Coming Out: That Lightbulb Moment

A note on language. This story about coming out is being told through the prism of memory. So the scenes that take place in the late ’80s and early ’90s contain some language that implies a gender-binary. We have allowed that language to stand to reflect the author’s understanding of the world in that era, while attempting to use more accurate and inclusive language for more recent episodes. -Ed.

Coming out is a queer rite of passage. It’s one of those shared, queer cultural experiences. And while there’s so much more to queer life than coming out stories, it’s something that you can often connect with other queer people about. The stories are as unique as the individuals, but the experience binds us together. 

Coming Out Doesn’t Just Happen Once

And it’s not like it’s something that happens just once. It’s a lifelong process-you do it again and again and again, with each new job, new friend, new home. Sometimes the stories stand out–the first person you come out to is yourself, but who is the first person after that? (I told a college friend–the one friend I had who I thought I might lose over coming out. I figured if I took that risk and it went badly, at least when I told friends, it could only improve.) And what about later on? There are friends I remember coming out to (like my friend Laura–I never feared losing her friendship over my queerness, but for a long time, I just could’t figure out how or when to mention it.)

And there are friends I have absolutely no recollection of telling at all, like Adam (my editor). In fact, neither of us has any memory of how it happened, but I do know that it was something that came up very shortly after we’d met each other. If I hadn’t been able to be honest about that with him from very early on, I also couldn’t have been open and vulnerable as a writer. And as a writing student, in order to follow the basic advice from everyone, “write what you know,”) and more specifically Adam’s advice, (“tell the stories only you can tell in the way that only you can tell them,”) I had to be able to be vulnerable like that.

I’ve come out many times, to many people over the years. To friends and family, to colleagues, to lovers and even to groups of strangers when I’ve been doing things like teaching LGBTQ 101 or doing other kinds of educational programming. 

“When Did you Know?”

One of the questions people often seem to ask queer people is “when did you know?” So many people I know say things like, “Well, I always knew,” or some variation of that, where they talk about knowing that they were “different,” or that they behaved differently or conformed to some cultural stereotypes we have about LGBTQ people–girls who played softball, boys whose friends were girls, or who hated sports. Most of the heterosexal people I know have never actually considered the question of how they knew or when they knew they were straight. (And if you’re curious, I highly recommend taking a look at “The Heterosexual Questionnaire.” It’s a bit outdated at this point, but it’s a little bit of light entertainment and introspection about the kinds of things people ask LGBTQ people…often without thinking.) 

The “Queer” Label

I overwhelmingly prefer the label “queer” for myself. It’s the one that’s felt most natural, most comfortable to me since I first came out back in the early 90s. It covers who I’m attracted to, it leaves room for whatever I might be feeling about gender on any given day, it gives space and honors things like relationship styles, too.

And back in the 90s, when I first came out, it was angry and transgressive. It matched my mood. My headspace. The way I was feeling about the world. But back then, many people were far less comfortable with the word queer. Even with groups like Queer Nation using it. Even with groups like ACT-UP and the Radical Faeries popping up as transgressive, countercultural activist groups. But there are times when I’ve needed another label. Another word. Sometimes it’s because the people I’m talking to aren’t comfortable with the word queer.

I overwhelmingly prefer the label “queer” for myself. It’s the one that’s felt most natural, most comfortable to me since I first came out back in the early 90s. It covers who I’m attracted to, it leaves room for whatever I might be feeling about gender on any given day, it gives space and honors things like relationship styles, too.
And back in the 90s, when I first came out, it was angry and transgressive. It matched my mood.

There are still LGBTQ people who feel uncomfortable using it–it’s got a long history as a slur. Sometimes it’s people outside the LGBTQ community who don’t understand why I want to use the word. And sometimes it’s just because I need to be much more specific about exactly who I’m into. And when that happens I tend to reach for the word “bisexual.” Because it’s a word most people can understand with little or no explanation. 

The “Bisexual” Label

Now when I do use “bisexual” as my label, I make sure to explain to people that I’m not necessarily talking about the gender binary that they’re often familiar with, with “Real Men” on one end and “Real Women” on the other. Because that’s just not the way gender works. I explain that when I say “bisexual,” I mean “people whose gender identity is similar to mine,” and “people whose gender identity is dissimilar to mine.” Truthfully… I have preferences (don’t we all?) but over my lifetime I’ve liked, loved and connected with people all over the gender map. And I love that.

One thing I don’t love though? Being asked, “When did you know?”

It seems like it should be a simple question to answer. For me though, it’s really not. 

The Facts of Life

If you’ve ever watched the very first episode of the TV show “The Facts of Life,” you may remember that the episode involves the very popular, and very pretty character Blair accusing Cindy (a slightly younger, very athletic student,) of being “strange,” with a very stern warning to think about what she says. (I’m sure I don’t need to spell out what’s implied by “strange.”) Cindy worries about this accusation and says, “Maybe I’m not normal,” and “I”m fourteen already and I don’t even like guys.”

