The Never Ending Process of "Coming Out"

Yesterday was the 31st anniversary of National Coming Out Day - a day to celebrate coming out as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender.  Truth be told, however, when one is LGBT, the "coming out" process is not a one time event.  It happens over and over again as one has to first admit reality to one's self and then over time to coming out to family, friends, at work, and thereafter, every time one meets someone new, assuming you feel it necessary and/or worthwhile to reveal this truth about yourself.  Some times it is worth the effort, other times it is easier to reference "my spouse" rather than to say "my husband" and run the risk of awkward questions or outright rejection.  As a column in the Washington Post notes, it can be exhausting and can be more about others' expectations than self-affirmation.  Over time, it does get easier once one develops an "I don't give a damn" attitude towards what others think.  Yet, coming out remains something the straight world cannot comprehend since no one straight ever has to "come out."  My thoughts and best wishes go out to the LGBT individuals beginning the never ending process. Here are column highlights:   

Since college, I’ve come out countless times: in office meetings, to roommates, at dinner parties, to baristas and doctors and anytime it seems necessary.

Since 1988, there has been an official day for coming out: Oct. 11. But the reality is that queer people have to come out over and over and over again. It’s exhausting and frankly sometimes not worth it. So I’m not always out. Maybe someone asks me if I have a wife, and I simply say no. Maybe a friend’s child asks what gay is, and I say they should ask their parents. Maybe I check “rather not respond” on hospital forms about sexuality. Maybe I don’t tell and hope that others don’t ask.

In asking gay friends — and lesbians, bisexuals, trans folks and closeted people — about their similar experiences with this exhaustion and coy, post-out closetedness, a recurring frustration was that as soon as queer life is broached, straight people often act entitled to ask personal questions. Are you a top or a bottom? Are you postoperative? Do you have a penis? Which do you like more, men or women? There is a tyranny there that conscripts queer people as servants to straight awareness, paid intermittently in the minimum wage of tolerance. Queer people would never do this to straight people; we’re not allowed.

This is the trap of coming out, the way it squirms under the weight of straight expectations. Coming out is embraced only as otherness . . . . my interrogators have almost never put any effort into their curiosity before unloading it on me. Because it’s not about learning my truths; it’s about fitting their scripts.

Openness was a radical act of self-empowerment in Harvey Milk’s day, when gay existence was just shy of insanity and plague. But a half-century of pride later, coming out has become increasingly about other people. When Apple chief executive Tim Cook came out, he quoted Martin Luther King Jr.: “Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, ‘What are you doing for others?’ ” Sure. But our outness is for us, not them. We have lost the spotlight in our own story.

What’s more, we have collectively believed the lie that coming out, as a moment of actualization, is exclusively a personal journey rather than a societal one. Our celebration of coming out forces queer people alone to do the hard work and emotional labor of changing the country. Meanwhile, Americans are raising persistently gendered blue and pink kids. No matter our pride, outness still costs us Uber rides, YouTube dollars, our health care, our ability to parent, the roofs over our heads and, in 28 states, our jobs (this past week, the Justice Department argued that the Supreme Court should allow businesses to treat outness as a fireable offense nationwide, condemning queer livelihood to straight mercy).

No wonder that high-profile athletes and musicians who come out often do so only after they’re off the field (football player Ryan Russell) or after their song has danced atop the charts (“Old Town Road” singer Lil Nas X). The Brooklyn Nets forced center Jason Collins to accept a series of 10-day contracts after he came out. Actor Sean Hayes didn’t come out until after the original run of “Will & Grace” concluded (and he scored his Emmy). It is a vanguard that cowers — maybe by necessity.

Thankfully, the coming-out playbook is being rewritten — if imperfectly — by prominent people from Jodie Foster and Aaron Schock to Lil Nas X and Janelle Monáe. Without officially coming out, Foster and Schock (a former congressman) skipped to being out, forcing others to process "what this means" on their own. It's a mix of bravery, subversion and evasion. . . . . All four are out in deliciously contradictory ways.

This last part underscores the truth that there is no monolithic way of being LGBT.  We are as diverse and varied as those in the straight world despite efforts to stereotype us.

The Homophobic World of Surfing

I began surfing when my son was age 11 and wanted to learn to surf.  His mother was not keen on the idea of him venturing into the ocean alone, so yours truly was recruited/directed to start relearning to surf at age 45 after not paddling out on a surf board since I was about 22.   Both of us came to love surfing and my son got to be pretty good as did two of his boy cousins (both of my daughters ultimately learned to surf as well).   My son and I and his friends had many wonderful "boys surf trips" to Hatteras Island over the years driving down in a huge Ford Crown Victoria Country Squire wagon that could easily handle six or more surf boards plus my son and at least 3 of his friends.  

