Maybe we can do kind of a Decameron of coming out stories here.

[Tyo]

Coming out stories that ended badly, coming out stories that started badly but ended up good, coming out stories that were funny, coming out stories that were bittersweet, comings out that were just plain painless.

As gays we don’t necessarily have a lot in common with each other other than our sexuality and how we and those around us dealt with the realization that we were different. Our comings out are one of our mutual bonds, even though they might be different.

My own story is one of the painless variety and is short and incredibly boring. I’ve been out ever since I can remember. It took my dad a while to deal with it, but he did. Even when I was 5 years old you didn’t have to be around me very long to figure out where I was on the Kinsey scale.

One of the nice things about being gay is that you can have sleepovers with your “best friend” and your parents are happy that at least they know where you are, and no one is going to get pregnant. I felt sorry for my straight friends sometimes.

As far as getting bullied or harassed, there was some of that. Well, okay, quite a bit, especially in middle school. But by high school things had settled down. Sometimes being the token gay at a small town high school is not a bad thing,

I had my first serious relationship my freshman year at college. I had talked about the guy for weeks and when I brought him home for a long weekend mom didn’t even bother to make up the spare bedroom. She just put us both in my room (I had a double bed) and called it good.

My partner and I met on a sort of blind date at a Mexican restaurant in Tokyo. We’ve been together five years and I think my parents like him better than me. That's it.

[Rowdyboy]

1. Mine was odd...Didn't even totally admit to myself until I was 25, though

my first sexual experience (gay) was at 19. I came out to my baby brother at 29 (he promptly betrayed me by telling my dad and trying to trick me into admitting it over the phone (my younger sister warned me of what to expect). I finally admitted to my mom and siblings ar 35 (17 years ago).

Of her five children, my mom's favorite in-law was my partner. She LOVED him and only tolerated the others. My younger brother, a former Presbyterian minister who teaches grade school and his teacher wife LOVE my guy and me. One sister wants to be nice but can't deal with the controversy. The other is a loser who isn't in touch. My baby brother (see paragraph #1) was murdered by his estranged wife in 1995, shortly before his 30th birthday.

Coming out to friends of my generation has been very easy. My family was much harder. At work, I never "came out", though (before I retired) everyone there knew I'd lived with my "best friend" for 17 years. If they didn't know, it was only because they didn't want to.

I have stories about waking up in bed with friends when my mom came in but thats another story for another day...

[Tyo]

6. I can understand about not being totally out at work

I've got a fiend who is about as out as you can get except on the job where he has to be "discrete" so as not to risk alienating the clients.

[Tyo]

13. Actually I meant "friend". He's only a fiend sometimes.

[Occulus]

2. FWIW,

here's mine.

[Tyo]

4. This is the worst

I don't know if I could survive treatment that sick and twisted.

[donco6]

29. Here's all I can say to that:

:hug:

[JeremyWestenn]

42. Do you still speak to them?

I wouldn't. In fact I wouldn't even go to their funeral if they were my parents.

Cutting people like that out of your life is the best way to prevent yourself from being hurt. The good times can't be worth THAT.

[TechBear_Seattle]

3. When I came out to my parents, I was grounded

I was 15. My mom couldn't decide whether or not I was pulling some kind of attention-getting joke and needed to be punished, or whether I had been seduced and needed to be protected. Her solution to this dilemma answered both possibilities: I was grounded. I was driven to school and picked up immediately after; no staying for after school activities. Except for school, I had to stay at home unless I was with either my mom or at least one sibling. I was not allowed to make or accept telephone calls. This lasted for three weeks, until I claimed that I had been lying. It would be 11 years before my mom accepted me as gay.

Now, though, she has little problem with having a gay son. She even left a church she had been a part of for many years when their church council began promoting an ex-gay ministry, and she made her views quite clear to the pastor and board about their bigoted and unChristian attitude.

[Tyo]

7. People come around

My dad struggled with it up until I was in high school and I knew it. He never tried to change me or guilt me out or anything, but kids feel the conflict anyway. At some point though it was like his resistance just kind of melted. I don't know what brought that about but things turned out okay.

