Sunday, October 5, 2008
For everyone, the act of discovery constitutes a lifelong process. For those of us in the gay community, coming out is not only a constant discovery—of oneself and the people around us—but the epitome of an ongoing experience. In celebration of National Coming Out Day on October 11, we’ve culled together the coming out stories of your fellow Santa Barbarans and hope that in reading them you will discover more about yourself and the human experience. —Penny Patterson
“Okay, so when are we having veggie pot pie?” my friend asked after I came out to her. I had just started that never-ending process, so I wasn’t sure how that reaction was on the scale—was it good because it wasn’t a big deal, or was it bad because she didn’t treat it with enough respect? I wasn’t sure. As I continue to come out, I have realized just what an amazing response it was.
In retrospect, my first coming out was the one with the worst reaction. My friend, who continues to be my best friend and is always putting his foot in his mouth, asked, “Are you sure?” And continued with the gem, “I don’t want to ride my bike in front of you because you’ll be checking out my butt.” But I just laughed, as did he. Our day continued in the joking manner that encompasses our friendship.
My coming out process began as a junior at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo. Most of my friends readily accepted, and I must note that a number of them were (and continue to be) conservative Christians. They all accepted me, and, with the exception of my tendency to over-share, they are supportive of my sexuality.
My coming out story wouldn’t be complete without talking about my parents. I am one of the lucky ones. By “ones” I mean the gays, and by “lucky” I mean I have received the respect and support that we all deserve as human beings (straight, gay, bi, and transsexual) from both my friends and family. My parents were supportive when I came out and mentioned that it was something they “had talked about as a possibility.” There was never a moment of shock, disbelief, or misunderstanding. They accepted it, and just wanted me to be happy. There are occasional times when they don’t understand some of the alienation I feel in society, but I guess that goes with the territory with any parents, doesn’t it?
As I look toward my future, I worry about reactions I will have as I start my career and eventually move away from the town in which I grew up. But I will continue to hope for those veggie pot pie reactions that remind me how normal we gays are. —York, 24
Coming out doesn’t have a single meaning or even a typical progression of events. For straights, there are rituals and milestones like a first date, senior prom, etc., that mark one’s confirmation as a heterosexual. No such roadmap for gays! On the contrary, gay kids realize when they view those rituals that they are different from most of their peers—a realization that for some has been painful.
For me, the first step was coming out to myself. As an adolescent, when I saw Victor nude in the boys’ locker room in junior high school, I thought he was beautiful in a special and memorable way. So I realized not only a moment of sexual attraction, but I also knew that same-sex attraction made one part of a lifelong preoccupation and was not a momentary experience. This pair of realizations constituted coming out to myself. And, of course, at that time, I told nobody. Kids aren’t stupid.
Coming out to other people is a quite different process. To whom does one admit the discovery of one’s sexual identity? Sixty years ago, this was a charged experience because somehow one knew that reactions would be negative—parental disapproval, losing a good friend (both of which happened to me). And, in 1956, when I took a job as a professor, I didn’t admit being gay because if I had, I never would have been given the job.
Twenty years later, I was on a field trip bus, and the male student sitting next to me asked if I had had any trouble with Dr. Benson (the department’s chairman) because I was gay. Surprised, I suddenly realized that gossipy students had the entire faculty’s sexual preferences figured out, and so I had nothing to hide from them—or the staff. Colleges are gay-friendly places, so being openly gay there was easy—compared to other situations in those days. There were still jitters—when someone looked at me, I knew they probably thought I was gay, and that I was being viewed in that context.
The emotional feelings related to coming out to oneself and to others don’t proceed smoothly, but one can’t go backward. I always liked the idea of a gay identity, so I never had any doubt that completing the coming out process was the right thing for me to do. —Sherwin, 78
For me, coming out was and still is a process. I’ve been doing it for more than 40 years. I was 16 when I came out to myself. I was sure I was the only girl who felt “that way”… well, except for my girlfriend. She was older and ultimately broke my heart. I dated boys, too, and always said to myself, “Is that all there is? Aren’t I supposed to feel something more?” I never felt the emotional attachment with males. Women, on the other hand, were intriguing, exciting, interesting, and they smelled good.
