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.

Older LGBT Americans Must Be the Role Models We Lacked

Growing up in Upstate New York in the 1960's there were no "out" LGBT role models.  Indeed, in those pre-Internet days, I thought I was the lone closeted gay kid in my high school.  As it turns out, I wasn't - some of us have connected years latter via Facebook - but the isolation and effort to hide my "secret" from family, friends and the world in general was oppressive.  Throw in my Catholic upbringing and it was down right soul killing.  Little did I know at the time that there were numerous successful closeted LGBT individuals that ranged from movie stars to leaders of industry.  Things are improving now, but depending on where one lives or the profession one has chosen, role models can remain few and far between.  Anthony Niedwiecki, dean of Golden Gate Law School and the husband of a blogger friend - his husband and I both attended a LGBT blogger summit in Washington, D.C. almost a decade ago - has a timely column in The Advocate that encourages older LGBT individuals to rise to the occasion of being role models for younger generations.  A key part is not just mentoring, but being visible - "out" if you will - in one's personal and professional life.  Here are highlights:

I was recently asked by a student, “How do you think being gay has impacted your career?” It was a great question that got me thinking about my journey from coming out in law school to becoming one of the only openly LGBTQ deans to ever lead a law school in the nation.

I came out at a time when there weren’t many visible LGBTQ leaders to look up to. Coming from a Catholic family in Michigan, I just didn’t have access to many people like me to look up to. That was also true as I entered law school. I purposely chose a school where I thought I could be more myself and finally come out. Luckily, I found friends and a few faculty members who helped me grow comfortable enough to take those first steps out of the closet. Finding the people who had the strength to be visible and proud helped me on my own journey.

But being gay in a predominantly straight male profession has its challenges. The first internship I had at a law firm was incredibly hostile to LGBTQ people. One of the partners eventually pulled me aside and told me, “You should probably start bringing a girlfriend to company parties — people are starting to talk.”  I left that firm.

I instantly became much more aware of the level of acceptance at my next internship or job. After graduation, I ended up at a wonderful law firm that had an openly gay partner. Having an LGBTQ person in leadership completely shifted the tone of the firm and made me completely comfortable to be myself. The partner even began mentoring me to help me succeed, which helped me see the value of being out in the professional world. If he could succeed, so could I.

The impact of visibility was driven home when I ran for local office. I decided to run for city commissioner after the mayor went on an antigay tirade. If I wanted to change the tone that he was setting, I needed to be the example of what LGBTQ leadership could look like. During my run to be city commissioner, I never shied away from being out. In fact, I went to California to marry my husband during the campaign. We won — and it changed the tone and trajectory that the bigoted former mayor tried to set.

All of these experiences are why I'm so proud to be incredibly outspoken and open as the dean of Golden Gate University. I remember the impact that having an openly LGBTQ person in my profession made on me and want to pass that along. But we still have so far to go. Many times, we run into the “rainbow ceiling,” where systemic biases impact the ability to move into a leadership role in our professional lives. A new report indicates we are routinely “frozen out of” top management jobs. This is even truer when it intersects with the biases against women and communities of color.

Things are slowly changing. We see groundbreaking members of our community like Sen. Tammy Baldwin, Laverne Cox, and Adam Rippon unabashedly being their authentic selves. The impact of visible leaders and high-profile figures is hopefully being felt by the current generation of LGBTQ youth coming into their own. I want to one day lose track because we’re so well represented. I want to see us on the Supreme Court or as president. And I truly believe those leaders of tomorrow are out there, drawing strength from those who have come before. Just like I did.

Kudos to Anthony - and his husband who has been an amazing activist for LGBT rights in his own right. 

Things That I Wish I Had Known in High School

A graduation day similar to my own at Onongada Central Jr./Sr. High

In many of the earliest posts on this blog I have recounted my coming out story and my life growing up as a closeted gay boy in a Catholic household and attending a small conservative public high school in Central New York State.  One of the worse parts of that era before the Internet was the sense of being utterly alone and believing myself to be some sort of lone freak (who, of course, was damned to an eternity in Hell according to my church).  The consequence was that I worked incredibly hard in not allowing my secret to come out.  Other than summers in the Adirondacks and snow skiing during the winter, I viewed my life as a living hell.

Now, inadvertently I have discovered that I wasn't the lone freak I had thought I was at the time. It turns out there were indeed other LGBT kids at my school, including some that I knew (the school was so small that one knew just about everyone).  I've communicated with two of them and now know there were others as well.  It's been a great experience.  Of course, at the time none of us knew about each other, so we never had our "Geography Club"  moment. 

