Utah Mormon Republican Comes Out as Gay: He "Could Not Continue to Live a Lie”

Nathan Ivie — Photo: Facebook

Those of us of older generations and/or raised in anti-gay religious traditions often struggle for years trying to "pray away the gay" or even undergoing fraudulent "conversion therapy" in order to meet family or religious denomination expectations.  Having undergone this struggle myself for decades, I can assure straight readers that it is a living hell filled with self-hate and self-loathing and, at least in my own case, constant thoughts of suicide which eventually lead to two serious attempts which landed me in the hospital.  Eventually many of us - unless one is Rick Santorum or Ken Cuccinelli - reach a point where we simply no longer have the strength to continue to live a lie and live our lives as actors on a stage playing an assigned role. To say that it is exhausting and soul killing is an understatement.

This is not to say that those of us who married spouses of the opposite gender did not love that other person as much as a gay can romantically love an  opposite gender spouse.  I/we did love them, yet felt guilt because in our heart we could not be what they deserved. This damage to both the gay spouse and the straight spouse is the direct fruit of right wing Christians' - and Muslims' - rejection of modern medical and mental health knowledge on sexual orientation.  Rather than admit that their cherished religious dogma is wrong, these fundamentalist prefer to ruin countless lives. 

As Metro Weekly is reporting, a Mormon Republican  from the state of Utah finally reached the point I reached 18 years ago where he simply could no longer live the lie.  Here are article excerpts:

A Republican lawmaker in Utah has come out as gay after working with families who lost their LGBTQ children to suicide.  Nathan Ivie, a Utah County Commissioner, posted a four-minute video to his Facebook page saying that he had been fighting his sexuality since age 9.

The forty-year-old also detailed a suicide attempt in his early 20s, and said he wanted to help struggling LGBTQ youth know that life is worth living.

“There’s no easy way to say this, I might as well just jump up and say it — I’m gay,” Ivie, who is also Mormon, said. “That’s my reality and that’s what I need to talk to you about today.” Ivie said he had spent “decades…wrestling with who I really am,” and that accepting his sexuality had “not been easy.”

“I understand the impact my discoveries have had and will have on others, yet I’m still the same person I’ve always been,” he said. “I hope, to you, this part of my life doesn’t become my defining trait.”

Ivie said that, when he first realized his sexuality at age 9, he “believed there was something wrong with me.”  “I fought from the beginning to find some way to change myself,” Ivie said. “That battle resulted in a failed suicide attempt when I was 22 years old.”

After recovering from what he called a “near tragedy,” Ivie said he “tried to live the life that was expected of me.” “The truth is, I never felt comfortable in my own skin,” he continued. “I felt I was living someone else’s life rather than my own.”

Ivie said that while he was “as committed today as I have ever been to my faith, family and freedom,” he realized he “could not continue to live a lie. It wasn’t fair, it wasn’t right for anyone.”

The politician noted that he and his wife had separated, but that she remains his best friend and they have discussed at length how to “move forward as a different kind of family to fulfill the responsibilities we took on together to our two amazing children.”

Ivie said he was aware that some would neither understand nor accept his announcement, but that he would “continue to serve my county as Utah County commissioner with all of my heart. I know there are haters in every area of our lives, but we cannot let that be what defines us as a community.”

Ivie said his decision to come out was inspired by working with families who have lost LGBTQ children to suicide.  “That really makes you reevaluate your life, and what you’re doing as a leader to prevent that kind of stuff,” he said.

He added that he wanted young LGBTQ people to know that “it’s OK to be different, it’s OK to live authentically. You can be gay and a Republican…. You need to trust that people will love you for who you really are.”

Speaking to the Salt Lake Tribune, he noted that “somewhere out there” is a younger version of him, who is contemplating taking their own life, and that he wants them to know that it’s worth continuing to live.  “They need to know that it is,” Ivie said. “They need to know they’re valued, they’re loved.”

Tanner Ainge, who serves alongside Ivie on the Utah County Commission, tweeted his support for Ivie’s announcement.

