-sounding noises in the daytime. It is asking your inmost self questions at night and then getting up and going to work... Faith is thinking thoughts and singing songs and making poems in the lap of death.'"
- Mary Jean Irion, 1970
from "Yes, World: A Mosaic of Meditation"
available from www.alibris.com
Thanks "Hammerpants," for sharing.
Friday, November 30, 2007
Coming Out Fridays! A Straight Man Comes Out.
After National Coming Out Day, I wrote my belated coming out story. I hope that you found it interesting. And, perhaps one day someone who is struggling with his or her sexual identity will come across my story, or the stories that others have written, and will be helped by it in some way.
Which got me to thinking, maybe Fannie's Room needs a periodic guest blogging series where others, some of you perhaps, tell your stories. In addition to possibly helping others, telling our own real stories can be an effective way for those who do not know any gay people to, hopefully, see us in a more compassionate light. Perhaps, they will come to see us, not as evil threats out to destroy marraige and steal their children, but as real people who are at times vulnerable, scared, and just as human as all of them.
Or they'll just make fun of us.
Whatever. That's fun too.
The first storyteller in this series is regular visitor John. If you've been here regularly you will recognize John as a heterosexual married man who supports marriage equality. He is also a contributor to the group blog Live, Love, and Learn. I think that it's important to recognize that, sometimes, heterosexuals (who I believe will be the key to our eventual victory for equality) have to "come out" too. Homosexuality is not yet fully accepted in our society, or in many parts of the world. And I think it is far easier to go along with the peer-pressurey crowd that ridicules, mocks, and sometimes hates gay people than it is to stand up and say "But I support marriage equality."
And, I think, it is easy for many heterosexuals to think "I don't really care about gay rights, because it doesn't really affect me." Thinking of this easy complacency, I wonder what motivates hetereosexuals to be allies in the struggle for equal rights. In John's case, there were several reasons- a major one being an embarassing display of backlash to judicial decisions affirming gay rights. But enough of me talking, here's John's story in his own words (which he also posted on Live, Love, and Learn):
"My own 'coming out' was a process that took place over many years, and it seems to involve four major steps. The first was seeing homosexuality as simply ordinary. This was easy for me, but it came about in a rather strange way.
I was raised in a very strict Roman Catholic home, which has a lot to do with why I have never viewed homosexuality as anything other than a natural variant of human sexuality.
Think about that for a moment.
I just said that I view homosexuality as a natural variant of human sexuality BECAUSE of my strict Catholic upbringing. At this point you may properly ask what it is that I am smoking. You see, when I became a young teen, I would think of sex a fair amount of the time. In fact, all I had to do was hear or read certain words and I would think of sex; words like girl, skirt, leg, outboard motor, etc. But in my Catholic home anything that could even be remotely connected to sexuality was simply never discussed. So I had to learn on my own with no input from my caregivers.
The most influential source of my education was a weekly series of magazines called, "The Story of Life". It was a 53 week series that explained in clinical but readable detail everything about human life, love, and sexuality. One issue was dedicated to "Lovers of the Same Sex", and it dealt with the issue in a frank and totally non-judgmental manner. Since this was my only real source of information, I had no reason to think that there was a judgment to be made.
It is difficult to explain why the second step should be necessary, but while I could accept homosexuality as a natural and normal variant of human sexuality, intellectually, I could not comprehend how one could feel a sexual attraction to a memeber of the same sex. I guess I still can't, really, but for some reason seeing the effects of same sex attraction helped me see just how real it is.
As a teen (or very early 20's) I, and a few friends (one of whom is a lesbian), experimented with each each other to test our responses to same and opposite sex stimulation. I doubt you'd want to hear details of such experimentation, but it was an eye-opener for me.
The third milestone was moving beyond seeing homosexuality in sexual terms and seeing it in terms of relationships.
I am ashamed to admit that until the Goodridge decision, I never gave even a moment's thought to gay relationships, especially with respect to marriage. My attitude towards Goodridge was pure indifference. It didn't affect me or my marriage in any way. My feeling was that is two people of the same sex want to marry, who the hell am I to even voice an opinion on the matter?
But then a backlash began. A petition to ban SSM by constitutional amendment was signed by enough voters to put the measure to a vote. As many as twenty states (insert real number here) passed constitutional amendments to ban SSM, and I was absolutely horrified by the rhetoric. The talk shows hosts, the religious press and even the Republican Party (that Party of cold sober realists who preach "rugged individualism" and "get the goverment of my back") became preachers of pure hate.
I had never been so disgusted by my countrymen or more ashamed of my nation.
I didn't feel like an American or a Christian anymore.
The idea that in these United States of America in 2007, that the people should vote on the civil rights of my fellow citizens has shocked me to core. And that the Party of Lincoln would lead the charge has changed me from a passive supporter to an outright activist.