Surfing is wonderful for a number of reasons: it's great exercise, it's a great form of stress release - something I needed desperately in my closeted years - and it is a wonderful way to enjoy nature and the ocean.  The draw back is that surfing culture tends to be kind of macho and not what one would describe as gay friendly, especially at the professional surfer level. My blogosphere friend Thomas Castets of Australia decided that this mindset need to change and launched his website gaysurfers.net which I have written about before.    I signed up early on and now the organization as a documentary entitled "Out in the Line Up" which looks at gays and surfing (I am purchasing a copy) .  The Guardian has a piece on the organization.  Here are highlights:

When Thomas Castets sat down at his computer in Sydney four years ago and began writing a blog, he had one modest aim. “I thought it would be nice if I could find at least one other gay surfer out there,” he says. “And find out if they had some time to surf with me.”

Within two weeks, 300 people had got in touch. Now his website, gaysurfers.net, is a thriving social network with almost 6,000 members, ranging from former world champions to people living in villages in West Africa. And as the membership grew – to include many who thought they were only gay surfer in the world – so did the stories. Surfers, including many professional ones, were writing to Castets to explain how they had felt compelled to keep their sexuality secret, faced homophobia in the sport or struggled in the surf industry as a result of coming out.

Last year Thomas, along with Australian former state champion surfer David Wakefield – who chose not to pursue a surfing career out of a fear of being “found out” as gay – decided to go on a trip around the world to meet some of them. Their journey – captured in award-winning documentary Out in the Line-up, which premieres in the UK this week – sheds a light on the experiences of gay surfers around the world as it seeks to understand why the sport continues to struggle to be open about the issue.

Among the stories heard are that of former competitive surfer Susie Hernandez, whose fellow surfers and roommates moved out after finding out she was gay. And Robbins Thompson, who was a pro surfer in the 90s but dropped out of a tour after finding the word “fag” spray-painted on his car. It also touches on the tragic case of Ben Roper, a young gay surfer from one of Sydney’s infamous surf gangs, the Bra Boys, who killed himself last year.

“Surfing is still locked in its old stereotypes from the 60s,” says Castets, describing the tanned, blond, ripped, definitely heterosexual nomad most of us still imagine when we think of a surfer. “There’s not much room for the individual in surfing.”

The issue of homosexuality and surfing draws in a lot of wider problems the sport has with diversity in general – something that seems at odds with the easy-going, counterculture lifestyle many feel it represents. There is still yet to be an openly gay male pro surfer at the elite level who is currently on tour – despite the fact that more traditional sports, such as football, rugby and boxing, have had successful athletes come out.

“There are a lot of reasons why surfing has this problem,” says Castets. “One cause is that surfing is, unfortunately, primarily a male-dominated sport. And when you have all these men travelling together, hunting for waves, there is an element to the psychology that is about making sure there is no ambiguity between the men. To prove your heterosexuality, you need to prove your skills in the water. And another cause is just that there have never really been any gay surfers out there, so I would just call that ignorance and a lack of visibility.”

The marketing of surfing is also markedly heterosexual. It is dominated by white men, and female surfers are frequently objectified – an issue that came to the fore last September, when sports clothing brand Roxy ran an advert for a surf competition featuring seductive shots of surfer Stephanie Gilmore’s body, without any footage of her actually surfing. As Kennelly says, female surfers are required to be “straight, young, feminine, pretty … oh yeah, and a talented surfer”.

Not one straight professional surfer they approached was prepared to speak publicly about the issue on film.

Leading surf organisations responded with equal aversion. Surfing Australia declined to comment, while the Association of Surfing Professionals agreed to go on film, but then withdrew permission to run the interview at late notice. “That’s when we realised it was a real taboo,” says Thomson. “They just don’t want to know about it and they don’t want to talk about it. But then in their backyards there are people killing themselves, people suffering from depression, surfers having great careers cut short by what’s going on. So that ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ mentality, which ultimately didn’t work for the US military, cannot work in the future for surfing either.”

“I thought if we were able to make this film, we would be able to change that stereotype and show a new image of what it is to be gay in 2014. It goes beyond just gay surfers. It is a story about being able to live your life the way you are, without being bound by the stereotypes of the subculture.”

Kudos to Thomas and those who worked on this important film!!