Growing up gay is still difficult in many parts of America and in far too many families.  Thankfully, the Internet will allow many to reduce their sense of isolation  - some that plagued me and increased my own lack of self acceptance - and add to their belief that things will get better.  Yes, a long term view for teenagers is hard to implement, but having access to the knowledge that there are others like you and places that are accepting will hopefully serve as a life line to more and more of today's LGBT teens.  Meanwhile, I will continue to try to expose the hypocrisy and evilness of those who seek to oppress and stigmatize LGBT individuals. 

  

What it Means to "Sound Gay" and Internalized Homophobia

Growing up gay and in denial about one's sexual orientation is complicated at best and a mix of knowing in one's heart what the truth is yet trying desperately - at least in my own case - to convince the world and one self that that secretly known truth is not real.  One side effect is being hypersensitive about how one acts, looks and god forbid, talks and sounds to others.   It is all part and parcel with trying to live up to a perceived stereotype of how straight men act and talk.  The effort to maintain the role is non-stop except perhaps when one is alone.  It is exhausting to say the least.  A new documentary called "Do I Sound Gay" throws focus on the phenomenon and the fear that I and others had growing up - I suspect many still are effected - that my voice and/or mannerisms would reveal my dreaded secret.   A piece in the Washington Post looks at the documentary and the internalized (and external) homophobia involved.  Here are excerpts:

Most of us are familiar with the stereotype of a “gay voice.” A man speaks at a higher pitch, and in a more melodious fashion. The man might pronounce his p’s, t’s and k’s very crisply, or have what’s sometimes (incorrectly) described as a “lisp." Think Nathan Lane in The Birdcage, or Buddy Cole of Kids in the Hall.

But is there any reality to this stereotype? Do gay men actually sound different than straight men? And if so, why?

These are the questions in a new documentary, “Do I Sound Gay?” It’s a fascinating and nuanced film, in which the filmmaker, David Thorpe, uses his feelings about his voice to look at attitudes toward homosexuality. It raises a complicated discussion about gay pride, lingering homophobia, disguised misogyny, and the extent to which we all alter the image that we present to the world.

As the film begins, Thorpe is disturbed because he realizes he doesn’t like his voice any more. He’s just gone through a break-up and is feeling unconfident and low. “Who could respect, much less fall in love with, an old braying ninny like me?” he asks.

With these feelings of self-loathing, Thorpe sets on a journey to see if he can become more comfortable with his voice again (and presumably, with himself). He enrolls in voice coaching that promises to give him a "powerful and authentic" voice.

Thorpe explores in other ways the meaning behind his voice and his discomfort with it. He carries out thoughtful conversations with his friends and prominent gay and lesbian figures – including George Takei, David Sedaris, Dan Savage, Margaret Cho and Don Lemon – about what it means to “sound gay.” And though these people are all proud of their sexuality, he finds many of them have surprisingly complex feelings about their voices.

The film asks more questions than it answers. 

In a study published in 2003, Ron Smyth, a linguist at the University of Toronto, found that participants readily separated recordings of 25 diverse voices into those who “sounded gay” and those who “sounded straight.” People picked up on features of the gay stereotype – voices that were higher and more melodious were more often labeled "gay."

The trouble was that these labels had little relationship with sexuality. In Smyth's study, people correctly guessed a man’s sexuality about 60 percent of the time, only a little better than random.

In another small study at the University of Hawaii, both gay and straight listeners were equally as likely to misclassify people as gay or straight. In fact, the straight men with so-called gay voices weren't aware that people thought they sounded gay at all.

"Some men with 'gay voices' are straight, and some men with 'straight voices' are gay," says Smyth. "There are butch and fem gay men, there are butch and fem straight men, there are butch and fem straight women." And so on.

“Do I Sound Gay?” shows that even men who are out and proud may still carry with them some shame about having a stereotypical “gay voice,” even if those feelings are subconscious.

Dan Savage, a gay activist and author, argues in the film that this is a natural consequence of boys being bullied for walking and talking a certain way when they are young. They grow up "policing" themselves for evidence that might betray them, like their voice, Savage says.

Under-running these negative feelings is also a strong current of misogyny, an ingrained prejudice against women, say Thorpe, Savage and others.   Misogyny and homophobia are “evil twins,” which both have a root in sexism and devaluing things that are female, says Thorpe.

Like most kids, Thorpe was painfully sensitive to what made him different.  . . . . there were also almost no positive gay characters in the media. . . . few people openly talked about their homosexuality.   And when characters with “gay” mannerisms or voices appeared in popular culture, they were sometimes coded with negative or insidious meanings.

[H]omophobia still affects Hollywood. Many actors work to make their voices sound masculine: In the film, Bob Corff, a Hollywood speech therapist that Thorpe visits, says 20 to 50 people a year come to him to sound "less gay."

