February 26, 2024

My Story of Acceptance and Love

and my hope for future generations

Something that I've wanted to write about for a while and just never really had the space or place, is my journey of coming out. But this seems like a great place to tell that story, and while it may never get seen by many, Hopefully I'll find a better space to share it to help others in some small way down the road.

There's always something happening that makes me want to write this down these days. Most recently the news about Nex Benedict in Oklahoma has had a few details that brought this to the forefront of my mind. Let me start by saying that I am extremely blessed and grateful for the life I've led. Part of what's prevented me from really talking about my journey is that I always felt like I didn't have any great trauma, I didn't have some story about overcoming hate or hurt, so I felt like nobody would care or want to hear about my story. There wasn't much to tell and there were people in the community with more inspiring stories or more impactful stories that needed to be heard.

However, as I've gotten more involved and worked with various lgbt groups over the years I've realized that a story like mine might be something someone needs to hear. A story of hope, a story that's not bad or horrible or about overcoming adversity to be your authentic self. Maybe people also need examples that show life can be good, people can be kind, it doesn't have to be hard. That's what people are fighting for I think, for a world where you can exist without having to fight just to be yourself. So, if you need someone to tell you that it doesn't have to be bad, if you need to hear a coming out story that is not tragic, then hopefully my story will give you hope and serve as proof that love can be unconditional.

The truth is I've often moved through life with a drive for excellence and a keep my head down approach. I work hard, I strive to be my best, and I didn't rock the boat much. So, moving through childhood wasn't too difficult. I think I always knew that I was gay or bi without knowing what that really was. I just knew that I liked who I liked and that's all that really mattered. I was an honor student, on the debate team, drama club, choir, all the artsy extra-curricular activities. Ultimately ending up surrounded by creative and loving people that were full of life and in spaces that celebrated diversity. My parents and family were just salt of the earth good people and so I'd always felt loved and accepted. Granted, I went through my normal teenage years of not feeling like I belonged or knowing who I was, but it was never an issue of being singled out or bullied by others, just normal teenage angst from trying to find your place in the world. I threw myself into school, much like I throw myself into my work now and it always kept me grounded and focused.

Fast forward to college and again, as a theatre major, I found myself surrounded by creatives who celebrated diversity and were relatively judgement free. I moved through my world without much concern for not being accepted. Like anyone in our community, there was an understanding of the hate that exists, but I managed to move through the world in a way that avoided those traumas.

Now my journey is unlike many in the lgbt community, which is why I often feel that my story is unimportant. Because it feels like privilege to say that I didn't have to deal with bullying or hate. I didn't feel that I had to hid who I was, but I also can't say that I had the clarity that some in the community have of who I was, but I was also surrounded by a community of peers that were accepting, so I never really had to worry about discovering my identity and then needing to hide it. I often felt like I don't have a right to an opinion about lgbt issues or a right to speak up within the community, because I haven't earned it. I didn't have to fight to be seen or heard, I didn't have to overcome trauma, I didn't deal with the loss of family, friends, or security because of who i was. So, let those who have had those journeys be the ones to speak up and highlight the real issues.

Granted, I hadn't come out. I didn't fully know who I was, so I got to avoid that pain. In college, as I finally started to break out of my academic bubble and explore myself as a person though, I still never felt ashamed or like I was suddenly as risk of losing all my relationships because of this thing that is part of who I am. Unfortunately, a fear and feeling all too familiar with many in the community. However, there was one thing hanging over my head....family. I was still discovering myself and so didn't feel the need to come out to my family right away. I always kind of told myself that I would come out if/when I got into a serious relationship with a man. If I ended up meeting/dating a woman, then no issue and no need to say anything (a common thought I think amongst bi or curious individuals, don't rock the boat if you don't have to). But I'd heard the stories of people getting disowned by family, losing friends, ending up on the street alone because they came out and things went south quick. And those were the only stories I heard. Bad stories.