Beauty Queens Come Out as Gay

As this past weekend's HR Pride Fest event made clear, LGBT individuals come in all shapes and sizes and in every race and ethnicity.   Nonetheless, the enemies of LGBT equality and same sex marriage work diligently to disseminate and reenforce negative stereotypes about LGBT people.  One of their favorites - after describe gay men as disease ridden Nelly queens - is to depict lesbian as mannish, unattractive freaks.   Over the weekend, two beauty queens blew that would be stereotype to Hell.  First, former two time Miss Spain, Patricia Yurena Rodriguez (pictured above), came out as lesbian as noted at MSN:

A former Miss Spain, Patricia Yurena Rodriguez, came out as a lesbian last week, after revealing on Instagram that she was in a relationship with her girlfriend DJ Vanessa Cortes. The revelation makes Rodriguez the first openly gay national beauty queen in the country.

"Romeo and Julliet," Rodriguez, 24, captioned the pic of her laying in bed and staring into Cortes' eyes. . . . . I do not regret what I did," Rodriguez told local Spanish newspaper, La Opinion de Tenerife of her announcement. "I'm thrilled with what is happening to me."

Meanwhile, yesterday the news broke that 2014 Rose of Tralee, Philadelphia Rose Maria Walsh (pictured below), is gay.  Here are excerpts from Irsih Central:

"I'm confident in who I am as a person," the 27-year-old said, in a matter of fact interview with The Sun that laid the truth bare.

Others were equally confident in Walsh too.  Her sexuality is likely to "create some interest, hopefully all positive,” the executive chairman of the festival Anthony O'Gara told the press this weekend.

Twitter and Facebook erupted, with the majority of commenters applauding her brave decision to come out. But others got in line a little too hastily to write a terse “so what?” as though there could never be any controversy about being LGBT nowadays.

If only. Right on cue a host of apoplectically angry commentators reminded us why it’s still news when Ireland’s Rose of Tralee sweetheart announces she’s gay. Across the internet they posted strong biblical condemnations or outright bigoted profanities, carefully calculated to wound.

In New York, like every prior Rose, she will be feted and fawned over during the 2015 Saint Patrick’s Day season. The Rose of Tralee competition has already show us that Walsh has courage, heart and class, and so hopefully her example will inspire others to show her the same courtesy now.

If New York’s Saint Patrick’s Day Parade Committee is still discriminating against – rather than embracing – Irish gay people by 2015 (almost 100 years after the Rising that was fought in the name of freedom for all Irish people) they will look and sound like last century's men.

The fact is that Ireland has changed utterly; an Irish gay group has already won the best float award in the Saint Patrick’s Day parade in Dublin. A massive rally was held at the weekend to amend the constitution to permit same sex marriage. Now a Rose of Tralee, the nations sweetheart, has revealed she’s gay.

Kudos to both of the brave, beautiful women!!

Openly Gay Climber Poised to Conquer "Seven Summits"

When not depicting us as sexual predators and pedophiles the Christofascist like to promote the myth that gays are effeminate "Nellie boys" and other less than flattering things.  The truth never means anything to these people.  Enter 20 year old Carson Crane (pictured above) who is out to conquer the so-called "Seven Summits" - the highest mountain on each of Earths seven continents.  Besides changing the image of gays, Crane is also using his endeavor as a fundraiser for the Trevor Project. So far he has successfully climber five of the seven highest peaks and will so be taking on Mt. Everest.  After that, he plans to climb Mt. McKinley in Alaska.  I wish him great success.  Here are highlights from the South China Morning Post:

An American student who once attended school in Hong Kong is well on his way to becoming the first openly gay mountaineer to conquer the highest peak on each continent - known as the "Seven Summits".

Cason Crane, 20, already has five of those mountains under his belt and was yesterday due to begin his quest to scale the highest of them all, Mount Everest.  That will be followed by his final target, Mount McKinley in Alaska, which will make him the fifth-youngest person to achieve the feat.

Crane's seven-summit challenge is also a fund-raising effort for The Trevor Project, an organisation based in the United States that is the country's sole 24-hour suicide lifeline for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or questioning (LGBTQ) youth.  Crane calls his LGBTQ awareness-building initiative The Rainbow Summits Project, and he puts a rainbow flag on his tent on each of the mountains.

He was spurred into action following the suicide of New York university student Tyler Clementi, who jumped from a bridge in September 2010 after his roommate and others targeted him through cyber-bullying over his romantic relationships.  "I didn't know Tyler at all," Crane said. "But I felt like I knew him."  Crane himself has experienced some bullying at school, but that has not stopped him from becoming a successful openly gay athlete since age 15.

