“You Coming Out or What?”

As I held open the backdoor Monday night, and Chance bounded out into the darkness in search of squirrels, I called out to the front of the house: “Mabel, you coming out or what?” And I immediately started laughing at myself.

Here’s why: I tried to write this post multiple times that day and abandoned five different versions. It kept getting too long; I kept telling you too much; I kept trying to fit too many important issues and difficult stories and explanations  into one post. I had decided to scrap the whole attempt and devote the rest of my night to work when I was standing there at the backdoor, one foot in the kitchen, one on the back stoop, calling out to Mabel with a question better suited for the human of the house. So I tried to write it yet again that night. And failed again. So here we are days later. I’ll probably fail at not saying too much and at coherence. But here goes.

I am—and I identify as—many things. I am a vegan and an advocate for animal rights and social justice. I am an environmentalist, a feminist, and a left-of-left progressive. I am a daughter, a sister, a granddaughter, and a dog-pack leader. I am an introvert and a wordsmith and sometimes a family historian. I am someone who finds heightened blood pressure in churches, where she as a child felt at home, and wonder in nature, where she still feels at home. And I am gay.

For many of you, this is, I hope, not news. Although I haven’t written specifically or in depth about this part of my identity in the last couple years, I do not hide it either. I don’t play the pronoun game, online or off, and I’m more than open in most one-on-one interactions. Generally, I treat my sexual identity as a non-issue these days; it’s not the biggest part of who I am, and for various reasons, including where and how and with whom I spend my time, it’s not something I have to think about every day anymore. But if you weren’t sure, or you didn’t want to ask, well, now you know. I’m gay. (Probably bisexual technically. But mostly gay. Topic for another day, topic for another day.)

And I am finally outing myself more formally than I have in the past not because this past Monday was Coming Out Day, and not because of the tragedies continuing to result from the bullying and taunting of gay kids, and not because of my fury over what teachers and politicians and others in a loud position of influence over kids (and adults) can still get by with saying and doing, and not because of my frustration with most LGBT folks’ stance (or non-stance) on animal rights, and not because of my anger at the failure in some AR circles to call out (and weed out) sexism and heterosexism and homophobia. I am doing it now for all these reasons—my life and schedule are currently complicated, but if I can ever get myself together and return to regular writing here, these are matters I want to talk about more openly.

But today, in the spirit of this week’s National Coming Out Day and the ongoing “It Gets Better” efforts, I will just tell an abbreviated version of my long story: I was 20 the first time I rather unexpectedly fell in love with a woman. That I didn’t see it coming, that she was notably older, that I come from a deeply religious, conservative, small-town rural family, and that we had to keep the relationship mostly private because of some atypical circumstances made the revelation and relationship life-upending. I had to make choices no one should have to make. I had to justify what I shouldn’t have had to justify. Although a handful of friends whom I was able to tell were loving and supportive, I also ultimately lost several friends. I for a time felt like I’d lost my family too, or at least any hope of real relationships with them. And I cried more than any of us should have to cry over an experience that should have been nothing but happy. There was indeed much love and joy, gobs of it, but there were other countless harsh experiences—with family, with friends, with complete strangers, and in the work environment with bosses—during the one-year relationship and in the years beyond it that were excruciating, devastating, disillusioning.

However, looking back, I realize that in those early stages of figuring myself out, I was lucky in at least three ways: (1) I had already dispossessed myself of the religious beliefs ingrained in me since toddlerhood, and I was already nonjudgmental about whom others were drawn to, so I didn’t have to deal with that sort of self-hatred in addition to dealing with others’ hatred and ignorance—terrifying, all-consuming confusion and uncertainty, yes, but self-hatred regarding my sexuality, no. (2) I wasn’t in my parents’ home, in that small conservative town. I didn’t have to be a gay teenager (or a non-labeled teenager in a same-sex relationship, which is where I actually stood at the time), trying to navigate my way each day through home, school, and church atmospheres full of ignorance, fear, and hate. And my family didn’t have the power they in earlier years would have had to influence my view of myself or put me into “reparative therapy,” which almost certainly would have happened had I still been a teen (not out of hate but out of, from their perspective, love and fear, literal fear for my soul). Did my family still matter to me; did I still try to spend time with them; was I still partially dependent on them; and were there repercussions, sometimes frightening ones? Yes. But I never had to live there again. (3) That unexpected relationship that changed everything was fraught with complications and pain, for both of us, but it was also deep and beautiful and mature. There was no question about the realness of it, about the emotional intimacy that defined it. Both of us were okay with who we were (or were becoming), and neither was battling self-hatred for loving another woman, and I thus knew from the very start of my coming out what was possible, as possible in same-sex relationships as in hetero relationships.