[bliss_eternal]

34. Sounds like she's changed...

Sorry you were grounding initially, though. :hug: ;) That's certainly a creative attempt to slam the door shut on your sexuality. If it's any consolation, I never had a curfew until my mother realized I was sexually active. Then, quite suddenly I HAD to be home by a certain time.

Yeah, as if I couldn't do what I needed to in the time allotted. ;) :spray: Where there's a will, there's a way.

[undergroundpanther]

5. My first crush

Was in my juvenile residential housing place,It was a school for troubled girls. I was there to escape my violent home.

Jodi was tall like I was ,she had a wild mane of curled flaming red hair,freckles everywhere on her porcelain skin,she wore these wispy skirts of gauze ,she dressed almost like a wench at a renfest,and she had really strong legs, she was so bouncy, athletic. She was as smart as I am,we could keep up with each other knowledge wise,and she was hilarious,artistic, and very colorful. We used to draw and write poetry together.She was the first person to refer to me as the Panther, she knew I adored cats,but looking back I suspect she knew even before I understood it, that I had a feline soul. So in reply I called her tiger( for her orange hair).

I did not understand why I felt the way I did about her back than,It did not compute..Why I thought she was so beautiful,inside and out .I never came out and TOLD her,what I thought, I was terrified to say what I felt for I didn't know how to even THINK it,I didn't DESERVE to think it, I didn't even think it was possible to fall in love with another so much like me....She was like a beautiful yet strong irish tigress,a sorceress and a gossamer winged fairy blowing bubbles when she laughed all at the same time.

I will never forget the dance.. The song "super-freak" was just out ,and she played it and she danced it with me specifically and she was holding me close,Closer than I thought we were allowed,for some reason I didn't care,and I taught her how to purr as we danced..and we made jokes about the staff who were watching us like hawks and I had no clue why. It felt so innocent,I was so afraid to understand her signal that she liked me that way.

I didn't understand myself at all back than.I had so many fragments,my life was like a cut up movie taped together at random with alot of blanks so it made no sense...Back than I was very different than I am now, I was so beaten down,confused,desperately alone and terrified,I wasn't out about my transgendered identity , my bisexuality or anything else to MYSELF. Yet when I look at the photos of myself back than,damn I was a dyke from hell, all punk,biker leather, spikes,black sabbath t shirt,a big men's ring,of a lion's head ,jeans and shit-kicker boots.. In my mind I was in full on disappear from the world mode,I had really long hair than . I wore it cousin it style, I was hiding behind it like a burka because I didn't trust anyone to know the shame that abuse had done to me, I thought it was my fault.I had internalized it.

But she knew what I didn't know, that I was not some monster,She would sometimes move my hair aside just to make sure I saw her smiling at me.Her expression was so tender I could not look directly into her sea green eyes lest I would cry.And I was NOT gonna cry in front of anyone, my walls were 100 feet thick and 100 feet tall around my heart..I was a walking fortress armed to the teeth with defenses...

But she got inside..Soon I began holding my own hair aside like a curtain for her only,because she earned my trust. I knew she would not hurt me for entertainment.

I had alot of symptoms, I was pretty messed up in the head at age 16.The "therapists" thought I would be locked up in the state mental hospital for the rest of my days.And that "prognosis" was to be false.

My arms were always bandaged up from my constant cutting,with anything sharp I could get my paws on, but she didn't care,about any of that, she saw past my scars and wounds and reached inside anyway not fearing any of the defenses or the broken shards of pain and fear that had been driven into my mind for so many years by so many assholes. I did not know what it was I was feeling inside about her,than but all I knew is..I wanted to be with her forever.

When I left the residential home, and was in the psych hospital knowing I would not see her again, I sat in the dark and cried for missing her, And 6 months later I got a note, from her, with her usual funny comments,..And I wrote her back,but I never got another note..I still have her letter to me...And I got 1 grainy black and white photo of us from a school trip to Kings dominion . It was taken by the camera on the log flume,as we crested the big drop shrieking clinging to each other half laughing..to be drenched a second later!

And I know it's crazy I still wish I could see her again,just to know if she is happy, to see her face and to tell her thank you for being so kind when no one else dared to,and that yeah, I loved you,You knew it, but I just didn't know how to say it back to you,and I was too scared to dare speak it's name..girlfreind...Jodi, I still miss you,tiger.