And I have learned more about gay relationships; I started reading the testimonials of gay couples. I now know that gay relationships are identical to straight relationships in every pertinent way. And only then did I realize how much I take my own protections of marriage for granted.
And then there is step four.
I am a Christian. While I don't fit the mold well, as I have little use for organized religion and am somewhat agnostic in my view of Providence, I recognize that for millions, Jesus is a abundant source of comfort and provides a moral compass. It is of major importance to me to be able to show others that Jesus's message of love, tolerance and acceptance can not abide the bigotry expressed in Paul's sermons.
That final understanding of Jesus's complete and total acceptance came form my (on-line) association with the Rev. Dr. Jerry Maneker.
His blog is here:
http://www.christianlgbtrights.org/"
Thank you, John- for your story and for your support.
John brings up a good point here:
"The idea that in these United States of America in 2007, that the people should vote on the civil rights of my fellow citizens has shocked me to core."
Here, he is referring to constitutional amendments to ban same-sex marriage that were brought about as a response to the Massachussets judicial ruling that it was a denial of equal protection and due process for the State to deny same-sex couples from marriage.
In other words, the fundies didn't like the constitutional rules so they decided to make up new ones. Effectively, the judicial branch of government that was created specifically to a avoid tyranny of the majority was circumvented to allow tyranny of the majority. That's not democracy.
And that is something that all Americans should be ashamed of.
Which got me to thinking, maybe Fannie's Room needs a periodic guest blogging series where others, some of you perhaps, tell your stories. In addition to possibly helping others, telling our own real stories can be an effective way for those who do not know any gay people to, hopefully, see us in a more compassionate light. Perhaps, they will come to see us, not as evil threats out to destroy marraige and steal their children, but as real people who are at times vulnerable, scared, and just as human as all of them.
Or they'll just make fun of us.
Whatever. That's fun too.
The first storyteller in this series is regular visitor John. If you've been here regularly you will recognize John as a heterosexual married man who supports marriage equality. He is also a contributor to the group blog Live, Love, and Learn. I think that it's important to recognize that, sometimes, heterosexuals (who I believe will be the key to our eventual victory for equality) have to "come out" too. Homosexuality is not yet fully accepted in our society, or in many parts of the world. And I think it is far easier to go along with the peer-pressurey crowd that ridicules, mocks, and sometimes hates gay people than it is to stand up and say "But I support marriage equality."
And, I think, it is easy for many heterosexuals to think "I don't really care about gay rights, because it doesn't really affect me." Thinking of this easy complacency, I wonder what motivates hetereosexuals to be allies in the struggle for equal rights. In John's case, there were several reasons- a major one being an embarassing display of backlash to judicial decisions affirming gay rights. But enough of me talking, here's John's story in his own words (which he also posted on Live, Love, and Learn):
"My own 'coming out' was a process that took place over many years, and it seems to involve four major steps. The first was seeing homosexuality as simply ordinary. This was easy for me, but it came about in a rather strange way.
I was raised in a very strict Roman Catholic home, which has a lot to do with why I have never viewed homosexuality as anything other than a natural variant of human sexuality.
Think about that for a moment.
I just said that I view homosexuality as a natural variant of human sexuality BECAUSE of my strict Catholic upbringing. At this point you may properly ask what it is that I am smoking. You see, when I became a young teen, I would think of sex a fair amount of the time. In fact, all I had to do was hear or read certain words and I would think of sex; words like girl, skirt, leg, outboard motor, etc. But in my Catholic home anything that could even be remotely connected to sexuality was simply never discussed. So I had to learn on my own with no input from my caregivers.
The most influential source of my education was a weekly series of magazines called, "The Story of Life". It was a 53 week series that explained in clinical but readable detail everything about human life, love, and sexuality. One issue was dedicated to "Lovers of the Same Sex", and it dealt with the issue in a frank and totally non-judgmental manner. Since this was my only real source of information, I had no reason to think that there was a judgment to be made.
It is difficult to explain why the second step should be necessary, but while I could accept homosexuality as a natural and normal variant of human sexuality, intellectually, I could not comprehend how one could feel a sexual attraction to a memeber of the same sex. I guess I still can't, really, but for some reason seeing the effects of same sex attraction helped me see just how real it is.
As a teen (or very early 20's) I, and a few friends (one of whom is a lesbian), experimented with each each other to test our responses to same and opposite sex stimulation. I doubt you'd want to hear details of such experimentation, but it was an eye-opener for me.
The third milestone was moving beyond seeing homosexuality in sexual terms and seeing it in terms of relationships.
I am ashamed to admit that until the Goodridge decision, I never gave even a moment's thought to gay relationships, especially with respect to marriage. My attitude towards Goodridge was pure indifference. It didn't affect me or my marriage in any way. My feeling was that is two people of the same sex want to marry, who the hell am I to even voice an opinion on the matter?
