National Coming Out Day

Today is National Coming Out Day. When I was 22 years old, I began the process of coming out to my family and friends as bisexual, but my coming out story began long before then. It began with a boy who was expected to talk, dress, and act a particular way, to show emotion within certain guidelines, and to live up to a specific definition of what it meant to be a man in our society. There’s no coming out process without a rigid definition of masculinity or the pressure for boys to be tough, aggressive, smart, and attracted to girls.

In my teenage years, while still deeply scared about who I was, I started to consider my same sex attraction for the first time, through online chat rooms, forums, erotica, and porn. In this sense, the first time I “came out” to someone else was probably to an anonymous chatter in a gay chat room. These were scary and confusing things to be going through, but finding an online community helped me navigate not having anyone in my life I felt safe confiding in.

I didn’t know if I was gay, straight, bi, or something else entirely. I was very attached to my masculinity; I was a boy, and I was extremely careful to minimize things that challenged my learned definition of masculinity. I spoke and acted “straight”, repressed any urges I had to cry or express emotion, and played sports like football, basketball, and baseball. I chose a big and boyish instrument in the string bass; there would be no flute, violin, or school musical for me. 

I had relationships with girls and women in high school and in college. In some ways it felt relieving to know that I could have such relationships, that I could feel attraction, enjoyment, and even romance while still repressing a lot of myself. I felt a strong need to have a “traditional” life, which to me meant getting married to a woman, having kids, and living in the suburbs. That’s still what I planned to do, gay thoughts be damned. I was tough, and I never intended to come out; I’d keep those feelings bottled up and find a way to make things work.

I carried this plan into my young adulthood. In the summer of 2011, when I was interning in Seattle, thousands of miles away from home, I finally got up the courage to go on a date with another guy, someone I’d met on Craigslist. We met at Stumptown Coffee on Capitol Hill. I kept my identity more or less hidden; I’d used a burner email to contact him, and I’m not even sure I told him my actual name. I remember taking the lanyard off my keychain so he wouldn’t know what college I went to.

The next year, after moving to Seattle permanently, despite primarily seeking out a hookup, I fell in love with a man for the first time. I’m grateful that despite all of my repressed feelings and emotions, I allowed myself to open up to him. He was openly gay, and while he was very patient with me, it became clear that if our relationship was going to progress, other people would need to know about it.

I came out as bisexual, retaining the right to date women and fall in love with women, and start my traditional family. As my first relationship ended and I dated other men, my worldview expanded and I opened up to alternatives. I thought I’d still live the traditional life, just with a partner of the same sex. We’d still work 9-5 jobs, live in the suburbs, and have a couple of kids.

But as I continued to examine myself and learn from others, I began challenging other aspects of what I wanted. Once the norms and expectations of society were stripped away, who was I, really? Was I striving for a particular life because I wanted it, or because society wanted it for me?

Today I feel most at home identifying as queer, because I feel that the distinctions and categorizations of gender and sexuality are fluid and sometimes arbitrary. I also identify as bisexual, gay, and polyamorous, and I’m increasingly comfortable exploring my gender identity and presentation. But the truth is, I don’t know exactly what my identity is, and I fully expect the process of figuring myself out, of coming out, to be continuous and changing.

My coming out process has involved a lot more than just who I feel attraction towards. It’s caused me to examine societal expectations of masculinity and to realize the extent to which society forces boys and men to repress their feelings and behave in a certain way. It’s led me to challenge the traditional nuclear family and monogamous ideal. Journaling, reflecting, and working with a therapist have all been helpful in processing my trauma and helping me to better understand myself.

Even more, this process of discovering myself has helped me better understand the interlocking systems of oppression that are the root causes of those societal expectations. It’s helped me realize that I want to exist in a world where people no longer have to “come out”, where gender and sexuality aren’t meaningful and material distinctions or tools of oppression.

Sadly, we’re still very far away from that world. Queer, trans, and gender nonconforming young people are under attack, and the harms of these attacks are amplified for those with overlapping oppressed identities. Gender and sexual orientation are still used as systems of oppressive violence, and are deeply bound up with the system of racial capitalism in which we exist. 

I believe that queer liberation requires the liberation of all people. Recognizing the immense privilege that I have, I stand in solidarity with not just queer people, but all oppressed people, as our fights are part of the same struggle. 

There are times when I mourn for what I’ve lost. A large part of my youth was stolen from me by the forces of patriarchy and homophobia. I’ll never feel the thrill of asking my high school crush on a date, or get to hold his hand and look at the stars and talk about our futures together. I’ll never sing off key or dance off beat in the high school musical. 

When I reflect on this, I feel a mixture of sadness and anger. But when I return to the present, I feel joyful. I feel joyful for having a loving family and friends that accept me for who I am, and for having taken a path in life that allows me to express the fullness and diversity of my personhood. I feel joyful for having found a community of people with whom I can share the solidarity of resistance against oppressive forces.

Sharing my story feels uncomfortable. Being open and vulnerable doesn’t come naturally to me, and after I wrote this post, I questioned and doubted if I actually wanted to share it. I chose to share this story in part because it is a deep part of my lived experience, and I don’t want to shy away from my truth. I chose to share it knowing that my experience isn’t an isolated one, and because I believe sharing the vulnerability of our stories is an act of resistance and a way of making the world a better place.