On Opening Up & Coming Out: A Letter To Everyone I Didn't Tell
- (re)becca meier
- Aug 5, 2018
- 4 min read
Hi there! My name is Becca, and I'm not straight.
Cool? Cool. Glad we got that out of the way.
It's not a big deal. I don't want it to be a big deal. I've never wanted it to be a big deal, and yet here I am, writing an entire blog post about it. And yet here I am, writing stories and poems about queer love interests and experiences. And yet here I am, joining my school's LGBTQ+ group. And yet here I am, celebrating Brendon Urie and Janelle Monáe's coming out. And yet here I am, constantly referring to my sexuality and bringing it up in conversation with my friends.
So, how does that work?
I can only speak for myself and my own experiences as a white, cis, queer woman, but maybe something I say will help you understand the way your LGBTQ+ friends, family, or peers feel. You'll certainly understand how I feel, at the very least!
I'll save you the gritty details of my struggles with coming to terms with my identity, dealing with internalized homophobia, and casting out the feelings my Catholic school education so kindly bestowed upon me for another day. What you need to know is simple: accepting who I am sucked. For a long time.
I was 17 when I understood I wasn't solely attracted to men. I came out to my friends by revealing I was dating a girl my senior year of high school. With the exception of my sister, who follows me on all my social media and who put the pieces together rather quickly, I didn't tell the rest of my immediate family until this year. My extended family is still finding out now, via Instagram posts and word of mouth. I'm 20 years old.
The times I've come out in person are few and far between, and they usually happen to people I'm just meeting for the first time who are also gay. My family, on the other hand, have only been notified from phone calls or social media posts.
So why did I keep this part of myself hidden from my loving, supportive family for so long? And why can't I bring myself to tell them in person?
I knew that I (thankfully) never had to worry about being thrown out of my house or worry that my parents would abandon me because of who I love; however, I have experienced more than a fair share of instances where "gay" and "queer" were used as insults. For a lighter example, there is a vivid memory I can't shake of a relative, standing in my grandmother's kitchen, cracking jokes about gay men and then immediately following with an exaggerated "Not that there's anything wrong with that!" that made me feel that yes, there is something wrong with that.
When people use "gay" as an insult, not only does it demonstrate just how limited their vocabulary is, but it serves as a reminder that this part of my identity, this constant struggle of accepting myself, this piece of me that I can't change no matter how much I wanted to, is laughable. Unacceptable. Worthy of insults.
Simple moments like these are frozen in my brain. They bring back the terror of realizing I wasn't straight and the unobtainable desire to be someone else. All of the panic I experienced at 17 floods my chest afresh at 20.
To say I wasn't ready is the understatement of the century. The aspects of myself that I was and still am learning to embrace are fragile shards of confidence -- one wrong move and they shatter into dust again. I had to learn how to balance the moments of good until they stretched into days, weeks, months of good before I could gather enough courage to say anything at all.
With my friends, I'm the most comfortable version of myself because they have been with me everyday, in person or online, for the majority of my self-discovery. They watched as I held hands with my first girlfriend in the halls at school and allowed me to vent about my inability to come to terms with myself. They consoled me after my first break-up and heard me when I expressed my thoughts about slurs and "gay" in a negative connotation.
Because of this, those shards of confidence become a lot stronger when they're around. Everything I had to hold back for so long feels okay to say around them. I can talk about how incredibly attractive Kesha is, and I can point out things with rainbows on them at the stores, and I can laugh at what bisexual stereotypes I fit into without a second thought.
My brothers didn't have to formally announce to anyone that they are, indeed, straight -- so why should I have to stand up at a family dinner, clink my fork against my glass, and say, "Attention, everyone: I'm a big ole queer."
So, I brought it up in a conversation with my parents on the phone. I slipped it into a caption here and there on Instagram, where plenty of relatives follow me, with my big pride flag displayed in the background of many selfies. I let word spread naturally rather than sending individual messages to everyone because it felt more normal that way.
Isolating myself like that because I'm bisexual/pansexual/queer/gay/not-straight/whatever brings me back to the time when figuring out my sexuality and then attempting to embrace it consumed me. I'm repeating the process of opening up about who I am with my friends, just with my family now. It's a slow, slow process to reach Total Comfort, but I'm getting there.
To those I didn't tell: we're in the beginning stages, my friends. Please be patient with me as I re-navigate how to act around you now that you have a new piece of me.
To those who have friends/family/peers going through the same thing: please don't pressure them to open up to you so completely and so quickly. It can be a very long struggle just to adjust to who they are once they begin to figure it out, so don't expect them to adjust to your knowledge of them any faster. Be patient, be kind, be understanding. They'll tell you when they're ready.
So, let me reintroduce myself:
Hi there! I'm Becca, and I'm not straight.
Cool? Cool. Glad it's not a big deal.
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