The Actual Facts of Actual Life

If the show were being made today, we’d almost certainly see Cindy reassured by the housemother, Mrs. Garrett, that whatever happened, whether Cindy turned out to be gay, straight, bisexual or strange, everything would be fine. But in 1979, insead of reassurance that it’s perfectly normal not to know, and totally fine to question things we see a conversation between Cindy and Mrs. Garrett where Mrs. Garrett talks about how everyone has a “little time clock” and that Cindy’s time clock will go off at the right time and she, too, will start to like boys.

Back to the episode. Antics happen, the Harvest Queen contest takes place, Cindy is crowned the runner up–”Corn Maiden of the Harvest.” As Mrs. Garrett is told of the events of the evening–Blair won the contest and got to dance with the popular boy who she liked, that same boy apparently winked at Cindy. Blair responded with (mostly mock) indignation, but Cindy relishes the fact that not only did the boy notice her…suddenly her own feelings were awakened and she was now, in fact, aware of her feelings about boys. Her little clock had started! 

If only it were always that simple. 

Of course it isn’t. 

Coming Out as… Liking Boys

I did have one of those “Oh, that’s what it feels like,” moments. I was in the synagogue during Hebrew school, sitting next to a boy I’d become friends with, and who would be my on-again, off-again boyfriend until he came out as gay when we were in college. He was wearing shorts that day, and I remember looking down and noticing his legs. And in that one moment, seeing his bare legs, I was overtaken by a completely unfamiliar feeling that I couldn’t quite name.

All I knew was that I felt differently about this boy than I’d ever felt before. Parts of my body were awake and feelings were clawing their way out like cicada nymphs trying to burrow to the surface after many years underground. Once that door opened, it wasn’t going to close again either. I could, as many tweens and teens do, experiment. The usual things–dating, kissing, and plenty of other fumbling in the dark with boys. But that moment of realizing that I liked boys? It was nice. Warm. Reassuring. It made me feel “normal” in a world that I often found scary and confusing. I felt safe. Because I knew I wasn’t going to let anyone down by liking a boy. I’d be living up to the expectations people had for me and no one would be disappointed by that. 

The lightning flash about girls though? To the extent there was one? That’s a different story. 

Becoming Aware of Liking Girls

Coming into my attraction to women wasn’t a rocket launch the way my attraction to men was. I would have expected it to be. But it wasn’t. Which underlines the fact that my attraction to people who are different from me and my attraction to people who are similar to me are not the same. They don’t seem to come from the same place and they don’t seem to fulfill the same need for me. That’s why I don’t stop being bisexual whenever I have a male or transmasc partner. The other main difference was that my attraction to women wasn’t safe or reassuring. And even the big moments, like the first time I kissed someone who was a girl, was as terrifying as it was exhilarating.  If anything, it magnified the fear I was already feeling about my own attractions. 

Coming into my attraction to women wasn’t a rocket launch the way my attraction to men was. I would have expected it to be. But it wasn’t. Which underlines the fact that my attraction to people who are different from me and my attraction to people who are similar to me are not the same. They don’t seem to come from the same place and they don’t seem to fulfill the same need for me. That’s why I don’t stop being bisexual whenever I have a male or transmasc partner.

Expectation vs. Reality; Sudden vs. Gradual

See, after I had that moment in the synagogue, sitting next to my friend, I knew what happened to my body when I was into someone. The way my heart would speed up a little and my throat would start to feel dry. The way my words would get more jumbled. It was like a checklist. I knew what was happening, what to expect and I knew that other girls around me were feeling the same kinds of feelings (although not necessarily about the same boys.) But over time I realized that I was having those same feelings about girls. And that was one of those things I’d learned not to talk about. I knew it wasn’t safe to share that I was having those feelings. That admitting that to other people was probably opening the door to rejection, hurt, ostracism and isolation. 

There wasn’t an explosive moment when I realized that I was interested in some other girls in the same, intimate sorts of ways I was interested in some boys. It was more like a very slow, layer by layer unpacking of those feelings. Each time I noticed that I was thinking those kinds of “wrong thoughts,” each time I felt the physical ache making me aware of my attraction to women I immediately tried to suppress those thoughts and feelings. I became very conscious of making sure I didn’t look at other people in the locker room after PE or field hockey practice. And especially not after swim practice (synchronized swimming,) when we’d use the communal shower and get dressed together after practice.

Trying to Avoid Coming Out…

I had well-rehearsed scripts for myself about how it was wrong to think about the things I was thinking about. How it wasn’t okay and I needed to change and stop thinking about them. I’d think about what might happen if anyone actually noticed what I was doing or found out what I was thinking. And I gave myself a lot of grief over how disappointed my family would be if I didn’t follow the expected path. College, husband, babies, and so on. 

I wanted so badly for those feelings to go away. I already felt weird and awkward and I wished and worked so hard to try and banish those feelings that I knew set me apart and made me different. It didn’t matter that no one was actively telling me these things. It’s just the way the world was. The subliminal messages were enough. And it all meant I didn’t fit in. I didn’t need lightning to tell me that I was queer, but there were definitely lightning bolts of recrimination every time I thought about it. 