I know my family, they radiate love. In my heart I knew that everything would be fine, but then, in those stories, so did those individuals when they came out. They thought everything would be fine. They thought their family would love and accept them because they're family. They thought that even if there was a little turbulence, they would be able to move past it, that it would all work out. And then they ended up alone, then ended up living a life with great friends and a chosen family, but with a hole where they're childhood and family should have been. They died and their parents only realized they're mistake after it was too late. Or never realized the mistake. They spent a whole life of regrets, making bad choices fueled by a need for a love and acceptance that was never there and may never come. Struggling to move through the world with a longing for an acceptance that they would never get. Many times, unable to let go of the trauma and the hurt and ultimately dying broken in some way. Never truly or fully happy...

That was the fear, those were the stories, that was the legacy of the lgbt people who had come before me in my mind. Hurt, Pain, Struggle. I knew that there was no way, right....I know my family and who they are. But that fear, that nagging voice in the back of my head said what if. What if you end up a part of that same trope, what will you do? Would you even be able to survive? I can honestly say that for as blessed as my life had been up to that point, I would have probably ended it if that's how my story had played out. (In case you didn't catch it, obviously it didn't work out that way because I am here making you read this long a** story)

I went through my identity struggles and there were problem and I ended up having a really hard time for a number of reasons, but then I would compare my life to the lives of those in the community who came out and lost everything and think "I should be grateful that is not my story", at least not yet, but that fear always lingers. I was super depressed and honestly those fears in the back of my head of living my life in the shadows or never being able to be happy were really strong and really bad.... self-made fears, but real, nonetheless.

Life has this tendency to work out in unexpected ways. I was probably at my lowest point, just really dealing with some depression issues and my own mental struggle, not fueled by the world around me but by my own tendency to self-sabotage. It was at that time that I ran into this guy that I had met about a year earlier. We had a connection and hit it off, but nothing ever really came of it. And all of the sudden here he was. He asked me out, actually said he was going up to a gay bar about an hour away and asked if I wanted to come. It was something that I never really would have gone for in a million years, way out of character, but for some reason I said OKAY. I often feel that everything happens for a reason and things happen when they are supposed to, not when you need ot want them to. In my life and my experience, as I look back, I can clearly see points where it just seems like things happened the way they needed to for me to grow into the person I am today. Had we gone out a year earlier, we wouldn't have gone anywhere. I wasn't in a place to pursue anything that serious and it would have ended up just being a fling or another failed relationship. I think I had to end up in this dark place, so that he could pull me out of it. I needed him, but I also needed to be in a place to realize that I needed him.

We went out to the bar, and it was great. And then he asked me out again, to come meet him at his place and then go out (about an hour away from where I was living at the time). And he's always told me that he was on the phone with a friend making alternate plans because he didn't think I'd show. And honestly at any other point in my life, I probably wouldn't have, but again there was something compelling me forward, something in my gut, or some divine intervention that was telling me I needed to follow through with this. Next thing I know it is like the universe was bombarding me with signs that this was meant to be. Things just kept happening that seemed like God or Fate saying this is yours, this is for you, this is your destiny. It was just a ton of little things that again, wouldn't have been there a year earlier when we first met. I can't speak for him, but I can say that I needed to be exactly where I was to be able to see and accept this gift that the universe was throwing in my face. And the rest is history. We were regularly making the hour drive to see one another, and then the I love you, and then the conversation about moving in together.

And then I was living with him and still hadn't come out to my family....

Life moves quickly and you can get caught up in it and those fears and doubts quiet...for a while. But they don't leave, not completely. But this person had already pulled me out of my darkest moment, so as more and more questions about my new "roommate" came up during holidays and conversations with my parents I knew that I was arriving at that dreaded moment. I finally did it during thanksgiving one year. My parents were asking about my living situation and roommate, because they knew I had moved but not much else and I just blurted it out, "He's not my roommate, he's my boyfriend"....

Pause...that inevitable moment of dread, that moment that feels like a lifetime where all your fears and doubts come back in full force. The scenarios run through your head and all those stories play through your head like a lifetime movie of lgbt tragedy. All the horrible coming out stories that we are told.....WHAT IF THEY'RE RIGHT...