The oldest of five children, he showed early signs of mountaineering skills. At just 15 years old, he went with his mother, a mountaineer and ultramarathon athlete, up Mount Kilimanjaro, Africa's highest mountain.  He has also reached the summits of Mount Aconcagua in Argentina; Mount Elbrus, a dormant volcano in Russia; the Carstensz Pyramid or Puncak Jaya in Indonesia; and the Vinson Massif, Antarctica's highest peak.

Being out, proud and destroying stereotypes is something that all of us can do.  And in the process, we often open minds and change hearts.  Kudos to Crane.   To learn more about his ambitious effort, check out his web page here.

Former 49er and Raider Kwame Harris: Coming Out is Important

While no current pro football player has yet to come out, more former pro players are coming out.  And one of those player, who joins David Kopay, Roy Simmons, Esera Tuaolo, and Wade Davis in coming out after retirement, is Kwame Harris.  Candidly, I am no fan of much of pro sports and believe that most athletes, especially are grossly over paid.  Nonetheless, I do hope for the day when gays involved in such sports can  has be out and succeed openly.  Harris expounded on why coming out is important and the critical role that it plays in breaking down anti-gay stereotypes so often disseminated by our enemies.  The San Francisco Chronicle has details and here are excerpts:

Former 49er and Raider Kwame Harris is one of the few to come out as a gay man following his NFL career. He joins former 49er David Kopay, Roy Simmons, Esera Tuaolo, and Wade Davis. It adds more kindling to the raging debate over homosexuality in sports and particularly in the NFL.

Harris came out in an interview on CNN conducted by a former Stanford teammate, Coy Wire. An incident with a companion compelled Harris to declare his sexual orientation, but he says he’s glad he did.

So why is adding another name to those former NFL players who have come out, important?  It further breaks down the resistance in sports to homosexuality, particularly in lucrative North American men’s team sports of football, basketball, baseball, hockey and soccer. As most of us know, an active player has never declared his homosexuality while still playing.

Other traditionally homosexual-resistant institutions such as police departments and the armed forces have long since integrated sexually divergent individuals into their work places. Sports remains a last holdout.

Recognizing gayness in the big five sports would further normalize homosexuality, something that could be critical, particularly for youth. Suicide rates for non-heterosexual youth are high; theLastCloset.org writes that 30 to 40 percent of gay youth consider suicide and unfortunately, many follow through.

With more former players coming out, and with players who make homophobic comments, like 49ers cornerback Chris Culliver, getting called out, a social stigma is changing. It used to be that being gay came with a stigma, particularly in sports. Now it appears, that being anti-gay and homophobic is the new stigma. 

Harris’ courageous admission opens up sports to divergent sexual orientations that much more. And while that might not seem important or impactful in the short term, eventually it could help lessen the burden on kids who want to follow Harris’ lead. 

It is of course the growing stigma that attaches to being anti-gay and homophobic that is driving the Christofascists to hysterics.  They are so accustomed to stigmatizing and denigrating others that they truly cannot cope with the reality that finally the shoe is beginning to be on the other foot.

Will Multiple Gay NFL Players Come Out?

With many NFL fans holding views much like that of the GOP base there is swirling speculation that one or more gay NFL players may be about to come out.  Personally, I'd like to see it happen because it would be a further proof that gays do not fit the stereotypes disseminated by the Christofascists and likely self-loathing macho jocks.  Will it happen?  Who knows. But it would be entertaining to see the reaction of the Neanderthal crowd if one of their favorite players turned out to be gay.  An article at NBC Sports looks at the wild speculation.  Here are excerpts:

This week’s story that a gay NFL player is considering coming out was met with an interesting reaction from Domonique Foxworth, the former NFL cornerback who is now president of the NFL Players Association.

Foxworth said that not only does he think it’s inevitable that a gay player will come out, but he believes multiple gay players are going to come out. Foxworth said on WNST in Baltimore that there are already multiple gay players in the NFL, and that when one of them comes out, others will see that they have nothing to fear.

“It doesn’t have to be one player,” Foxworth said. “When one player comes out, multiple players will come out, because they are in our league right now.”  Foxworth said an openly gay NFL player would be a much bigger deal in the media than it would be to other players.

“When the public finds out about it, it’s going to be a media storm and it’s going to be a lot of press and a lot of attention, and probably not all of it’s gonna be positive,” Foxworth said. “But the NFLPA, as long as I’m president of it, is going to be behind that player and providing support.”

The first gay player to come out will be making a difficult, courageous decision. But if Foxworth is right, the second gay player to come out will already know he’ll be supported within the fraternity of NFL players.