First my story. I realised I fancied guys when I was about 13 or 14. Yup, I even *spent my pocket money* on the Sun and had a cut out collection of Page 7 Fellas I kept hidden on top of my wardrobe. I went through a phase of intensely hating myself for fancying men. This may or may not have been to do with the hairstyles of guys in the 80s, it must be admitted.
At the same time I went through an arch-right wing phase (please, keep reading, I've reformed!) and in fact was once called a "fascist" at school by a teacher. I definitely deserved it for the hideously intolerant, vile nonsense I was spouting in my confused attempts to "conform". I was outwardly extremely homophobic, as a crude defence mechanism that of course anyone sees through nowadays.
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| Silly, homophobic, screwed up 16 year old Peter |
I "found Jesus" when I was 19*. I convinced myself the devil was somehow leading me astray by tempting me with hot men. I had a minor breakdown during my first term at college about 6 months later. I totally withdrew into myself, just did loads of academic work instead... but then one day randomly thought, this is nuts, and had sex with a guy. It was far from an ideal "first time" scenario, but I knew this was what I actually what I wanted and who I was.
Is that all?
"Coming out" is a weird process. I'm white, I'm male, I'm not disabled, I'm from a materially comfortable background, I'm nominally Anglican. I'm therefore hardly an oppressed minority. A black child does not come down and say to his/her parents over breakfast "guess what, I'm black!" S/he will grow up with all of the prejudices that are present in society, sadly without a choice in the matter. By contrast, in coming out as gay most people suddenly move from a position of majority to minority, and the sometimes adverse reactions will be new to them. It's a very brave thing to do to put yourself in the way of that.
"Coming out" actually usually involves multiple stages: 1) to yourself.. generally as the hormones start raging and you realise you're "not like all the others"; 2) once you've dealt with that, and possibly been through a period of denial, to a close friend or two; 3) to a wider circle of friends; 4) to your parents.
All my college buddies were pretty much fine when I told them I was "bi" (yup, again not quite true) when I came out at 21 years old. I was (amazingly) the only gay man out at Law School, though, out of several hundred students in my year - and I definitely experienced a limited bit of homophobia. I was by this stage out the world in general, but not to my parents. This is quite typical I think, certainly for back in the mid 1990s.
By 25, I was living in London, working. My parents were in Hampshire. I'd so successfully cut them out of my life there was, as far as I was concerned, no real or meaningful relationship left to damage. I didn't hate them or anything: they just knew virtually nothing about the adult me, who I was, who the boyfriend was I'd just moved in with, and whom I was totally in love with. I essentially had a 100% childish relationship with them and never told them anything about my feelings. Just stop and think about that. How sad a state of affairs.
Utterly randomly I was feeling bored at home one afternoon and thought "what the hell - I've nothing to lose here." I picked up the phone. Mutti's reaction was quite simply "Is that all?" I literally could not believe it. I had spent years convincing myself (on the basis of nothing objective) that they would cut me off, disown me, stop loving me. I asked if she had guessed - no, she said, she had no idea. She just thought I was very private (obviously the hiding my collection of Page 7 Fellas had worked. Thank god, considering how *embarrassing* they were in retrospect :S)
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| CHECK OUT THE HAIR |
I then became convinced Dad would be different. He was an army guy: he was bound to be homophobic. I called back nervously the following day: Mutti had told him, at my request, and he wasn't bothered either. Read my blog on how he reacted when I put on a dress as a little boy (click for link) and you will realise what a total tit I'd been: he was hardly going to react badly.
I sent my mother a bouquet of flowers: I'm still a bit teary realising how amazing they both were. My Mutti actually said she was upset I didn't feel able to talk to them before and that she regretted not being able to support me as a teenager going through all this. A few weeks later they met the boyfriend. They adored him and he was taken into the family. Many years later, the two of us apart, Mutti still worships the ground he walks on.
The Flip Side
Now the flip side. By no means everyone reacts as my parents did. I've heard every story from parents as great as mine to parents who have literally cut off and thrown their kids out. A friend with a Danish father and a French mother, both educated, liberal professional people, said they wanted nothing more to do with him when he came out to them in his late 20s. He'd been at Cambridge and was now a successful City lawyer: he was a golden boy in looks, personality, achievements - but they could not deal with his being gay.
What does one do in that scenario? Hurt, obviously. Scream about how unfair it is. No one deserves to be treated like this by their parents for simply being honest with them. Any open-minded person would say "how could a parent *ever* behave like that to their child?" We all know this. However my question is, does it help the situation for the gay kid to be the victim and to simply be morally "right"?
When you come out, you do so with having worked through an intensely complicated, difficult set of emotions over a long space of time. You present that your parents. Regardless of how good or bad your relationship is you owe everything to your parents: you literally would not be here without them. If your friends react badly, you can avoid them, or move on to new ones. The same does not apply to your parents.
You throw this potentially huge thing at them all in one go, when you've had years to digest and process it. Of course everyone wants for them to hug you, tell you they love you, and accept you. The simple fact is not every parent can do so - at least not straight off.
Some Advice
So what does one do? If you are contemplating coming out, particularly to your parents, you will realise how daunting it is. No one wants to be in my friend's position. The possibility of losing your parents in this way is beyond terrifying. Remember that very, very few parents do react in this way though. There are proper guides available on the net about coming out - read them - they will offer you proper tips far better than I can. I will just throw a few things in though from a personal perspective.
It is often said that middle class, ostensibly liberal, families take the news of a gay child the worst. They profess to be open-minded than other groups in society, who sometimes are more casually homophobic. However, when it comes to one of their own, the situation is often reversed. Your nice educated middle class parents are frequently more worried about appearances than anyone else. Know that the societal pressure of "looking good" will colour and distort their reaction and this sadly has very little to do with you and the love they actually fundamentally feel.