And then...

"You know we love you no matter what, right". I had told myself that was the inevitable conclusion; I knew that was the response and it was exactly what I expected, but the overwhelming fear that I would be wrong, that somehow every lgbt individual is doomed to follow the same dark footsteps had always been there, haunting me. And now with the person in my life that I was meant to be with and this overwhelming need to come clean, knowing that I wouldn't be left utterly alone either way, the bubble burst.

And it was fine. Parents can and should love their child unconditionally. People should be able to see others and not judge them, but just accept the facts of a person's identity. This is who they are, it's not an argument to be had it is a simple fact and nothing more. It was such an uneventful moment in reality that it makes all that fear and doubt seem even more ridiculous. They didn't just accept me, but they didn't care. It made no difference in how they saw me, in our relationship, in the world. It was just a fact, a statement, it didn't change who I was, it didn't define me in some way. It was a part of me that was always there and revealing it and putting it out into the world changed nothing, except the relief of giving up that fear.

It doesn't have to be hard; it doesn't have to be a big deal. It shouldn't matter, and it's possible for someone who is gay or bi or trans or whatever to just exist and for people to simply accept the facts of person's identity and not care about "what" you are, because all that matter is "who" you are.

My partner doesn't have that story, he has the trauma. I don't think that he can fully process the love and overwhelming support that he has gotten from my parents and family. And I think most individuals in the community who go through those traumas of not being accepted and not receiving that kind of unconditional love often are left broken in a way that is nearly impossible to fully heal. And it's sad because it doesn't have to be that way.

That's why I feel that my story is important, because it represents the other side of the coin. It challenges the trope that this is the inevitable doom of the community, losing relationships because your part of the lgbtqia+ community. But it doesn't have to be that way. I see the world and the younger generation moving towards that level of acceptance and while the world it full of problems, I see a hope for a future where a kid can grow up and never have to feel that fear, because it doesn't matter, and no one cares. No one cares if you are trans or gay, or black or Hispanic or nerd or large), all that matters is who you are as a person. That's how the world should work, right. We should be able to move through the world as human beings on a certain common ground and respect for one another.... you would think.

And it's not just my parents that accepted me and the love of my life. While I never got the chance to introduce him to my grandfather who was very religious because of that same nugget of fear. He did go with me to my grandfather's funeral at the beginning of the pandemic. and the fear crept back a bit.... this was really the coming out to my entire extended family and bringing my boyfriend/fiancé to a funeral of all things. I have never felt more seen and accepted in my life. No one even batted an eye. All very religious and we all know the way that religious trauma has affect so many in the community. So again, that led to a series of unfounded fears based on the horror stories of friends and history. But my family couldn't care less. They welcomed him in as part of the family, and it was no big deal.

My grandfather was one of the most devout Christians I ever knew. I wish that he would have had a chance to meet Joe. Because I know now what I knew all along, what he preached and taught. LOVE. Unconditional love for your fellow man. We are all equal, no one better than anyone else. That is what he taught, that was the God that he believed in, one that first and foremost was about love, not persecution, not judgement, but an unconditional love for your fellow man and a respect regardless of our differences. That is the family he raised and the family that raised me. I am so grateful to be able to say that this is my story, and I am so hopeful that someday this can be everyone's story. That no one should have to deal with the mental stress and hardship of the fear of persecution.

it's not glamorous and it won't make a good movie, but I hope that it shows someone that you can find acceptance and if you are someone who is not getting that acceptance from their family, it's not you, it's them. For anyone that has not had the privilege of a positive coming out, or that has trauma they have to deal with, I'm sorry. My hope is that knowing that the story can be different serves as a beacon of light to those who didn't get that experience. Knowing that they world can be better, because there are stories and there are real examples of how it should/could be, I hope serves as fuel to those who are fighting to make that better world a reality for everyone.

So, that's my story well, at least that part of it. It's one that I have felt more and more needs to be told with the state of the world and if you've made it this far, then you have a better attention span than my husband, so props to you!