I can only imagine how much more painful it all would have been if I hadn’t been lucky in those ways—if I’d been trapped in my parents’ home, in my high school, in my hometown, in my church; if I’d figured it out alone, rather than in concert with falling in love with someone who was also in love with me; if I’d still been immersed in a religion whose outspoken conservative leaders and members called me an abomination. Words I’ve had to hear over the years from even beloved family and friends, some of whom have known who I am and some of whom haven’t, have already cut deep and hit hard; when words and reactions can hurt and infuriate so much when you know there’s no validity to them and when you have to hear them only sporadically, how much more must those hateful words and reactions devastate when you are surrounded by them constantly and when you aren’t sure yet that they aren’t true, and you don’t know anyone else like you, and you are vulnerable to your own and others’ religious interpretations?

Like so many others across this country and beyond, I have cried so much—so much—in recent weeks as the stories of LGBT kids’ suicides and of violence against LGBT people have played out in the news. It is all so horrendous. It is all so preventable. It is all such a result of ignorance and hate that too many spew and that too many others in addition tolerate and ignore rather than challenge. I have more to say on this particular topic; this will be its own subsequent post.

For me, as for many of us, things did change; things are changing. I don’t find love often or easily, but years after that first relationship ended, I did get lucky again. And though my parents were not initially supportive when Brandi and I fell in love and I moved in with her—though there were again tears and harsh words and lines drawn—my siblings were suppportive immediately, and this time with my parents, over time, things changed dramatically; gaps narrowed, and hearts opened wide. My now-ex’s background was rural and conservative too, and acceptance and understanding had similarly been a process for her family in the years after she came out to them. But they welcomed me from the beginning. Things weren’t exactly as they would have been had we been a straight couple, but there was understanding and comfort and affection from the start; they were loving with and accepting of me; we were a family. And soon, Brandi was a part of my family too. By the end, my mother was enveloping her in heartfelt hugs, my dad was teasing her like he would anyone else in the family, my sisters and brother were spending time with us and in our home comfortably (as they lovingly did from the beginning), and my parents were sending her birthday cards and putting both our names on holiday gifts. The grandparents who knew who we were to each other eagerly welcomed her (they were immediately, wonderfully supportive), and the ones who didn’t already loved her without knowing. We had progress still to make, but we were on track. So much had changed.

But even if my parents hadn’t started shifting, and even if they don’t keep shifting, I would have been and will be okay. And I think it’s important for young people coming out to hear that too. Many families and friends are supportive immediately or almost immediately, once they’ve processed a loved one’s coming out. Many or maybe most families who are initially hateful and/or ignorant come around in time. But that isn’t universally true, even if it should be, even if I hope it someday is. And so it’s important to emphasize that we can create our own families too, that if bigotry and hatefulness and hurtfulness define your relationships with blood relatives, you don’t have to continue those relationships. And it’s okay to make loving friends and community your family. It is so much better if the families we’ve always known accept us, but if we can accept ourselves, we can still be okay even without them.

Eight and a half years after falling in love with a woman for the first time, and at a point where I’m fairly open and nonchalant about who I am, I still end up in interactions that stun me, that anger me, that make me cry. I still have to decide in various situations how to respond to something ignorant or hateful. I still have to consider how much to reveal about myself in certain moments; I still have to consider how others’ prejudices could impact goals I’m trying to accomplish. And there is still one coming-out conversation I need to have.

But it is better. It does get better. Self-understanding improves. Community can be created. Love can be found. Attitudes can change. And the world is changing, even if it needs to pick up the pace, even if there are sometimes setbacks.

I’m not currently among those who can tell a personal story of a happy life come together with time and patience. As some reading this know, I’m going through a hard time personally. But those (i.e., the bigoted far-right) who would blame my depression and struggles on my being gay are ignorant, hateful fools. Over the last 8 1/2 years, I’ve been in love with two women, completely, deeply, and without reservation both times, and—take note, bigots—my gayest moments, the moments when I’ve been able to hold someone’s hand and look up at her and feel overwhelmed by the love shared, have been my life’s happiest moments.

I’m gay. And I’m more than okay with that. And more and more every year, so is my family. And more and more every year, so is the world. It gets better.

Links:

• The Trevor Project
• It Gets Better Project
• Bullies Suck t-shirt (thanks, Hooten)
• Soulforce