[Tyo]

8. Panther, I think that was a lot more than a crush

She wasn't in your life for all that long, but she was there for you at a critical time. I don't think people like that ever really leave us.

[undergroundpanther]

11. Actually we lived in the same place for over a year.

[dsc]

9. I came out in college

I only lost one friend, he was pissed I had lied to him (he had a valid point I had lied). My parents took it OK eventually. My mom took a few years but my dad was good from the get go. I haven't had a really serious relationship in years to I haven't had any reason to introduce a partner to my dad. On edit, this really sweet guy named Mike literally saved my life. I was ready to kill myself to avoid telling my parents. He talked to me for hours. He was such a great guy.

[Tyo]

14. Sadly, it seems like you did pretty well if you lost only one friend

Nice about your father though. Seems like usually its the moms who come around first.

[dsc]

15. my dad had a gay brother

which is a bit two edged for me. He accepts me very well but since his brother died so young (37) he worries about me. I didn't tell him about the pride protests so as not to worry him. Over all I owe my uncle a lot but sadly never even met him. As to the friend the worst part was that I couldn't really blame him. He had a valid point in that I didn't just not say I was gay I had invented girl friends and the like. He just couldn't get over that dishonesty.

[closeupready]

19. I don't get that, how your friend was upset with your lying

about your sexuality. For most everyone, there is no effective alternative. I would almost be mad that HE was mad. What a selfish reaction to such a difficult decision. Doesn't sound like he was a friend at all. (just based upon what you've posted here - trying to be supportive - :hi: )

[dsc]

22. He had a big thing about honesty

I was royally pissed at the time but looking back on it he just had a thing about honesty. Maybe he had a thing about gayness too I guess I will never really know. We really are damned if we do and damned if we don't when it comes to being honest about being gay.

[closeupready]

25. Sounds like he did have a problem with gayness.

Whatever the reality, yes, I can count on one hand the number of gays that I have personally known who were out prior to, say, college. That probably reflects to some extent my small town background, but nonetheless, just about all young men are taught that it is their duty - at a minimum - to act as though they are sexually attracted to the opposite gender. Since sexuality for many people is either/or (you're either gay or straight; people talk about bisexuals, but virtually nobody in real life will admit to being one), that effectively means there really is only one choice.

So coming full circle, this idea that he was mad at you not because you are gay but because you "lied" to him - give me a break. I'm sorry that the friendship ended, but maybe it was for the best. Anyway, peace. :hi:

[dsc]

30. It wasn't that big a deal

compared to what I feared would happen. I regretted that I invented girl friends and the like instead of just being silent on the matter. It was just one of those things which happen. I decidedly count myself lucky that I only lost one friend and no family over this. I know so many who have lost a lot.

[ThomCat]

10. When I came out my Mom

said to me "I have one son who uses drugs and gets in trouble with the law. I thought I had one son who was better than that, and now I find out he has a worse problem."

For the next year, every time she spoke to me all she talked about was how I was living a dangerous life. I was going to get AIDS and die. I stopped talking to her her for a few years. She learned to deal with my sexuality now basically ignoring it.

I have a GF at the moment (I'm mostly gay, but occassionally date a bit Bi), and suddenly my Mom treats me like a human being. She's constantly inviting me And My GF to come visit. I'm treated like I'm part of the family now just because I'm dating a women. And she wonders why I don't like coming to visit her.
x(

I came out while I was in college, and I lost most of my friends. I was a volunteer geek. I did 20+ hours of volunteer work most weeks just for fun. I thought I had nice liberal friends who could deal with knowing someone gay. I was immediately threatened by some, ignored by others, and only ended up with a small group of friends.

So much for knowing who people really are.
:shrug:

[dsc]

12. I am sorry

I was always afraid of that type of reaction. My mom wanted me to change for awhile but she eventually accepted me.

[bliss_eternal]

32. That sucks, ThomCat.

I'm very sorry that you mom doesn't get it. :hug: What's she going to do when you aren't seeing a woman anymore? Or has she convinced herself she's "the one?" :scared:

[Tyo]

16. I’m not quite sure what I’m trying to say here.

After reading the posts on this thread and on this site generally I’m feeling kind of… Well I don’t know what I’m feeling.

