I came out in 2020. And by that, I mean I came out for the first time in 2020. I say “for the first time” because coming out is a process, an ongoing conversation, not a finite moment in time.
Every time I meet a new person or begin forming a relationship with someone, I come out. This looks different with certain people, and sometimes it’s as simple as someone noticing that my necklace has a carabiner on it. Other times I have to be more explicit about it. Sometimes I’m explicit about it while wearing my carabiner necklace, Doc Martens, cuffed Levi’s, and a thrifted men’s shirt, but it still doesn’t seem to register.
It’s not that I go up to every stranger and announce that I’m gay; I just don’t hide that part of my identity in conversation and would rather people know that about me sooner before it turns into a big coming out discussion. Because the thing is, no matter how many carabiners and crystals I accessorize with, most people are going to assume I’m straight until I say otherwise. I feel a closet being built around me. Mentioning going to Pride or joking about the straight guys who show up on lesbian Hinge lets me break that closet down before the walls get reinforced.
There have been times, though, (especially at the beginning of my journey) where I considered allowing this closet to be built up again. When restaurants reopened, my first girlfriend and I walked hand-in-hand downtown for a night out. It’s not that we got bad looks that I noticed, but there were definitely lingering gazes or second glances as we walked past. I remember worrying that we might pass the wrong person in the wrong headspace.
The solution to this particular problem could have been just not holding hands in public, but if I was straight, this thought never would have crossed my mind. I’m an affectionate person who just wanted to hold my girlfriend’s hand on our first big night out, and I didn’t want to take away something so simple but that meant so much to me simply out of fear for how others would react.
Recent anti-LGBTQ+ legislation and social patterns have stirred up these questions for me once again. I love who I’ve allowed myself to be since first coming out, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t consider a future where I would have to give up some of these freedoms.
I want to make this clear: I’m privileged. I’m a white, femme lesbian from an upper-middle class family. I could ditch the carabiners, Docs, and sense of humor, be miserable in a relationship with a man, and Gilead would be none-the-wiser. I wouldn’t suffer with gender dysphoria because of this or feel like I need to suppress huge parts of who I am. Walking down the street, I’m not risking as much as a trans* person would be – especially a BIPOC trans* person. But I feel at risk nonetheless.
I also feel, however, the lingering pain that came with suppressing this part of me for 20 years. I was raised in a conservative area and was brought up in the Catholic Church. Unlike my other queer friends from elementary school, I did know that queer people existed but I didn’t feel that I could be queer. So I kept my feelings bottled up, I convinced myself I wanted to have straight hair and wear muted colors like everyone else, and I felt confused and broken every time I realized something about me was different.
I refuse to go back in the closet, and I refuse to stand by while a closet is built around me. I could live my life differently and perhaps be accepted more readily by society, but that would mean never fully accepting myself. There’s no shame in staying in the closet until you feel ready and comfortable, but when you do just know there’s a community of people here for you who will accept the parts of you that you had to accept about yourself. Don’t let yourself feel pressured or bullied into giving that up.