Two Coming Out Stories

By Joseph Couture
Jun. 27, 2008

My friends were brave and reminded me that to be proud, we must be open.

As Pride month winds down, it’s important to remember that true pride is a spirit of dignity, confidence and self-respect we should exude all year.

It is about being proud of who we are as individuals and as a community.

Sadly, for many people the Pride celebrations are merely a once-a-year occasion to get together and have a good time. The rest of the year we live in the shadows of shame, denial and humiliation. Let me tell you a couple of stories to illustrate the point.

A female friend of mine works at an auto parts factory. She is pretty, feminine and smart. She also happens to have been in a lesbian relationship for nearly 12 years and has two kids with her partner.

She used to complain to me often about the offensive remarks some of her peers at work would constantly make about “queers.” They would go on about how gays were immoral and full of disease.

They had no idea that she was gay or how much their remarks hurt her. More than once she told me how she feared what would happen if her co-workers found out about her and how she often considered quitting to escape the poisonous environment they created.

As much as she hated hearing their vitriol, what was worse was the shame she felt because she was too embarrassed to stand up for herself or her family. Then one day that all changed.

Late one afternoon the boys were having a good old time making fun of a guy down the line they thought might be gay. They were mean and full of hate. My friend snapped.

“I don’t know were it came from,” she told me, “but I just blurted out that if gays were so terrible I must be an awful person because I was gay.” She said at first the boys didn’t believe her and thought she was joking. After observing her face for a minute it soon sank in that she wasn’t kidding. There was nothing but stunned silence for the rest of the shift.

My friend thought that it was going to be the end of the world for her. But it wasn’t. For the next couple of days it was just kind of awkward at work, but nothing was said.

Then one by one her co-workers broached the subject with her. It started with some of the women. A couple of the gals pulled her aside. “We want you to know that you’re OK,” they told her.

Soon some of the men followed. One of the guys who had been amongst the worst offenders for his homophobic remarks came up to her. “You made me think,” he said to her. “I didn’t mean to be a dick. It won’t happen again.”

Eventually things changed. The gay jokes continued, but now they joked about setting her up with other women for threesomes. “Typical male crap,” she told me, “but all in good humor and I laughed with them.” The hateful remarks stopped and a new atmosphere of tolerance emerged.

Another friend of mine told me the story of his family. One day over dinner his mother announced to the family that my friend’s cousin was gay.

They were a conservative Christian family and his mother did not take the news well. She blamed the gay man’s parents for failing to raise him properly. “If they had any morals or decency themselves,” she pronounced, “then he wouldn’t have turned out this way.”

For months after, all my friend heard about was what bad parents the gay man must have been and how God would punish them all. My friend was pained by the judgmental attitude of his family and decided to give them something to think about. “If someone being gay is the fault of their parents, you must have failed yourselves because I’m gay,” my friend said to them.

His mother burst into tears and ran out of the room. His father just sat looking shell shocked.

Days went by and nothing was said. Everyone was walking on eggshells, seemingly afraid to say a word. Finally, his mother broke the silence. “You’re still my son and that hasn’t changed,” she said to him.

He knew it was the first step in the healing process. It took time, but it happened. Not only did things return to normal, things improved.

The point is that Gay Pride is meant to last all year. It’s our greatest joy and coming out our greatest weapon. We can change the world if we only take courage and wear our pride on our sleeves every day of the year.