My second big coming out was to my family, with mixed reviews. My mom had a hard time. She took a few years to accept who I was. When I told my elderly father, he asked, “Honey, are you happy?” When I said yes, he responded with, “That’s all I care about.”
My coming out process continued with workmates and friends. Most of the time there was little or no adverse response. As I have aged, coming out has gotten easier. It’s not that I don’t care what other people think, but I don’t really. I know the person I have become and I like myself.
I was born a lesbian. Being gay or lesbian is not a choice, and, like old age, is not for weaklings. Those who think it is a choice need to ask themselves if they chose to be straight.
I have been in a loving relationship with my partner, Suzy, for almost 28 years. Our goal is 50 years. I think we are going to make it. —Betsy, 59
Having grown up feeling different from everybody for all kinds of reasons—both real and imagined—the last thing I wanted to be was gay. I could barely even say the word “lesbian” without cringing. Getting honest with myself about being gay was the most significant and most difficult of my coming out experiences.
Growing up in Santa Barbara in the ’70s, I didn’t know much about being gay, but I did know it was bad. By the early ’80s, I knew deep down I was gay but I kept it buried. I didn’t know any (out) gay people, and there were no “role models” in the culture. In high school, I tried really hard to fit in and pretend that I was interested in boys, not girls. I latched on to a few different guys, tried to flirt and act “straight,” drank a lot, and had a lot of bad sex with guys. Of course, none of it helped. I became infatuated with one woman after another, and finally couldn’t stand how painful it felt to keep these feelings bottled up. I began to allow myself to question my sexual orientation, and then began to consider that there wasn’t any question. Still, I was 22 before I fully admitted to myself that I am a lesbian. That began the process of coming out to family and friends, which was, ironically, easier than coming out to myself.
All those early coming out experiences felt like such a momentous thing, and I felt like once I got through it I could then just go on and live my life. However, the ironic thing here is that most of us never get to stop coming out. Being myself in the world requires a seemingly endless process of clarification and outing. Heterosexuality is the default assumption for most people when they interact with someone, so when the assumptions get made or the questions start, I have to trot out the feminine pronouns and key terms. And even though today, in Santa Barbara, people tend to be fairly accepting, it can still be scary to come out to one more person whose preconceptions might dispose them to feel fear or hostility in response to me.
Hopefully, the more lesbians and gay men who continue to come out and be out, the less fear or hostility we’ll meet as we go along, living our lives honestly. —Bonnie, 45
I think my coming out experience is similar to a lot of other gay men growing up in the 1970s in L.A. When I was about 13 years old, I met a guy in his thirties in some random place and we fooled around. I immediately knew that I liked the experience. Then, about a year later, I connected with the same guy again and we carried on having sex for about another year. This continued until he was sent to prison for messing around with another 13-year-old. I felt badly for him—I didn’t think it was wrong. He and I both knew what we were doing and it wasn’t a bad experience; it was a good experience for me.
When I was about 14 years old, I had both a physically and emotionally painful experience with another older guy who was living at my apartment complex. This turned into a Melrose Place-type drama with daily cat fights around the pool until my mom and I finally were evicted. To this day, I’m not sure my mom knew the real reason for us getting evicted was the apartment complex gossip about me and the guy that I was being sexual with.
When I was 15, I had a boyfriend who was 30. I told my mom he was a friend from school. He and I were busted for drugs, finally, and everything came out in the open. My mom blamed herself and sent me to a therapist to fix me. This led to a lot of tension in our home. I'm still not sure my family fully accepts my lifestyle.
When I was 18 years old, I had quite a number of sexual experiences with all the gay guys in Laguna Beach. I think because I was in search of a father figure, I always was attracted to guys who were older.