The biggest response to the film, Thorpe says, is people "standing up to talk about their own voices, their own stories, their own anxieties -- about aspects of themselves that are inherent to who they are, but for one reason or another, they’ve been taught to devalue."

I hope for the day when "sounding gay" simply does not matter - either to the speaker or the listeners.  Growing up gay was no bed of roses.  No one should grow up hating them self.

We Have Come a Long Way!!

This image from The Advocate sums up just how much things have changed.  I still get emotional when I think about this - especially when I remember all the years of self-hate and self-loathing I experience simply because of religious based lies and bigotry.

Summer, Pride, and Growing Up Gay

Brantingham Lake from the air

Summer remains my favorite time of the year and, in part,  I attribute it to the summer of my closeted youth.  The following is a reprint of my June, 2015, column in VEER Magazine:

Summer is my favorite part of the year for reasons that will be described in part below.  It is also the time of year that the majority of LGBT "pride events" take place when LBGT individuals take pride in who they are and celebrate the advances that have been won over the years.  In fact, in America, June is "Pride Month" and President Obama has issued a proclamation in recognition of this reality.  The proclamation reads in part as follows:

"we are not truly equal until every person is afforded the same rights and opportunities -- that when one of us experiences discrimination, it affects all of us -- and that our journey is not complete until our lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law.

During Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Month, we celebrate the proud legacy LGBT individuals have woven into the fabric of our Nation, we honor those who have fought to perfect our Union, and we continue our work to build a society where every child grows up knowing that their country supports them, is proud of them, and has a place for them exactly as they are.

"NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim June 2015 as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Month." 

Encouraging and welcome words.  Here locally, Hampton Roads Pride will sponsor PrideFest 2015 at Town Point Part on Saturday June, 27, 2015, commencing at 12:00 o'clock noon.  However, the local Pride celebration is growing with each passing year and more events are taking place in the lead up - Pride Week, if you will - to the main event on June 27th.  This year The Hampton History Museum will be presenting an event entitled "Our Story, Our Time  Growing Up . . . Gay in Hampton Roads."  The event is free to the public and starts at 5:30 on June 24, 2015, at the Crown Plaza Marina, 700 Settlers Landing Road in downtown Hampton.  Part of what the event focuses upon is the reality that LGBT individuals have always been part of our local history even if in times past they felt the need to remain invisible. The Hampton History Museum event will include a panel the members of which will describe what it was like to grow up "different" in Hampton Roads.  Panelists include Dick Fore, the owner of Foremost Florists, Barry Menser, owner of Barry's for Hair, Corey Mason, an actor, theater director and college student, Anthony Cudrup of the Hampton Finance Department, Bobbi Mitchell, and Art Institute student and Gavin Grimm, a transgender high school student.  For Peninsula readers, the event might prove eye opening.

I myself did not grow up in Hampton Roads.  Rather I grew up through high school in Central New York State near the city of Syracuse.  But like each of the panelist and with countless gays across America, the day came when I realized - in my case, much to my extreme horror, given my Catholic upbringing and the relative conservatism of Central New York at the time - that I was "different."   What I realized was that that my principal attractions were to other boys.  Not all other boys, but toward boys of a certain look and temperament.  One of the big myths of opponents of gay equality is that gays are either predators or seek to "recruit" others with very little discernment.  We are no different that straight people who each have their "type," preferred hair color, etc.  And I assure you, no one ever recruited me.

 At the time this unwanted realization hit me, I did not know what the term "gay" was but I did know that what I was feeling and experiencing had to remain a total secret.  And for the next thirty seven years, I did everything that I could to deny and suppress this reality and to "pray away the gay" through daily mass attendance, and a rigid effort to never, ever let anyone know "my secret."  Life for me became that of playing the role of an actor on a stage.  All these years later, it is hard to comprehend how I could convince myself that I was "straight" even as I knew in my heart what the real truth was.  I guess the only answer is that one will engage in all kinds of mental gymnastics rather than accept an unwanted reality.  Spurring me on in the effort were, of course, several factors: being gay was deem a clinical form of mental illness until my last year in college at the University of Virginia, (ii) my church's pronouncements that I was going straight to Hell, and (iii) family and societal expectations.

For many of us, our teen years are years of finding ourselves and lack of confidence.  Carrying the burden of "my secret," my teen years were likely worse than most.  Making matters worse for me was the fact that I did not excel at any of the popular sports at our small high school (750 students in grades 7 through 12), such as football, basket ball and baseball.  Gym class was always a nightmare for me.  Adding to my problem of fitting in, I was one of the "smart kids" and went on to eventually win a New York State Regents Scholarship.  Trying desperately to pass as straight and not be deemed a dork, I did a season of football, a season on the tennis team and then finally I joined the cross country team for two seasons where I actual received a varsity letter.  The closeted gay boy a varsity athlete!   Imagine that!  Despite this triumph of sorts, however, like many LGBT youth, I thought of suicide often since my efforts to "pray away the gay" were getting me nowhere.  Like so many others, these thoughts of suicide plagued me for years and latter while coming out, I acted on them twice in a serious manner, obviously without success.