“My instinct is just to embrace [Nathan],” he tweeted. “Today I stand with him as a friend, valued colleague, and fellow Republican. His story will provide strength and hope to those feeling the lonely despair that almost took his life and has taken too many in our community.”

Utah has one of the highest youth suicide rates in America - in my view probably in no small part due the the Mormon Church's historic homophobia.  In my own case, I think I knew from around age 12 that I was gay, but my Catholic upbringing in then conservative Central New York  and family expectations - not to mention the fact that homosexuality was at the time classified as a mental illness - made accepting my true self impossible.  Suicide seemed a far better solution to my problem. Kudos to Ivie for coming out and striving to stop LGBT youth suicides. 

The Extinction of Gay Identity

I will be sailing today at the Hampton Yacht Club where I am a member. 

I "came out" about 16 and a half years ago in mid-life (hence the name of this blog).  During that period the world has changed much for the better:  the nation's remaining sodomy laws, including Virginia's were struck down in 2003, thereby removing would be felon status for even otherwise law abiding gays, public acceptance of LGBT individuals has soared - even in relatively conservative Tidewater Virginia gay couples are now welcomed as members of yacht clubs and country clubs - and in 2015 sames sex couples finally won the right to be married.  In Norfolk, where gays were once treated as somewhat radioactive and the pride event was a small event hidden in the back of a city park, Pride Fest is now the second largest festival of the year and the City of Norfolk provides significant funding and support because of the tourism and spending the event brings with it.  (Sadly, thanks to Republicans in Richmond all too willing to prostitute themselves to Christofascists, LGBT Virginians lack employment and housing non-discrimination protections).

Along the way, however, some things were lost.  At least half of the gay bars have closed and younger LGBT residents mix freely with their straight friends with no need to seek refuge in a gay bar where they can feel safe. On a Friday night now, the husband and I are more likely to dine with friends at the Hampton Yacht Club than go to one of the remaining gays bars with restaurant facilities.  In many ways - at least in Virginia's urban crescent - gays and lesbians have become mainstream.  All of this is a positive, yet a one time sense of belonging to a special tribe is gone.  When I first came out, I felt a certain level of safety walking into "The Wave" in Norfolk on a Saturday night.  I knew I could simply be myself.  Last night, the husband and I attended a wonderful wedding at the Ford's Colony country club and not a soul batted an eye at a gay couple in attendance.   

A column in the New York Times looks at this sense of lost that at times I suspect that many of us in the LGBT community nonetheless feel.  Here are column highlights:

Mart Crowley, the author of the groundbreaking gay play “The Boys in the Band,” lives in a Manhattan apartment building that he used to visit frequently, for parties, in the late 1960s, when “Boys” had its theatrical debut. It’s on East 54th Street, No. 405, and its nickname, he told me, used to be “four of five,” because that was supposedly the ratio of gay residents.

That is not the ratio now. “It’s all yuppies and kids in strollers and all of that — and a few old codgers,” Crowley, 82, said over a recent lunch. The gays have scattered, not just from that building but from others, and we’ve distributed ourselves throughout the city — and throughout society. Gay sanctuaries are vanishing.