… Didn’t Work

No matter how much I tried to fight the feelings, they never went away. Apparently it didn’t matter how well I kept the secret either. In spite of not telling anyone how I was feeling, someone else initiated a kiss that would change everything forever. After that kiss, after that secret summer romance, I worked even harder to keep the secret. I felt as if by allowing that kiss (and everything else that happened with Rosalyn) to take place that I’d done something far worse, far more dangerous even than just having feelings. I’d allowed those feelings to be stronger than my willpower.

And even though camp was miles from home, and no one from camp was connected with home, I knew I was in peril. Getting caught, someone finding out that I’d broken so many social rules would only leave me more isolated. As the feelings got harder to fight, the storms grew louder, and I fought harder and harder to hide from them.

That Lightbulb Moment… Didn’t Happen for Me

There never really was a lightbulb moment about being queer. It’s just kind of always been there. My feelings about similarly gendered people existed side by side with my feelings about differently gendered people from the moment I realized I had those feelings about anyone at all. It just happened that for me, the awareness that those feelings existed at all came through as an interest in a differently gendered person.

The process of discovering that I could have a queer identity and find a place in the LGBTQ+ community wasn’t a quick series of  lightbulb-moments, either. It was a drawn out experience. With a lot of lonely time spent thinking and reading and hiding my thoughts and feelings. It meant meeting and spending time with out queer people who were my own age. It meant waking up in the bed of a college boyfriend, staring at a poster of Mark Wahlberg in his Calvin Klein underwear that had been hung up by his roommate. The roommate was hot for Marky Mark. As I lay there, I realized that I had zero interest in Mark Wahlberg whatsoever… and only slightly more interest in the boyfriend. The dance major at the other end of the hallway, on the other hand… she was far more interesting to me. 

Deciding on Labels wasn’t a Lightbulb Moment, Either

The decision to embrace the labels I choose to use? That was a slow and deliberate process, too, with a lot of thought. There were a lot of questions I had to ask myself, and once I’d gone through the experience of coming out to myself, I still had a lot of work to do to figure out how to deal with the rest of the world. How to come out to people. Who to come out to and when. How to explain to people within the community who weren’t comfortable with the labels I was choosing for myself that I was using labels that best fit me. That it was okay if my label didn’t apply to them. It didn’t have to. 

The answer, it turned out, was right there the whole time. Sometimes I couldn’t see it. Sometimes I didn’t want to see it.. And when I finally did allow myself to see it, it was a little like those old “I could have had a V8” commercials where people realize what they’ve chosen instead, and smack themselves in the head. The more I tried to hide from the answer though, the harder it got to deny it. I had less energy for other things I cared about because I was so intent on hiding–hiding from myself. Hiding from the people around me who cared. Hiding from things I was afraid might happen, whether they were real or imaginary threats.

Coming Out Meant Finding my Comfort Level with Each Person or Group I Came Out To

I didn’t need explosions or fireworks to tell me what I was feeling. Didn’t need anyone or anything else to blow down the closet door. I needed to find myself in a place where I felt confident in my own understanding of myself to be able to step out and share that with the world. When it came to defining my queerness, it took many years to be able to begin to do that. Even now I make choices about how to reveal it, when to reveal it and who it’s safe to share with. 

Labels and identities are tricky like that. I don’t usually trip anyone’s gaydar. I’ve lived in the southern US long enough that even without an accent that would identify me as being from somewhere in the south, I can “bless your heart” with the best of them. I fly under the radar sometimes. There are other things like being disabled or Jewish that are harder to conceal. All of those things together though are pieces of me. All of those things make me complete. And probably some others I haven’t yet discovered. 

Coming Out: Hearing my own Voice

If there’s one thing I’ve learned it’s that I don’t necessarily need the big flashy signs. I need to listen to myself more. That’s a process by itself. And one that the people around me did not make easier. To listen to yourself, you have to put aside judgment. But how does a 13 year old put aside judgment when the authority figures, the people she loves and trusts, make clear to her that certain thoughts aren’t okay. Certain conclusions aren’t okay.

You can’t listen to those inner voices when you have a vested interest in hearing them say one thing in preference to another. But you can’t train those voices to say what you want. You can choose not to listen to them, which will make you miserable. Or you can choose to listen to them, which might make that parent or religious leader angry with you. These are the choices we have to make.

It’s Easier for me to Hear my Own Voice When Other People Give me Space to Do So

Small wonder so many of us wait until well into adulthood to listen to those voices. And some of us listen to one part of what those inner voices are saying and not another. It’s hard work even at the best of times. So if you have a small, suggestible person in your life, please don’t make it any harder for them. You can’t straighten them. If you could, the people in my life would have straightened me. They did what they could, though. And what they could do was fill me with self-doubt. Make it harder for me to learn how to listen. To what’s going on within me. To learn to filter the voices out until I hear the one that’s really speaking and not obscuring the others.

It’s funny, I suppose. I keep talking about needing to learn how to find and listen to those voices as a writer. But I’m starting to think it’s even bigger than that. “Writer” is just another label I stick on myself. Learning how to listen to those voices is probably just part of me actually learning more about how to Human.