Sure I had some problems growing up. Parents have certain expectations, society has certain expectations. Even when they are, for lack of a better word, “intellectually” okay with things sometimes people are not emotionally okay with things and you sense that right away even if it’s not spoken.

At 12, 13, 14-years old I got pushed around a little at school. Finally learned to push back, sometimes with humor, sometimes in the more conventional physical sense (if you were to see me you'd find that kind of hard to believe). But it worked out okay. And all through it in my mind it was not, “what’s wrong with me?” but rather “what the fuck is wrong with them?” If there was a problem with my being gay it was their problem not mine.

My parents were as good and as supportive as they could be all things considered. I mean I wasn’t exactly the type of son that they had expected. They finally came round emotionally as well as intellectually. And I have come to an understanding of how hard that road was for them. It brought us closer at 26 than I ever would have imagined at 16.

I’m pretty sure I lost a job once for being gay. It was a shitty job but I needed the money and I didn’t have the courage to quit. In the end they made the decision for me. It sucked for a while. I maxed out my one credit card and borrowed money from friends but I ended up in a better place with far better people, plus eventually everyone got paid back.

I’m working at medium sized company now. The people I work with are like family. I’m just one of several gays in the immediate area. We feel valued as being an important part of the mix.

My partner and I are as happy as only two opposites can be. He’s like the air I breathe, but we have very different temperaments – same tastes and goals but different ways of realizing them. Makes it interesting. I love him with everything in me

So it’s been good and I have been incredibly lucky in a lot of ways. But I read some of the stories here and it's clear to me that I’ve missed a lot as well. There is a lot of reality out there that I haven't had to face. Don’t know how I feel about that.

[dsc]

17. I had a rough time in middle school and early high school

too. I am glad it wasn't worse for me than it was. Lord knows I made enough mistakes without help from others. Being gay is a different road taken. We have experiences that others don't have. Gladly not all of us have all the bad experiences.

[closeupready]

18. Not sure if this is the best thread for this, but what they hey

There is a restaurant I like, and a waiter there is this gorgeous guy with whom I've been acquainted for about three years now. Attractive but physically not my type, I always found him to have a typical closet mentality - he'd learned to hate his gay side, and projected that hatred toward others - just generally being a sourpuss all the time. Not sure if he was in the closet or out or what, but I didn't much care. He never crossed me, but I could always sense the crap he was going through, and steered clear of him to the extent possible.

Well, a few months ago, I noticed a real change. He actually became a lot more friendly, let his guard down and started making an effort to be engaging. I would bet dollars to doughnuts that he's finally come to grips with his sexuality.

I swear that I've seen this play out so many times over the years, I should write a script. LOL

[adamblast]

20. I'm gay, not blind. Easy mistake.

Sadly, I managed to "fall in" with a devout, tight-knit, emotional group of fundamentalist kids just before puberty hit. Total "jesus camp" material.

By early high school--when I first began to realize I was gay--I was already heading for the ministry and fiercely believed in the fundie doctrines. So I didn't tell a soul and prayed for healing. And prayed. And prayed. My first two years of high school were a nightmare of self-loathing, trying to understand why God was sending me to Hell for something I didn't want to be.

After 2 years of unanswered prayers, I took matters into my own hands. I tried to blind myself. Better that than to be tempted by other boys. I stared at the sun and poured household acids into my eyes. By my junior year, I was being sent all up and down California to retinal specialists, trying to figure out the cause of my "progressive blindness." Somewhere along the line I stopped doing any *real* damage to my eyes... and just kept living a lie (or was it a drama?) of being this poor kid who was going blind...

To make a long story shorter, I feigned near-total blindness for my last two years of high school. I graduated as a blind student. I know Braille. I can still get around with my eyes closed.

How I managed to end that charade and find an authentic life for myself is another long story. Eventually I had to own up to being gay. And sighted.

Since then life's been a mixed bag. I've had a few suicide attempts as an adult, and have never found the healthy gay sex life I deserve. But at least it's a life free of more lies.

[dsc]

21. How horrific

I honestly can't imagine this. I hope you find the happiness.

[dsc]

23. I just can't get this image out of my mind

It is so truely horrible. I can't imagine that Jesus isn't crying at the very idea. We deserve so much better that what we get from some of Jesus' most horrible followers.