Is that true of gay culture and gay identity, too? I increasingly get the sense that gayness itself has scattered, becoming something more various and harder to define. “Gay” tells you about a person’s lusts and loves, but it used to tell you more — about his or her boldness, irreverence, independence. It connoted a particular journey and pronounced struggle, and had its own soundtrack, sartorial flourishes and short list of celebrity icons. Not so anymore. These thoughts came to mind as “Boys” comes back into view. For its 50th anniversary, it’s getting its first-ever Broadway production, with an all-gay, all-star cast including Jim Parsons, Matt Bomer and Zachary Quinto. The play is a postcard from an era that we have thankfully moved past, a point of reference for our hard-won success over the last half-century and our arrival in an infinitely better place. But it’s also a reminder of a glue that has gone missing among many gay men. Among many lesbians, too, . . . . We were tribes in a way that we no longer are, with rituals that we no longer have, and with a shared story. [T]he gay theatrical canon — or, rather, the gay male theatrical canon — ends in 1993, with Tony Kushner’s “Angels in America.” That play followed “The Normal Heart,” “Torch Song Trilogy” and, decades earlier, “Boys.” All were born of the bigotry that gays endured and the grace that they forged in the face of it. . . . . Sometimes, to judge from what’s onstage, I have to conclude that Crate & Barrel is sponsoring the new gay agenda,” Green writes . . . . "Boys"  . . . captures the flair for melodrama, appetite for mischief and exaggerated sense of humor — alternately self-lacerating and self-lionizing — that constituted a gay armor, worn because we lived in a sort of exile. I donned it myself in the 1980s, from my late teens through my mid-20s, as I took the temperature of the country around me, wondering exactly how cold to me it would be. Crowley said that if someone had told him then that the United States Supreme Court would someday legalize same-sex marriage, he would have responded, “That’s rather insane.” It happened in 2015. But there had been enough progress toward the acceptance and integration of gays by 2005 that Andrew Sullivan wrote an essay in The New Republic titled “The End of Gay Culture,” which he imagined would “expand into such a diverse set of subcultures that ‘gayness’ alone will cease to tell you very much about any individual.” We’re there.

Gays aren’t yet on an equal legal footing with straight people. We’re frequently derided (I’m looking at you, Mike Pompeo) and assaulted. How gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender people are treated hinges on where we live, what color we are, how much money we have and whom we work for.

I’m 53, I came out a few years later than she did, and I remember that simply telling someone that I was gay made me interesting at a time when most gay people weren’t forthcoming about that. I remember that visiting a gay bar or resort had an electric charge, because I was traversing forbidden ground. No matter how open I was about it, being gay felt a bit like belonging to a secret society.

“Everything costs something,” Crowley told me. “Gay culture is so diffuse now, where it was once so cloistered and clandestine. It was like our own world — the world was inside out.”

“I wouldn’t trade any of the progress,” I said to him. “And yet.”  “And yet,” he agreed. But, he added, with no equivocation, “You wouldn’t want that world back.”

“Boys in the Band” makes that clear, while also making sure that a lost world is remembered.

All of this said, I am thrilled that things have changed for the better.  Growing up in the closet and desperately suppressing who I was, I could never have dreamed of the life I can now live.  It's wonderful that young gays can grow up knowing that they can marry, have families, and not be haunted by a sense of being "other."  Hopefully, the Trump/Pence regime does not take that away. 

From Liz Smith To Kevin Spacey: How The Hollywood Closet Endured

Gossip columnist Liz Smith died this week at the age of 94.  During her most powerful years, her gossip column could boost careers or trash them.  Ironically, through it all, Smith was a largely closeted lesbian with long term relationships with women.   The other irony is that Smith and others aided in maintaining the Hollywood closet and all of the harm that it wreaked on numerous lives.  Fellow LGBT blogger and activist Michelangelo Signorile has a piece in Huffington Post that looks at Smith and others who perhaps unwittingly aided in sexual harassment by closeted figures while maintaining the Hollywood and celebrity closet.  Here are excerpts:

This week’s death of 94-year-old Liz Smith, the queen of gossip columnists, brought some frank assessments of her complicated relationship with the closet, including in the New York Times, Vanity Fair and a detailed, personal piece by Michael Musto in the fashion bible, W magazine.

I wrote angry columns as an editor and columnist at OutWeek from 1989 through 1991, referenced in some of these current assessments, excoriating Smith for her role in helping to keep the queer closet in pop culture tightly closed at a time when visibility was literally a life or death issue.

As the AIDS plague escalated, Smith, in her New York Daily News column, syndicated to dozens of newspapers nationally in those days before the Internet, was helping to cover for people like Calvin Klein, Jodie Foster, Hollywood mogul David Geffen, Rolling Stone publisher Jann Wenner, Malcolm Forbes, photographer Annie Liebovitz and many, many more ― all of whom have since come out, no doubt due to the pressure and the exhaustion of keeping the closet door tightly closed.