If the school year was a nightmare, summers were what likely saved me and helped me survive my teen years.  Through my mother's  family, we had a summer home on Brantingham Lake in the western Adirondack Mountains in northern New York State.  As my siblings and I got older, we spent large parts of the summer at the "camp" as such summer homes are called in local parlance.  And this allowed me an opportunity to reinvent myself, if you will.  While I truly sucked at school team sports, I excelled at slalom water skiing, sailing, canoeing and swimming.  I could compete and hold my own.  In addition, at camp, we had a whole different circle of friends, most of whom were from other parts of New York or surrounding states and were far more sophisticated than my school year friends.   Yes, I still struggled to "pray away the gay" and convince myself that I wasn't really attracted to some of my male friends.  And , yes, the mental gymnastics to deny the truth about my sexual orientation continued at Olympic proportions.  But these summers allowed me to finally feel somewhat good about myself.   As one friend from those years with whom I have reconnected through the magic of Facebook wrote in a post "the memories of the lake, the times in the boats at night, skiing in the mornings at 6am so as to be the only boat on the lake..... these are the memories that never leave me and are the ones I use to help me get to sleep at night."  They were the summer time experiences that helped me survive growing up gay.

The good news is that things have changed remarkably since my teen years - in ways that I could never have dreamed of.  I hope readers will make an effort to attend both the Hampton History Museum event and PrideFest on June 27th.  I am also so very thankful that things are so much better for the younger generations that hopefully will never have to know the loneliness, isolation and self-hate that many of my generations faced.  There is still much work to be done, but growing up gay no longer needs to be such a rigorous ordeal.  And that is a very good thing. 

Gay West Virginia High School Athletes Attend Senior Prom as Couple

While there is much yet to be accomplished in the realm of gay rights and gay acceptance, things have traveled light years from when I was in high school. For one thing, when I was in high school, being gay was literally still classified as a mental illness. That did not change until three years after I graduated and was in my third year of college. Similarly, no gay would have dreamed of going to the prom with a same sex date.  Instead, I and so many others played the game of trying to be what family and society expected.  Yes, there were those I would have loved to have gone to the prom with (all boys and none of whom ever knew my feelings), but instead I  asked girls to the prom both years that I went to the prom and conformed to expectations.  I tried desperately to conformed to expectations for another 32 years.  Thus, I find it so amazing to read the happy story of two high school gays (pictured above) who got to do what I never did - go to the prom as a couple in love.  Here are highlights from Out Sports:

It's prom season at high schools across the country, a special time that until recently has been reserved for straight student couples. A sign of growing acceptance and change took place in West Virginia on Saturday night.

The Mussleman High School senior prom was held at The Heritage Hall in Inwood, West Virginia. Among the couples attending were Michael Martin, a Mussleman senior, and his boyfriend Logan Westrope, who attends Hedgesville High School.

Michael was a four-year starter on his school's soccer team, making all-state as a goalie. He is also an all conference swimmer and tennis player. He told his coming out story on Outsports in December, in what was our most-viewed story of 2014. Michael will attend Wilson College in Pennsylvania this fall, major in Environmental Sustainability and play soccer. Logan plays tennis for Hedgesville High School. He will attend Penn State University and major in meteorology. The two have been dating for four months.

"We knew this would be a night to remember," Logan told Outsports. "We walked in, checked in with our tickets, and were off to have fun!  At first we were both a little hesitant to hold hands, not knowing how the rest of the student body would react. But after a short while, we were always next to each other and danced together the whole night.

"Some of the slow songs we danced to were 'Stay With Me' (Sam Smith), 'See You Again' (Wiz Khalifa), and 'All of Me' (John Legend). At the moment when the slow songs played, we would just stare into each other's eyes and would think of how lucky we are to have each other.

"We didn't hear any negative comments about Michael and I. A lot of people would come up to us (especially the girls) and say, 'You both are so cute!' or 'You guys look great!'  Once we left the prom, I remember Michael saying to me in the car, 'Logan, this is our last prom and I'm so glad I got to spend it with you.' I couldn't have asked for a more perfect night."

Congratulations to Michael and Logan.  I am very happy for them.  Meanwhile, a part of me is sad that I missed so much in my life.  I hope and pray that what Michael and Logan experienced will soon be the new normal in this country.