But then a backlash began. A petition to ban SSM by constitutional amendment was signed by enough voters to put the measure to a vote. As many as twenty states (insert real number here) passed constitutional amendments to ban SSM, and I was absolutely horrified by the rhetoric. The talk shows hosts, the religious press and even the Republican Party (that Party of cold sober realists who preach "rugged individualism" and "get the goverment of my back") became preachers of pure hate.
I had never been so disgusted by my countrymen or more ashamed of my nation.
I didn't feel like an American or a Christian anymore.
The idea that in these United States of America in 2007, that the people should vote on the civil rights of my fellow citizens has shocked me to core. And that the Party of Lincoln would lead the charge has changed me from a passive supporter to an outright activist.
And I have learned more about gay relationships; I started reading the testimonials of gay couples. I now know that gay relationships are identical to straight relationships in every pertinent way. And only then did I realize how much I take my own protections of marriage for granted.
And then there is step four.
I am a Christian. While I don't fit the mold well, as I have little use for organized religion and am somewhat agnostic in my view of Providence, I recognize that for millions, Jesus is a abundant source of comfort and provides a moral compass. It is of major importance to me to be able to show others that Jesus's message of love, tolerance and acceptance can not abide the bigotry expressed in Paul's sermons.
That final understanding of Jesus's complete and total acceptance came form my (on-line) association with the Rev. Dr. Jerry Maneker.
His blog is here:
http://www.christianlgbtrights.org/"
Thank you, John- for your story and for your support.
John brings up a good point here:
"The idea that in these United States of America in 2007, that the people should vote on the civil rights of my fellow citizens has shocked me to core."
Here, he is referring to constitutional amendments to ban same-sex marriage that were brought about as a response to the Massachussets judicial ruling that it was a denial of equal protection and due process for the State to deny same-sex couples from marriage.
In other words, the fundies didn't like the constitutional rules so they decided to make up new ones. Effectively, the judicial branch of government that was created specifically to a avoid tyranny of the majority was circumvented to allow tyranny of the majority. That's not democracy.
And that is something that all Americans should be ashamed of.
Friday, October 19, 2007
My Belated Coming Out Story
So, I know National Coming Out Day was a while ago. I know I know. I missed it. I do have a bit I'd like to say about it though. Consider this my Coming Out Day Story on gay time. You know.... late.
Unlike many people, I suppose, I did not have a lot of trouble with the whole "being gay" bit. I started getting inklings of being gay sometime around junior high, when other girls were becoming more interested in boys. I just wanted to keep hanging out with my girl friends, playing sports, and playing outside with my boy friends.
(Oh wait, there was that whole innocent crush thing on my babysitter when I was 5. Is that weird?)
Anyway.... I managed to make it through high school without ever having a real boyfriend (or girlfriend). I didn't really want either one- as I wasn't too interested in boys, and wasn't quite ready to admit to being a full-out lezzy. I concerned myself instead with the multitude of sports I played (I know), getting good grades, andwanting to make out with Claire Danes getting into college.
Flash forward to college. As I met real live lesbians, I remembered "that thing" that I had pushed to the back of my mind. Now that I was starting to know lesbians, I was trying to create some sort of safe space to explore this issue further. And by that I mean, like Jane Know, I tried to befriend known lesbians, hoped they would notice me as being one of their own, and then take me into their cool lesbian cocoon and help me emerge a proud lesbian butterfly.
(I carried that too far, didn't I?)
Well, that passive little plan didn't work out as planned. The known lesbians didn't really notice me, or didn't pick up on my gayness. Instead, I learned how to be gay on my own. Or, rather, with a few other close friends who were all coming out in our own ways.
I never had a big internal struggle about being gay. Rather, I accepted it as something that had always been a part of me, and always would be. I was neither particularly ashamed or proud of who I was.
In life, my first real romantic relationships were with women. And, while I was okay with being gay, the people with whom I was involved during my college years were not. Fear, I learned, led to dysfunction. And when things did not work out, I immediately villanized these people for being "too scared," for being mean to me as a "cover," and for letting their fear of being exposed make their life and my life miserable. Fear, of course, is always a wonderful additional to any relationship.
But seriously, looking back with much hindsight, I can see that fear, stemming from societal sexual prejudice, bore much blame for my romantic angst. Where most heterosexual young couples are free to declare their love, to openly go on dates, and to acknowledge the relationship to everyone else- I was not able to be open. I wasn't able to talk about my relationships. I was expected to hide a part of myself from all of my friends and family.
And because the people I was with were ashamed, I was ashamed.