Smith not only “respected” the closets of Hollywood celebrities and other public figures, but she also actively promoted lies and distortions, running items about false heterosexual affairs that their publicists fed her, though she knew the truth full well, since she traveled in these celebrities’ circles. 

That was the epitome of Fake News, way back in 1989.   When it came to heterosexual public figures and their affairs, divorces and other romantic interests, Smith and other celebrity and political chroniclers not only had to get their details correct ― per proper journalism ― but they knew the public saw this as glamorous and exciting. Homosexuality, on the other hand, was something that revolted many in that profoundly homophobic era, so these scribes hid behind the notion of protecting “privacy” as an excuse for hiding information or outright lying.

This was of course hypocritical ― not caring about the privacy of heterosexual public figures but suddenly having more ironclad ethics when it came to the privacy of homosexuals, even when reporting on their sexual orientation was relevant to a larger, important story ― as the only thing they were protecting was often the industry that they, too, built their careers within.

And worse off, many or most of the columnists ― like Liz Smith ― were closeted and queer themselves. What better system for the powers-that-be than than to have queer people who have their own vested career and financial interests in the closet guarding the secrets of other closeted prominent and powerful people? What we’ve learned is that when celebrities feel pressured by both the LGBTQ community and the media to come out ― from Melissa Etheridge and Rosie O’Donnell to Neil Patrick Harris and Demi Lovato ― rather than being hurt they actually thrive, both personally and in their careers.

We’re also able to look back now on the dangers of the closet and protecting it at all costs with zealous anti-“outing” polices with regard to public figures, and rethink just what “outing” means. As I wrote recently regarding Kevin Spacey, protecting his closet was dangerous because some, even in the gay press, who knew of his sexual harassment of an underage actor refused to report it, wrongly equating his abuse of a male minor with being gay itself and thus afraid they were going to “out” him.

So many closeted public figures have in fact engaged in same-sex harassment and assault often because they couldn’t go out in public to bars or elsewhere and knowing they could get away with it because no one in the media would ever dare report on it.

That was the case with multimillionaire Malcolm Forbes, who was sexually harassing his male employees ― and also living a secret life dating men while people like Liz Smith, who’d been flown by him to his lavish parties on yachts around the world and in places like Morocco, perpetrated the glamorous but false notion that he was romantically involved with his platonic friend Elizabeth Taylor. 

That’s not to say Smith herself didn’t do good things for charity, including in battling AIDS, raising money for the cause and promoting such events that raised funds. But the most powerful thing she could do in those times was to come out and stop closeting others, and show the visibility of queer people, and stand up to the homophobes.

Eventually she did come out as bisexual, many years later. . . . . And this year, at the age of 94, she finally admitted she should have come out sooner. 

I do not mean to be unkind to Smith and others like her.  I existed in a combination of self-loathing and terror of my secret being discovered for many years in the closet.  It is not a good place to be and often blinds you to the better course of action.  Hopefully, despite the efforts of the Trump/Pence regime to re-mainstream anti-LGBT discrimination, the era of the closet is fading and fewer and fewer people will feel the need to be untrue to themselves and less than honest with others.  No one chooses to be born LGBT just as no one gets to choose to be black or born into a Muslim family.  It is far past time that ALL of us simply accept each other as creations of the Creator/god who are equal to one another, no one better than another.

‘Bud Sex’ Between "Straight" Rural Men

Having spent roughly 37 years in the closet denying the reality of my sexual orientation, I know all about the mental gymnastics in which one engages to try to convince one's self that "it isn't really true" that one is gay.  The phenomenon isn't unique to me or many others who finally stopped the efforts at self-delusion.  It happens all over society and at all social levels.  A piece in New York Magazine looks at the prevalence in rural America - the supposed home of "real men" and "real Americans."  My personal assessment is that the men described are gay or at least bi-sexual but who, due to family, church and local societal expectations, can't and won't admit the reality about themselves.  It makes some of my mental gymnastics look down right simple.  Here are article highlights:

A lot of men have sex with other men but don’t identify as gay or bisexual. A subset of these men who have sex with men, or MSM, live lives that are, in all respects other than their occasional homosexual encounters, quite straight and traditionally masculine — they have wives and families, they embrace various masculine norms, and so on. They are able to, in effect, compartmentalize an aspect of their sex lives in a way that prevents it from blurring into or complicating their more public identities. Sociologists are quite interested in this phenomenon because it can tell us a lot about how humans interpret thorny questions of identity and sexual desire and cultural expectations.

