Hi everyone,
I know it's been a while since I wrote on this but today I was inspired to share something. I am a big fan of B. Scott and recently he (or she, it really makes no difference) posted a video about his coming out story. It was very moving because there was fun and drama, and if you know me fun and drama rock my world. I began to think about my own "coming out" story and was saddened that there was no drama. But then, I thought about it some more and my angst was calmed.
I always knew I was different. When I was younger, I drew pictures of myself as a girl in a graduation gown. I was quickly corrected by my family members of my gender, and really thought nothing of it from then on. Because kids have an innate foresight they lose as they are socialized, they picked up on this and I was teased. Because I wanted to fit in, I denied being gay to no ends - even though I didn't like my peers, knew nothing of the greatness to come, and really didn't give a flying you know what about others' thoughts of me. It wasn't until I went to The Northwest School (NWS) that I truly felt comfortable with who I was and my talents came through, which is highly ironic because being in a predominantly white space is the LAST place I expected this to happen.
I came out, if you want to say that, to my mother when I was 19. It was three days after I found out Swarthmore asked me to leave for a semester. I took her onto the porch of our house and told her "I'm bisexual", which was complete lie, but I thought that at least by being bisexual there would be some normalcy in telling her I wasn't completely straight. There was no screaming, no yelling, no "I'm so disappointed"... in conclusion, no drama. While I was relieved, I was sort of on edge because I was already in the hole for fucking up my freshman, adding on this news wouldn't make it any better right... boy was I wrong. My mother, as she does with everything, took it in stride.
Over the years, and after watching that video and reading the other various coming out stories, I thought about how "coming out" involves privilege - privilege in the sense that while you know this isn't the news your family wants to hear, you still have that safety net after the fact. Most people of color who come out lose that safety net of family and have to reconnect with people other ways, i.e. "Paris is Burning" (it's a movie, check it out). Mind you not all of my family knows, and I don't really care if they do, but my immediate family didn't turn their backs. I wonder if had I not been in predominantly white settings would I still feel privileged enough to "come out"? If my family was more religious, would I have still come out? The more I think about it, the more I say fuck it. If you don't figure it out in the first five minutes you know me, it's not worth broadcasting to you. It's who I am, and that's that.
Here's the video if you're interested:
