Lez Keep It Real

This week’s Come & Out Play post centers on the difficulties and preparedness surrounding the “coming out” conversation.

The hardest part about coming out, I believe, is admitting that you are gay to yourself. After having that conversation with yourself, you’ll be able to transition into a place where you can feel confident in having that same conversation with others. Actually getting the words out of the caverns of your throat, off your sticky dry tongue and into the ears of others, well … that’s the second hardest part.

After you feel as though you are in a healthy place (emotionally and mentally) with your sexuality, you can begin to sift through your list of family and friends that you would like to talk to about being gay. Sometimes, it’s a matter of whom you feel most comfortable with and whom you think would respond in the most positive way. Other times, it’s a matter of who you feel you have to tell because you just don’t want to keep it from them any longer and feel as though you are hiding a piece of yourself from them.

The first person you choose to come out to is extremely important, because their reaction will set a sort of tone for your coming out journey. A poor reaction might convince you to refrain from telling others while a positive reaction might do the opposite and send you straight up to the roof tops armed with a megaphone and a short, concise monologue about your freedom ride out of the dreadful closet! Either way, try not to let others affect your decision to come out. You made the decision yourself; their reaction isn’t a reflection of you. It’s a direct reflection of them and their own inner feelings.

The first person I decided to tell, believe it or not, was my grandmother. She’s an extremely loving woman who is pushing 95 years young. I’m amazed at her every day because she is still so active and healthy. I can only reason that she’s lived so long because she acts from a place of unconditional love. I told her in a letter because, for me, it is the best way I know how to communicate. Her reaction was simply, “I always knew. And I love you still.” I wrote a column about this actually, it’s my favorite column that I have ever written. You can read it here.

After I moved back home from Boston to Buffalo back in 2002, I knew that I had to tell my parents next because I was going to be living with them and because I had never kept anything so deep and personal from them in my whole life. I was home for an entire month before I told them and every day I was in agony. It was the first thing I thought of when I woke up and the last thing I thought of when I went to bed. I had the whole conversation planned out in my head and replayed it a billion and one times over. I had a book called, Different Daughters for my mother to read because I feared she would have the hardest time with it. I thought some literature from other mothers might help her relate and indentify her feelings.

On a cool October night during dinner in our makeshift patio that was the garage (my father transformed it into a dining area in the summer so we could eat outside), my mother made an offhanded comment about how I seemed depressed lately. She asked a few questions and pressed the issue. After saying, “No, it’s not that” more than a couple of times, I finally said, “I have something to tell you.” Once I said those words, there was no going back. I said everything I had planned to say and more. Then, I let them speak. Their initial reactions were what I had anticipated. My mother cried, my father put on a game face and pretended to be OK. After it sunk in, things shifted. With the help of the book, my mother gained a better understanding of homosexuality and her entire outlook changed. She actually began to think that having a gay daughter was, dare I say, cool! My father had a harder time with it because of his strong religious and conservative convictions, what I told him challenged his entire worldview. But, just as I needed time and space to accept my sexuality myself, he needed the same consideration. And when he was ready, we were able to have more of a dialogue about it. As of today, my being gay is a non issue.

If you are getting ready to have your own conversation with friends and/or family, Human Rights Campaign.org has some great tips to aid you in this overwhleming task.

Some of their advice is as follows:

It’s normal to want or hope for positive reactions from the people you tell, including:

• Acceptance
• Support
• Understanding
• Comfort
• Reassurance that your relationship won’t be negatively affected
• Confidence that your relationship will be closer
• Acknowledgment of your feelings
• Love

All or some of these positive reactions can result from your coming out conversation, but they may not happen immediately. Putting yourself in the other person’s shoes may also be helpful.

Give the person you’re telling the time they need. It may also be helpful to remember that the person you’re really doing this for is you. When you’re ready to tell someone, consider starting with the person most likely to be supportive. This might be a friend, relative or teacher. Maybe you will tell this person that you are gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender. Maybe you will simply say that you have questions about your sexual orientation or gender identity.

Again, there is no right or wrong way to do this. You are the expert in knowing what’s best for yourself and what you are feeling. When you are ready, here are a couple of things to keep in mind:

• Find a relaxed, private place to have the conversation, and allow adequate time.
• People will usually take their cues from you in how to approach this — so be open and honest and say that it’s okay to ask questions. Appropriate and gentle humor can go a long way to easing anxiety for both you and the person you are speaking with.

READ MORE

The coming out conversation can be a daunting thing, but once you get over the initial fear and anxiety, once you get the words out and once you find yourself engaging in a dialogue with the person or people you are telling, you experience a feeling so free and liberating that I can’t even begin to describe it with words. I remember the feeling exactly, regardless of my parents’ or grandmother’s reaction. And I remember sighing to myself and thinking, “Well … it’s out. And so am I.”

Tune in every Friday for the Come Out & Play series, featuring coming out stories of celebrities, every day people, personal reflections, advice, tid bits and everything else concerning the complicated world of coming out!

Got an interesting coming out story to tell? Contact me and I will feature it in an upcoming post of Come Out & Play.