But the weird thing was, many people knew about these secretive relationships anyway. I, of course, told a few people. These people told a few people. Other people just put two and two together. And so on.
And many people simply did not care.
Sure, there were bigots and assholes. But I didn't care about their opinions. Those people weren't my friends or anyone I cared about.
So what I know now, and what I'd tell any young person struggling to come out, is this:
1) Oftentimes, everybody important in your life already knows, at some level, that you are gay.
Coming out is a mere formality to confirm suspicions.
2) If people in your life know you and like you (or love you) already, your gayness will often not change these feelings.
True, there are horror stories of parents disowning their children, and of friends never speaking again. There will probably be a period of time where the person you come out to will have to "digest" your gayness..... but many times your friends and family will not abandon you.
3) Contrary to popular myth, lesbians don't recruit. I tried and tried to get recruited, but it just didn't happen.
In sum, everyone's experience is different. So I want to refrain from making too many generalizations.
Looking back, I have regrets. Most of my regrets are around fear- my fear or someone else's fear that I let control my happiness. Looking back, I know that I can never be with someone again who would insist on hiding our relationship. I learned that a long time ago.
I realize that many people see "open gays" as being in-your-face. But whenever I was made to deny the existence of a relationship to the world, it made that relationship less real.
It made me less real.
Shame on anyone who makes you feel like that.
Unlike many people, I suppose, I did not have a lot of trouble with the whole "being gay" bit. I started getting inklings of being gay sometime around junior high, when other girls were becoming more interested in boys. I just wanted to keep hanging out with my girl friends, playing sports, and playing outside with my boy friends.
(Oh wait, there was that whole innocent crush thing on my babysitter when I was 5. Is that weird?)
Anyway.... I managed to make it through high school without ever having a real boyfriend (or girlfriend). I didn't really want either one- as I wasn't too interested in boys, and wasn't quite ready to admit to being a full-out lezzy. I concerned myself instead with the multitude of sports I played (I know), getting good grades, and
Flash forward to college. As I met real live lesbians, I remembered "that thing" that I had pushed to the back of my mind. Now that I was starting to know lesbians, I was trying to create some sort of safe space to explore this issue further. And by that I mean, like Jane Know, I tried to befriend known lesbians, hoped they would notice me as being one of their own, and then take me into their cool lesbian cocoon and help me emerge a proud lesbian butterfly.
(I carried that too far, didn't I?)
Well, that passive little plan didn't work out as planned. The known lesbians didn't really notice me, or didn't pick up on my gayness. Instead, I learned how to be gay on my own. Or, rather, with a few other close friends who were all coming out in our own ways.
I never had a big internal struggle about being gay. Rather, I accepted it as something that had always been a part of me, and always would be. I was neither particularly ashamed or proud of who I was.
In life, my first real romantic relationships were with women. And, while I was okay with being gay, the people with whom I was involved during my college years were not. Fear, I learned, led to dysfunction. And when things did not work out, I immediately villanized these people for being "too scared," for being mean to me as a "cover," and for letting their fear of being exposed make their life and my life miserable. Fear, of course, is always a wonderful additional to any relationship.
But seriously, looking back with much hindsight, I can see that fear, stemming from societal sexual prejudice, bore much blame for my romantic angst. Where most heterosexual young couples are free to declare their love, to openly go on dates, and to acknowledge the relationship to everyone else- I was not able to be open. I wasn't able to talk about my relationships. I was expected to hide a part of myself from all of my friends and family.
And because the people I was with were ashamed, I was ashamed.
But the weird thing was, many people knew about these secretive relationships anyway. I, of course, told a few people. These people told a few people. Other people just put two and two together. And so on.
And many people simply did not care.
Sure, there were bigots and assholes. But I didn't care about their opinions. Those people weren't my friends or anyone I cared about.
So what I know now, and what I'd tell any young person struggling to come out, is this:
1) Oftentimes, everybody important in your life already knows, at some level, that you are gay.
Coming out is a mere formality to confirm suspicions.
2) If people in your life know you and like you (or love you) already, your gayness will often not change these feelings.
True, there are horror stories of parents disowning their children, and of friends never speaking again. There will probably be a period of time where the person you come out to will have to "digest" your gayness..... but many times your friends and family will not abandon you.
3) Contrary to popular myth, lesbians don't recruit. I tried and tried to get recruited, but it just didn't happen.
In sum, everyone's experience is different. So I want to refrain from making too many generalizations.
Looking back, I have regrets. Most of my regrets are around fear- my fear or someone else's fear that I let control my happiness. Looking back, I know that I can never be with someone again who would insist on hiding our relationship. I learned that a long time ago.
I realize that many people see "open gays" as being in-your-face. But whenever I was made to deny the existence of a relationship to the world, it made that relationship less real.
It made me less real.
Shame on anyone who makes you feel like that.
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