My twenties were very fast-moving. I fell into the gay adult porn industry and made money at it. I starred in a dozen films, and got involved in lots of drugs and sex. I became HIV positive during these years—the 1980s. There was a lot of self-destructive behavior in my life during that time. As I moved into the 1990s, I realized that wasn’t working for me and I began a new chapter as a gay man, coming out in a whole different way with myself and my life. Now, after 20-plus years of living with HIV and at 50 years old, I am what they call a long-term survivor. My life is about advocating for people with HIV/AIDS and having a clear mind and spirit as I move through my life now, sharing my story. —Cliff, 54
There I stood, wearing a skirt, three years old, and caught in the headlights of what was an oncoming "closet." I really was just being the girl I believed I was, but it ended up being an unintentional out-fest when my mom caught me dressing up. My “closet” really hadn’t been properly built; after all, three-year-olds have not yet been cursed with those blueprints. Nevertheless, during the course of the next few decades, the brick and mortar of my closet was built and eventually it was strong enough to keep a dinosaur locked up and out of sight (not that I consider myself a dinosaur). Being transgender, specifically transsexual, has been a lifetime experience: descending into darkness, hitting bottom, scratching the surface of below bottom, and then climbing out alive; maybe not completely sane, but alive.
My transition out of the darkness began one day on a remote beach in Northern California, Big Lagoon Park to be exact. Sitting on a washed-up log, I looked out over a placid lagoon nestled in redwoods. When I turned, I saw a pounding Pacific Ocean biting down hard at the sharply rising sands of the beach. Caught between two earths, one turbulent and one calm, there could not have been a better place to have that benchmark moment when one realizes there is no future unless actions are taken to heal the grief and conflict inside; that pivotal moment when you know your fears are no longer keeping you safe, they are destroying you. You need to bridge two worlds that have been divided for too long. You know with certainty it is time to “come out.”
I was 26 on that day at the beach when I finally came out to myself. This was the first step: to acknowledge it, embrace it, and begin the journey. After quitting my senior year in college, I moved back to Santa Barbara where it was time to meet with the members of my family, all of whom accepted me. I tried my best to explain the lifelong hardship and the destiny I needed to fulfill. The absence of books and the Internet made the start of my journey difficult, but I found a handful of stories about successful gender reassignment.
It would take me 10 years of preparation before I could make the “second coming out”—the transition to full-time living as a woman. During these 10 years, I received care from doctors and therapists and embarked on hormone therapy. In the days leading to my actual transition date, I came out to my neighbors, landlord, bank, utility companies, several hundred coworkers, and my manager and the vice president of the company for whom I worked. I left notes under doors, called meetings together, and crossed my fingers as the day approached.
I came out of my door on a sunny winter day in January 2002 and went to work as my true self for the first time. Following the day of my transition, I came home as myself, bought groceries as myself, had car trouble, enjoyed dinner with friends—cherishing every single moment, good or bad, being a woman.
Given my circumstances, I consider myself relatively fortunate. Transgender stories are so diverse, and so many times the process is met with fatal violence.
When you are transgender, “being out” is not really something you need to hold onto or want to for that matter. Perhaps you just slip into the population and you are done with it all. I am a woman now with all the strength, intelligence, humor, creativity, and passion that a woman embodies in her heart. —Jess, 41
When you don't detour off the Heterosexual Highway until you're in your twenties and married, coming out isn't a huge issue. My wife, of course, was the first person I told after my best friend and I had taken "male bonding" to a whole other level after an evening of drunken debauchery in Larry’s hot tub. Larry, a married local police officer, felt very remorseful the next day, despite the fact that it had been he who initiated what eventually went down. He remains my best friend to this day, years after the hot tub bang-a-rama-thon. He knows that I'm attracted to guys but doesn't want to talk about it. We've never had a rematch, although we've come close a couple times. My wife, on the other hand, took the news that her husband was an admitted sodomite extremely well. But then, she's European, and Europeans just don't get all excited about things like that.
"Coming out" is unique to the individual. I'm selective in that I don't announce to everyone that I'm gay. Why should I? I have friends who know and friends who don't. I like to think I fly under the radar in that I'm not obviously gay on sight. Which means that when I do announce myself as gay—often during some anti-gay rant at a party or somewhere—it carries somewhat more shock value than if I were publicly out to everyone. But don't get me wrong—if someone were so obtuse as to come up and ask me if I were gay, I'd of course say that I was.
I realize what an agonizing process coming out can be, and to say I had it easy in that regard is a huge understatement. Some people lose their entire families after being courageous enough to come out. I lost the friendship of only two individuals in the years after coming out to them. No great loss, actually, since who wants to be friends with homophobes? —Sam, 58
Penny Patterson writes an online column about gay life in Santa Barbara called Gay Girl/Straight World. See independent.com/gaygirl for more.