Last year, NYU Press published the fascinating book Not Gay: Sex Between Straight White Men by the University of California, Riverside, gender and sexuality professor Jane Ward. In it, Ward explored various subcultures in which what could be called “straight homosexual sex” abounds — not just in the ones you’d expect, like the military and fraternities, but also biker gangs and conservative suburban neighborhoods — to better understand how the participants in these encounters experienced and explained their attractions, identities, and rendezvous. But not all straight MSM have gotten the same level of research attention. One relatively neglected such group, argues the University of Oregon sociology doctoral student Tony Silva in a new paper in Gender & Society, is rural, white, straight men (well, neglected if you set aside Brokeback Mountain).

[T]he point of Silva’s project was less to draw any sweeping conclusions about either this subset of straight MSM, or the population as a whole, than to listen to their stories and compare them to the narratives uncovered by Ward and various other researchers. . . . Specifically, Silva was trying to understand better the interplay between “normative rural masculinity” — the set of mores and norms that defines what it means to be a rural man — and these men’s sexual encounters. In doing so, he introduces a really interesting and catchy concept, “bud-sex” . . . as Silva (forthcoming) explores, the participants reinforced their straightness through unconventional interpretations of same-sex sex: as “helpin’ a buddy out,” relieving “urges,” acting on sexual desires for men without sexual attractions to them, relieving general sexual needs, and/or a way to act on sexual attractions. “Bud-sex” captures these interpretations, as well as how the participants had sex and with whom they partnered. The specific type of sex the participants had with other men—bud-sex—cemented their rural masculinity and heterosexuality, and distinguishes them from other MSM.

[B]y seeking out partners who were similar to them. “This is a key element of bud-sex,” writes Silva. “Partnering with other men similarly privileged on several intersecting axes—gender, race, and sexual identity—allowed the participants to normalize and authenticate their sexual experiences as normatively masculine.” In other words: If you, a straight guy from the country, once in a while have sex with other straight guys from the country, it doesn’t threaten your straight, rural identity as much as it would if instead you, for example, traveled to the nearest major metro area and tried to pick up dudes at a gay bar. You’re not the sort of man who would go to a gay bar — you’re not gay!

It’s difficult here not to slip into the old middle-school joke of “It’s not gay if …” — “It’s not gay” if your eyes are closed, or the lights are off, or you’re best friends — but that’s actually what the men in Silva’s study did, in a sense . . . . In other words: It’s not gay if the guy you’re having sex with doesn’t seem gay at all.

One way to interpret this is as defensiveness, of course — these men aren’t actually straight, but identify that way for a number of reasons, including “internalized heterosexism, participation in other-sex marriage and child-rearing [which could be complicated if they came out as bi or gay], and enjoyment of straight privilege and culture,” writes Silva.

While Ward sidestepped the question of her subjects’ “actual” sexual orientations — “I am not concerned with whether the men I describe in this book are ‘really’ straight or gay,” she wrote — it should matter. As Juzwiak put it: “Given the cultural incentives that remain for a straight-seeming gay, given the long-road to self-acceptance that makes many feel incapable or fearful of honestly answering questions about identity—which would undoubtedly alter the often vague data that provide the basis for Ward’s arguments—it seems that one should care about the wide canyon between what men claim they are and what they actually are.” In other words, Ward sidestepped an important political and rights minefield by taking her subjects’ claims about their sexuality more or less at face value.

