fuckyeahladylove:

My emergence from that of a closet to the light of accepting my homosexuality (oh, my, the corniness) is a business that has two separate levels: that of coming out to my peers and then that of coming out to my parents.

Among my peers, it was not an issue at all, as I attended, for five years, a wonderfully encouraging college which housed my first peek into the gay community.  I came from the Bible belt of Tennessee to a place where, for the first time, I was around women who shared my developing views.  There, almost three years into my education, I fell in love for the first time in my young life.  Once I experienced a woman sexually, I encountered my first comfort and true excitement in the act; in fact, I sat my two best friends down and, beginning to cry, explained the beauty I had found.

With my parents, however, it was a very different experience.  I’d witnessed anti-homosexual, racist, emotionally abusive, and unfairly biased comments from them for years.  My fear was solidified; I could not even invite them to my senior creative writing reading in which I sampled poems from my ‘same-sex love’ portfolio—the most important step in pursuing my creative writing degree.  My sister, the bearer of my secret for years, ended up revealing the truth to my step-father and mother.  My step-father? In his country accent, he basically said that people needed to be what they had to be.  My mother?  Feigned acceptance, to my undying surprise, but has since remarked on my ‘bad decisions.’  Being gay?  Not a decision, mother.  We have not spoken about it again.  Once I was financially free of my father, I wrote him a very simple e-mail on National Coming Out Day.  My sister was on the phone with him when she reminded him of the e-mail; apparently my father had to pull over just to think.  I know no more.

I surround myself with my own queer community and have the love of several, whether identifying as queer or not.  It is enough.  The beauty of that love is enough.