Even my Mutti (who was so amazing) almost immediately asked me not to tell my Grandmother. What I think was going on was she was worried about how this would reflect on her and whether her mother would think she'd "done something wrong" bringing me up. When Omi did eventually find out she said "Oh it's genetic, I read it in a magazine". She was in her 80s, staunchly Lutheran, a former Hitler supporter, and I was still her "Peterchen". I guess she was at this stage simply past all this appearance nonsense that can create such pain in our society.
Give your parents time. There is a desperate desire for them to be okay with your news immediately and to be out joining you at the next Pride (okay, perhaps not that... how embarrassing?!) Often if other extended family members or friends do not react badly when they in turn hear the news, your parents' fears of people's reactions will diminish. This may take months, it may take years. Stick with it - they are your parents and it IS worth it. In a strange way you are having to take over the role of the mature grown-up in this situation. If they ask you not to tell your uncle or your grandma: cut them some slack. They are very likely to change their mind with time as they become used to things.
Don't rub your gayness in their face (you can do this with your mates down G.A.Y. on a Saturday night: it's much more fun) - and this sounds strange but above all be as forgiving to them as you would wish them to be accepting towards you. There is *nothing* wrong with your being gay and deep down almost everyone knows this. Almost every parent will want to love their child regardless; just be prepared to love them back too, even if they don't react as you would want them to or in the time frame you envisaged.
Don't get all morally righteous: if you expect them to love you for who you are, be prepared to love them back *unconditionally* too. Think what they means - and be it. This can be bloody hard, but remember no one is perfect, not you, and not your Mum or Dad. Love them for their views as much as you might disagree with them, try to understand why they're being like it, and don't be demanding about the way you expect them to be. You can't control their reactions, but you can control the way you behave. You can chose whether to be combative, angry, or instead try to show them that you still love <them>.
In all cases of parents reacting negatively that I know of personally, the eventual outcome has been positive. The biggest factor in how long it takes, in my experience, is actually how the gay child behaves and how they are towards their parents after the initial bad reaction. That sounds odd, but it is my honest experience. The gay son or daughter may be the "hurt party" but they are the one who has to turn the situation round. Unfair? Hugely. The reality? In my view, yes, unfortunately.
Is it Worth It?
I'm now 40. There is zero question to me that coming out is entirely worth it. Before I did so, there was an appalling cost to my self-expression and to my integrity. I lied constantly to cover up my sexuality. I lied about where I'd been, whom I found attractive, what I'd been doing. I believe that deceit is cancerous: once your life is so full of lies about this big important area it becomes easy to lie about other things. The longer this goes on the more damaging it is to you.
The sheer relief of being able to say "phwoar, he's nice" or a bit more importantly to introduce your lover to your friends and family - wow, it is worth it in every way. Removing this lie gives you the opportunity to work at rebuilding your integrity and realising how deceit affects you as a person.
Yes I have had a few shit reactions - both at college and at my law firm. So what. People may hate me because I'm half-German, because I talk with a "posh" accent, because I support Labour, because I went to Cambridge, or because I like Glee (I jest, NO ONE could hate Glee). I can't control people's reactions and I can't live my life trying to fit in at the cost of my own happiness and self-expression. I'm who I am. I didn't choose my sexuality: I had no control over it. The only choice I had was to lie about it to varying degrees or to be myself and be honest about myself. Yes, I could even have got married to cover it up: some still do even in 2011.
A Continual Process
Coming out is a continual process; this is often forgotten. It is so wearisome to realise that even today many people just assume you are straight. It is still the default setting. I had to come out to work colleagues; every time you meet someone new you somehow have to make it clear somehow that you are attracted to your own gender.
You don't want to have to be in this position of continually coming out, but it's the way things are. We just still have such a hetero-normative set up in our society that we have to do so. Once your friends and above all your parents (the ones who really matter to you) are out of the way though, you obviously becoming increasingly less bothered about people's reactions.
There are of course those who say "why do gays have to make such a fuss?" They really don't get it. Meet any straight person, in any context, and the chances are within a few conversations they will have announced their sexuality to you probably without even having realised they've done so. They'll mention a wife, a boyfriend, someone they fancy on X-Factor etc etc. If you're on Twitter think about the people you talk to. I chat with several hundred; without most of their having announced it, I must subconsciously know or have a good idea about the sexuality of a good 80% of them.
Most gay men and women aren't making a fuss; they're being themselves, in just the same way straight people have every right to be themselves.
The Good News
There is extremely good news in all of this. If you are around 20, chances are your parents will be of an entirely different generation: aged 40-50 and much more likely to be accepting than the parents of those in my generation. Homophobia still exists and this influences opinions, but it is far less widespread and far less socially acceptable than it was.
A barometer of this is the statistic (apologies if this not exactly correct) that if you are a gay man aged 60 in the UK today, your average age of coming out was 37. If you are 40, you came out on average at 21. If you are 21 today, you came out on average at 17. People are less and less bothered about it, and there are more openly gay people in all walks of life, making it easier in turn for everyone else to be honest about themselves.
Society is changing enormously. Be yourself - you can't after all be anything other than you are, no matter how hard you wish it. There are a lot of people who will support you and although this may be hard in the short or even medium term, it will on reflection be the best thing you have done for yourself.
* Just to be absolutely clear I had NOT found Jesus. From my limited understanding, I don't believe any of Christ's teachings are compatible with the hate filled agenda of the religious right. The Christians I have in my life are loving, accepting, wonderful people. I don't share their faith, but I know from the way they are that bigotry and hatred are not part of who they are.
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