[closeupready]

26. Thanks for posting your story.

:hi: :hug:

On a side note, it reinforces for me the fact that gays and lesbians are at increased risk for all kinds of dysfunctional behavior due to their low status in society.

[sniffa]

24. don't mean to crash the pahty...

with me it's Like A.D. and B.C. - everyone that's known me up untiL about age 19, knows me as a badass, straight guy (i was a vioLent boi). everyone i've met after then knows me as i am now. so, that incLudes my famiLy; i shutter even to think of teLLing my parents. i prefer them not to know too much about my Life.

[sui generis]

27. I was never "in"

Military brat growing up - and all the time there are always new little tribes of kids who think it's their social duty to smear the queer. Well, I learned early on that it wasn't queer they hated, or even different (not in the military) but the idea that a team member might be "weak". The best thing you can do is violate those expectations non-violently if possible, and violate facial features and ulnar integrity whenever necessary.

That and I had an aptitude for fighting (no! :P) and no fear of pain, receiving it or inflicting it, so I toughed my way through childhood. I think I only ever lost a battle once as an eight or nine year old - the first time, against a little gang of boys, when one of them cracked me in the head with a rock but good and I had copious blood blinding me. The funniest part in all this was that not only did I rumble, but I was a serious and talented piano student, so I'd be giving a formal recital as often as holding court over some stupid fallen thug. Believe me a split knuckle brings your focus on a Kachaturian toccata or Chopin scherzo to a very fine point and the emotional nuance (read: "pain") comes from a real place and not just technique. It didn't do much to get me dates though. My fellow queers thought I was an odd bird too - I guess when you violate expectations you don't get to pick and choose. So ironically almost all my friends were straight.

But I had good friends, and my sibs and I were a wolf pack.

At home - my parents were in denial and stayed that way. I was living with a pair'o'docs, so I learned some pretty fierce verbal fighting skills too, and incidentally hated them fiercely while growing up. I thought I was abnormal, but it turns out that nearly all teens hate their parents. Who knew I was actually sorta normal! But I was the oldest and I knew that the only way out was up, so I was a straight A student and an overachieving alpha queer and I got to move out and into a college dorm on scholarship at the age of 14 doing 25 credit hours a semester, and sat first cello as a freshman and sat juries for academic scholarship all the way to grad school. Plus, competed in judo and kickboxing, and still do kickboxing.

Forgave the parents. We are all best friends now; it took me realizing they didn't have a rulebook or a role model themselves; they had exactly the same training that other people who expect perfect "normal" children get: if it looks like it's broke, fix it, if it looks like you can't fix it, hide it or throw it away. Like I said, a lot of forgiveness, and things are vastly different now and I'm not sure I'd want the past to be different for me.

Not for someone else, but it shaped me.

[Rising Phoenix]

28. When I came out as bisexual and poly to my siblings

they just laughed and said they already knew....My brother, however, decided to come out for me to my aunt, who I never see, and that pissed me off.

Coming out to my mother will be a whole other story....I'll let you know how it turns out....

[bliss_eternal]

31. ...

:hug: :hi:

[littlebit]

33. I was pretty lucky when I came out to my parents.

My parents are pretty open minded. I came out when I was 19. My mom said she already knew and my dad told me I had good taste in women just like him. All three of my brothers were pretty cool with it also. I have been with the my partner for seven years and my mom talks to her more than she does me. I am grateful for my family everyday. I couldn't have asked for better parents.

[Occulus]

35. I wrote mine in a pair of diary entries over at Kos

which can be found at these http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/6/6/14746/30490">links.

I don't have the strength to write it all again.

[ropi]

36. thanks

Kgfnally,

I read your story and I shared the same sort of experience. I am grateful that you put your story up to be read. My story is still too painful to share.

Some things I recall hearing:

Every morning my junior year of high school at my locker: "Aids. I hope you die of Aids. You'll be dead by 25 of Aids. Aids. Die, Faggot!"

From a guidance counselor: "Perhaps if you'd act masculine this would not happen." Ask Jesus to help you." "You bring this on yourself."