In all likelihood, when Silva’s subjects say they’re straight, they mean it: That’s how they feel. But it’s hard not to get the sense that maybe some of them would be happier, or would have made different life decisions, if they had had access to a different, less constricted vocabulary to describe what they want — and who they are.

The power of self-deception is amazing - and over time, very destructive emotionally and psychologically. 

Queen's Cousin, Lord Ivar Mountbatten, Comes Out

I have to laugh or shake my head when I hear conservatives - especially those of the parasitic professional Christian class - loudly state that they have no gays in their families and/or that a gay child is the result of poor parenting.  Talk about lying to one's self or delusion.  Indeed, some of the loudest homophobes have had LGBT children (e.g., the late mistress of hate, Phyllis Schafly), so, if their claims are correct, they should be the last to give advice to anyone else.  The reality, I suspect, is that most families have (or have had) LGBT members of the family.  Often, the truth simply is not known until some family member simply cannot play the expected role any longer and finally comes out of the closet.  Ask Britain's Queen Elizabeth II whose cousin, Lord Ivar Mountbatten (pictured at left above) has come out as gay.  A piece in  The Telegraph looks at the coming out story.  Here are highlights: 

The Queen's cousin Lord Ivar Mountbatten has spoken for the first time about his sexuality and how he has found love.

Lord Ivar Mountbatten, the great-great-great-grandson of Queen Victoria, has told of his happiness with his new partner, James Coyle, an airline cabin services director.

In an interview on Saturday, the divorced father-of-three said: "I was driven into the closet by not wanting to come to terms with who I was and facing friends and family in the early years. I buried it.

"I’m just so pleased now to have found someone who I am happy to call my partner."

The 53-year-old, the great-nephew of Earl Mountbatten of Burma who was murdered by the IRA, has told his family and friends he is gay and has introduced them to his partner, whom he met while skiing in Verbier, the Swiss resort, last March.

Speaking of his decision, he told the Mail on Sunday: "Being a Mountbatten was never the problem, it was the generation into which I was born. When I was growing up, it was known as 'the love that dare not speak its name', but what’s amazing now is how far we have all come in terms of acceptance. 

"'Coming out'” is such a funny phrase, but it’s what I suppose I did in a rather roundabout way, emerging to a place I’m happy to be. I have struggled with my sexuality and in some ways I still do; it has been a real journey to reach this point.

"I was driven into the closet by not wanting to come to terms with who I was and facing friends and family in the early years. I buried it. I even had girlfriends as I tried to work out what I wanted to be.

He says his former wife Penny, whom he divorced in 2011, and their three daughters have been very supportive and have welcomed his partner into their lives.

"I am a lot happier now, though I am still not 100 per cent comfortable with being gay," he added.

"In an ideal world, I know the girls would like their mother and father still to be together, but they love their 21st-century family that we have built, too. Their father has a boyfriend. It’s that complicated and that simple, but finding James means I will not have to lie to anyone or grow old on my own."

 Having been married to a woman and having three children myself, I know how difficult of a time he must have experienced.  The reality, however, is that so of us are born LGBT.  We can struggle to deny it, but we cannot change that reality.  Sadly, while in denial we often merely make ourselves and others miserable - something that doesn't seem to matter to the "ex-gay" charlatans. 

"Coming Out" Doesn't Happen Just Once

I have written frequently about my "coming out" journey - the good, the bad, and the ugly aspects of it, including two serious suicide attempts.  It's an experience that heterosexuals cannot contemplate since they have never had to admit to others who they are and then wait to see if they will be rejected -or fired, in the case of coming out to employers.   I have come out to past employers and was fired for being gay in 2004 by a sizable local law firm.  The economic fall out was catastrophic and included a Chapter 7 bankruptcy filing.  Sadly, those of us in the LGBT community find ourselves faced with having to "come out" over and over again.  Case in point, while I was at a doctors appointment today, the doctor kept referring to my wife  even though all of my paperwork cited my husband.  Thus, I was faced with having to correct the narrative by in effect "coming out" yet again. Marriage equality has helped a great deal, but the issue remains alive and well. A piece in The Advocate looks at this sad - and sometimes emotionally draining - reality.  Here are excerpts:

We talk about coming out as if it’s something you only do once. In my experience it’s an ongoing part of life. Sometimes it’s easy, and other times it makes my stomach flutter. 

