a banal and complex essay on coming out
If the advent of my queerness and I were in a relationship, the status would squarely be that “it’s complicated.” The non-conformist in me quite frankly feels a bit square even when I say I have a coming out tale to tell. But, when in a capitalist, patriarchal hell, do as the other hellions do…
The hallmark version of my coming out of the closet is that at the tender age of 27, I woke up one day and realized that my preferences in a partner are far more expansive than I previously realized. I cared more about a person’s character and personality than their gender. Then, I started spewing rainbows and lived happily ever after (is it a faux pas to lol in your own essay?). The truth, like all things, is more complex.
Like many young Americans privileged enough to have a cable box, I discovered porn at a young age, around 7 or 8, and far before my teachers or parents gave me the infamous birds and the bees talk. I didn’t get what I was watching, but I knew it elicited feelings in me that I had never felt before. I also instinctively knew that I wasn’t supposed to be watching this, and if I told my parents, I would get in trouble. But that did not stop me from watching porn whenever it was on TV.
Fast forward to when I was around 10, and one day out of the blue my mom confronted me after school and asked if I was buying porn on TV (no, it was all free) and if I was gay (?). While I had classmates with gay parents, and family friends and relatives who I guessed were gay, I didn’t fully understand what it meant to be gay. I hadn’t thought about the lives of my friend’s parents or family friends other than their relationship to me. But I remember my Mom being angry at me, so I assumed it wasn’t a good thing to either watch porn or be gay.
So, I put my sexuality in a box labeled ‘do not touch’ but Pandora had other plans. I still dated and did the other dumb shit straight, heterosexual people do in their teens and twenties, but these feelings that my desire was more expansive than I was allowing myself would creep back up in my most private and solitary moments. It felt so otherworldly that I honestly believed these feelings were not real until a fateful drive back from Brooklyn to my parents’ house in Ohio in the summer of 2020.
It was Saturday, July 18th and I was somewhere in the middle of Pennsylvania probably bumping Beyonce when it hit me like a wave that I was not straight. I wish I could remember what I was thinking about before, or how exactly I got to this startling realization. But I know I was incredibly tired from living through March – June 2020 and think that in that emotional burnout I did not have the energy to keep the box where I had put my sexuality years ago closed any longer. Because my moon is in cancer, I naturally started crying because it felt like after nearly three decades of living in this body, I was finally getting to know my truest self.
Like the good zillenial I am, I first decided to share this news with my therapist. Her genuine enthusiasm for me, and reiteration that I didn’t owe this news to anyone, was such a balm in these unchartered waters. Next, I told two of my besties who are also gay. While I can’t recall their exact reaction, I remember just feeling like our little coven was complete.
Despite being very close with my parents and siblings, I didn’t end up sharing my queerness with them until about a year later. While I was partially afraid of their reaction, I also wanted to try on these new clothes without having to manage their feelings. I ultimately told them over email and decided to include in this note that I had tattoos because I was very much in a band aid ripping mood. While the medium felt like a slight cop out, as a writer it just felt like the most comfortable thing to do. And I also love having a record of my exact verbiage: “I have come to the recent realization that I’m queer. Gender is not a determinative factor in my attraction, and I am more interested in a person’s personality. I also just reject heteronormativity in its entirety, so this definition feels very liberating and fitting. This isn’t some long repressed sentiment, more a rather unexpected evolution of preference.”
I sometimes argue with myself if my queerness was repressed or not. I (currently) stand by that it wasn’t – but what was repressed was any notion that my sexuality was this sentient part of my being that could grow and change instead of living a static, set box prescribed by others. Finding my queerness has been a portal that has led me to find the divinity within me.
To my personal chagrin, since coming out to my loved ones I have still only primarily dated cis-het men (lol again!) I’ve finally let myself play with all the colors of the rainbow only to realize I prefer the marker I’ve always had. I worry that this may be some latent, internalized homophobia, but I am trying to give myself grace to just live and fuck who I want.