From a neighbor told to another, which I accidently overheard: "Don't let him around your kids. He may molest them. We don't allow our boys to go near him."


edit: posted some quotes from memory

[closeupready]

37. This type of homophobia

is why I left the Midwest, where it is very common. I came to New York because I wanted to be free, and I guess I am bitter about my personal history, but a snowball in hell has a better chance than anyone has of seeing me EVER go back into the closet or compromise my integrity on the issue of living in a way which is consistent with how I was born. :mad: (not mad at you, I just get mad about people - even here - pressuring me to conform/"tone it down")

[Occulus]

39. And the thing is, to look at me, you would never, ever guess.

I usually wear torn-up old jeans, tees and/or cotton buttondown shorts, and workboots. This is not by choice. :)

I still feel beaten down, even though I "blend in" completely. I suppose many people want me to feel this way.

What happens when you kick a dog one too many times?

[Occulus]

38. I blushed a little when I reexamined this thread

I posted the damn thing twice, in two different forms.

I was, i guess, "fortunate" in that I didn't even admit it to myself until I was sixteen or seventeen. And even at that, it was triggered by a first sexual experience that was, not unwanted, but, shall we say, severely unexpected, and thus woefully unprepared-for.

:D And that's the only public post I have to make about that. :D

[Dastard Stepchild]

40. I came out twice....

First as a lesbian and then later as a bisexual. I always giggled at the fact that my path went in that direction... I was bored with men as a young gal, completely smitten with women during my adolescence to late adolescence, and then found that I had quite a thing for guys as well.

Now I am happily bi, though since I am currently married to my husband, everyone just assumes I am straight. Which I really kinda hate because it makes me feel like I am not doing justice to all the wonderful women I have loved (and all the lovely women I see that give me butterflies in the stomach). So, if I can find a way to bring it into the conversation with pals, I do so.

My parents were quite good with the information... quite good indeed. I think they were always suspicious, so when I came out, I don't think it was a tremendous shock. I am almost positive that I told my mom while in the drive-thru lane of a Taco Bell. My dad I talked to a bit later.

Half of my friends were very understanding, and the other half did not get it. My first official girlfriend and I shared friends from the same tight social circle, and we were in fact not friends at first. So it was a shock to all for a number of reasons. :) In time, I pretty much weeded out all the people in my life that were not cool with BGLT peoples.

[Creideiki]

41. The basics

The original coming out was pretty painless. I'd gone to PFLAG and asked them to send me some stuff on how to come out to your parents. My parents found it days before I moved 1000 miles away. I guess my parents talked about it before talking to me about it. My dad helped my mom cope.

The more amusing part (in the painful way) is when, at my grandfather's funeral luncheon, I was told by my pastor, whom my mother had told looking for comfort, that I was no longer allowed to take communion. The timing and obvious judgment were so different from the pastor I'd had when I was growing up that used to say that we were all God's children. Someday I want to tell him exactly what is in my heart. Right now, it's too angry, and I won't be an angry fag for him to use in yet another sermon for the congregation. Some day, though.

[Q3JR4]

43. I came out to my

mother on Mother's Day. While home from school, I went with her on her delivery route and fessed up to it.

At first she didn't believe it, "you can't be gay, I don't believe it." "How do you know you're gay?" "Send me something to prove it."

Shortly after that, I started dating someone who lived near my parents. That meant that I was back in the town of my birth nearly every weekend. She saw how happy it made me to finally be open with someone and accepted it.

I didn't have to tell anyone else in my immediate family, she did it for me. I was okay with that, wasn't really looking forward to it anyway.

I haven't had too many issues with the fact that I'm a gay man, in fact most of the people I came out to in college didn't give it another thought.

Now, five years later, I can talk to my parents about anything. I think that there are times they want me to be straight, but that's only because I would have an easier life. They vote for Democrats and they voted against the gay marriage amendment last month. In fact, a year ago my brother-in-law, sister, and mother and father came up to where I live and marched with me in the gay pride parade.

My grandparents still have issues with the whole thing, and they don't talk to me about it. The only time my grandfather has even remotely touched on the issue, he pushed one of Michael Moore's books in my face. The book had a passage about Dick Chaney's lesbian daughter underlined and he was surprised when I knew that she was, in fact, gay.

Ah well.


On edit: Spelling.