I first came out as a lesbian 30 years ago, when I was still in college. Initially I was very careful about who I shared this tender information with. In 1985 being gay felt both like being part of a special club and living in a freak show. Over time, I widened the circle of people I told. Sometimes I was praised for being courageous, and other times I was treated with contempt or confusion. One of the more memorable responses to my coming out was when my sister-in-law’s 60-year-old mother said, while we were cooking Thanksgiving dinner, “I’ve seen that on the Phil Donahue show, but never met one before.”

In 1991 my partner, Rinda, and I had a service of commitment in our Unitarian Universalist Church. Most of our family members came, and as far as I was concerned I was out to the world. It was a done deal.

Little did I know that becoming a parent would force me to be out in whole new way. It started at the birth in the hospital where I had to justify my relationship with my own child at every change of shift. Some nurses were tickled pink to be working with an “alternative” family. But others were confused, offended, or outright hostile. Looking back, I wonder how well I explained the situation, sleep-deprived as I was.

At restaurants, waitresses would casually ask, “Who’s her mother?” Rinda and I would stare at each other, unprepared at first. Eventually we learned to say, “We both are. We’re a couple.”  

So I learned to say enough without saying too much. And I learned to uncover what I was really being asked. And I learned when to give a 10-second explanation and when to have a longer conversation. And I learned to let our children take the lead as they grew older. And I learned to say the word “wife.”  

I never expected to be a wife or have a wife, but now I am one and I have one. It’s turned out to be the best thing ever, because that single word conveys so much, so clearly. Without any further explanation, total strangers understand my relationship to Rinda. “Girlfriend,” “partner,” “life mate” require more sentences to be certain that I’m being understood. But “wife” is completely clear.

The federal legal recognition that came last year brought more ease and clarity to my life than I had expected. After all, we’d been married in our hearts and souls since 1991. And our marriage was recognized in the state of California. What could a federal blessing of our marriage give us that we didn’t already have?

It turns out, a lot. Now that we were “out” to the federal government, when we got a mortgage we knew how to hold title. In the past we had long conversations with the title company, and all of us were just making a guess about the best way for us to hold title as a couple who were legally married in California, but not at the federal level.  We only have to fill out one joint federal tax return, which can be used for our state return. 

The potential cost of coming out is rejection. But the cost of being hidden, of living in shame, is far greater. And the opportunities that coming out affords are enormous. Coming out as a lesbian has given me the courage to come out as an artist, a writer, a Black Lives Matter activist, and a person of faith. It’s allowed me to be more of my authentic self in so many ways, and hopefully gives others the courage to do the same. And it’s given people permission to tell me their stories of spiritual and personal growth, connecting us across differences, but reminding us of our shared humanity.

I spent the bulk of my life in self-deception, self-hatred and denial of reality.  Coming out proved to be a financial catastrophe.  However, the sense of freedom and long underachieved self-acceptance has been priceless.  Would that more in the straight community had a clue of the pain and  emotional harm that they inflict daily on LGBT individuals.   Sadly, the "godly" Christofascist care nothing about the harm they do or the lives they destroy.

The Emotional/Psychological Pain of Living in the Closet

I am often asked how I managed to stay in the closet for 37 years, especially when questioners learn that I have three children (and now grandchildren).  It is hard to explain and convey to people the lengths that one will go to deceive themselves as to the reality of one's sexual orientation.  Living in the closet is a life of deception, but first and foremost deception of one's self.  The motivation, of course, is to avoid rejection by friends and family and often religious based brainwashing.  The irony is, however, that even as one goes through all sorts of mental gyrations to deny reality, in your heart you know the truth.  Especially when it comes to falling in love with someone of the same gender and never being able to tell them your feelings because you don't want to lose their friendship.   A piece I came across in Queerty reminded me of the heartache and pain the closet entails and how too may young LGBT individuals never get to have normal teen years with love and romance.   Here are highlights:

[W]hat happens when that puppy dog crush doesn’t find its natural closure early on? It must happen all the time. Grade school becomes high school. High school graduates to college, and all those secret feelings stay red hot beneath the surface, always wanting to erupt but knowing better than to ruin the deep and meaningful friendship cultivated over the years. 

