Coming Out

It’s finally June! For us, that means it’s Pride month. What Pride celebration would be complete without a coming out story? In my case, it’s a story in three parts.

High School

Like the majority of students, high school was a difficult time. To paint a very monochromatic picture, my school was 100% white in the deep south. Diversity was not only absent, but could be outright dangerous. Nary a week went by where the F-bomb (sometimes paired with the other F-bomb) wasn’t lobbed my way.

After my attempts to pray the gay away failed, my theatre teacher, Mrs. Black, was the first to know for sure. The irony of that is not lost on me. She could tell that something was wrong one day in particular and she pulled me aside after class. “What’s going on?”

I sighed, defeated. “Well, I’m gay and I think my mom may have found out.” You see, my mother had caught me using the laptop to talk to an online friend, also gay.

She grew serious, knowing exactly what could happen. She told me to pack a bag as soon as I got home and toss it out my bedroom window, just in case I needed to run.

Luckily, that wasn’t my fate that day. Despite the seriousness of the situation, I felt lighter having finally told someone in my life the truth. A tiny piece of the world was off my shoulder and I knew it was time to release more of the weight. A few weeks later, I gathered up the courage and three of my best friends. “I’m gay.”

I was met with a blank stare, a grin, and a laugh: three very different ways of saying “We already know.” I wanted to be out of the closet and I wanted it to be as easy as possible. So I told them to tell everyone else. With such a small school, it didn’t take long.

A special shoutout here to Mr. Byron, my chemistry teacher. He caught me passing a note confirming the rumors to one of my new friends. The rule in his class was that if he caught us passing notes, he would read them aloud to the class. But after reading the note, he emptied a trashcan and set the note on fire inside.

As word spread to everyone, the strangest thing happened. To this day, I blame it on the lack of and aversion to diversity. A new rumor was started about me: that I was pretending to be gay to get close to girls. I didn’t care. I felt lighter, better, and the truth was there for anyone who wanted it.

Mother

Telling my mother was a beast of a whole other nature. My classmates had long been doing the worst they would to me. I didn’t know how she would react. I found out later that my online interaction that started this snowball was immediately closed when she confiscated the laptop. Despite having asked me no less that six times in the past few years if I was gay, it seemed she really didn’t want to know. But with things being so much better at school, I was ready to start living my life.

Late at night when I was 16, my mother and I were watching Days of Our Lives (I know! All the signs were there, really). During the show, I amped my self up to just blurt it out. While she fast forwarded through the commercials, I chickened out. It was the third break when I finally managed to say the words.

She stopped the show. “I think you’re too young to be making these kinds of decisions. You know that it’s morally wrong. You know what the bible says about it.” She turned her back to me, walked to her bedroom, and closed the door. To this day, I can still hear the lock clicking into place.

For a week, I barely saw her. When I came in from school, she went straight to her bedroom and shut the door. Then something changed. One day, she came out of her room, did a quick spin, and asked what I thought of her new top. I’ve never been a fashion gay and some would be offended by the stereotyping, but we were talking and she was trying. It was a step in the right direction.

I left home shortly after, the exact circumstances still debatable. It took several years, but we’re in a good place now. We don’t directly talk about some things, but she’s met my former relationships with no obvious judgment.

Father

The story of my father is a bit more complex. I stopped seeing my father when I was 9 years old for reasons that I’m still not absolutely certain of. My parents were never married. I feel like we all lived together briefly, but I’m not entirely sure if that’s true. After moving in with a friend at his parent’s house, I managed to track him down to try to build a relationship with him.

A few months later, I was no longer welcome to stay with my friend. The conversion therapy they put me through was a colossal failure, so I was on my own. They put all my things into garbage bags, let me call my father (whom I’d only known for about 3 months at this point), and drove me into town to meet him in the middle of the night.

After putting the garbage bags into my dad’s trunk, my friend’s mother said, “He’s a smart boy. Don’t let him drop out of school.” She climbed into her truck and drove away.

My father got me into the car, pulled out of McDonald’s, and pulled into a gas station. After a quick trip inside the store and back, he turned in his seat to face me. “If I’m going to take you to my house, I need to know exactly what happened.”

I took a deep breath. “I’m gay and conversion therapy didn’t work and they kicked me out because they’re afraid I would try to turn my friend.” I waited hours for him to respond. Or maybe it was only a few seconds.

He sighed. “Well, son, it looks like you and I have the same problems.” He reversed out of the parking lot and we drove home.

I’ve been incredibly lucky in my life. In a time and place where violence was extreme (and still is), it was limited for me. Things eventually worked out with my mother. My father responded to my coming out by coming out to me. It gets so much better and there are help and resources out there if it doesn’t. The weight of hiding being gay is no longer pressing down on me.

Now it’s just the weight of adulting.