At 14, John (we’ll call him John) met a boy who would become his best friend, and so much more. “I spent many sleepless nights wondering why everything had to turn out this way, it crushed me every time I thought about it,” he writes. “Over the course of the rest of high school my feelings of love gradually faded to where I could think of him as a brother, rather than someone I lusted for, although it wasn’t easy.”

Now both 18 and attending separate colleges, John knew he had to reveal two secrets — two coming outs — to his friend. Telling someone “I’m gay” is one thing, but “I’m gay and have secretly been in love with you” is a whole other bag.

“Most of the reason I decided I had to quell these feelings was because he has a girlfriend whom he is committed to and I didn’t want to cause them any disrespect through my actions, words, or thoughts. I cared for him and wanted him to be happy and to do that I wanted to ensure that his relationship with his girlfriend was unadulterated from my feelings towards him.”

But the moment had arrived. John built up his courage and managed to come out to his friend, leaving out the bit about being in love with him. Baby steps.

“I was euphoric. He began to ask me what I looked for in a guy, how long I’ve felt this way, just everything. To finally be able to tell how I felt and discuss it with someone who cares was something I had never experienced before in respect to sexuality. It really sucks having to bottle it up as so many of us have done or are currently doing. As I described to him what my ideal guy would look like, he asked me if I thought he was attractive because my description very closely matched someone with his characteristics. I said yes.”

That’s when the whole truth spilled out — the years of silent agony, the longing and the lust.  He said that he doesn’t hate me for feeling that way, rather he was flattered that I cared about him that much…

He holds nothing against me and doesn’t treat me any differently than he did before, he even said he wouldn’t mind sharing a bed with me again. He reaffirmed my belief that a true friend doesn’t care whether or not you like dick or pussy, nor will they hold your feelings against you. I love this guy with every fiber of my being for giving me the best relationship of my life so far.”

Even while striving to convince myself that I was straight, I had my crushes over the years.  However, I never expressed my feelings.  In some cases, I know my feelings would have been viewed with horror and that the target of my feelings perhaps were not true friends.  In others, I continue to wonder at times "what if I had told him?"  I do know this, the love I felt was real and the heartache and pain was terrible.

Back in Virginia - Reflections on the Past

The husband and I got back to our home in Virginia a short while ago and on the 11 hour drive home - it took 12 hours going north - I reflected on the long weekend and going back to a place that had held a special place in my heart for so many, many years.  I am no longer the closeted gay teen who desperately needed to try to reinvent himself in order to cope with school bullying and a never ending sense of being different.  And what I discovered over this weekend, one cannot recreate the past.  It's gone forever and many of those who played important roles have either died or moved on in their lives.  Yes, Brantingham Lake is still amazingly beautiful.  But the true magic that it once held for me is gone.  So many that I loved - my parents, one of my sisters, my grandparents and numerous aunts and uncles - are gone forever.  Hence the bitter sweetness of the visit.

Will I ever go back?  Probably not.  My husband got to see places that were a part of my past and very important in my former life and learn also some family history.  But my real take away from the long weekend - and I will admit, attempt to recapture the past - is that the real focus needs to be on the present and more importantly, the future.  As much as I will always love the family camp, in many ways it has become more of a museum to the past than a home. 

The camp from the water

I am blessed with a wonderful husband, three amazing children and now grandchildren.  Of equal importance is the fact that I have at long last achieved self-acceptance and do not need others - or things or money - to validate me.  All of us need be mindful of the past and respect our remarkable ancestors.  But the focus needs to be on the future.  The trip to Brantingham surprisingly was an unexpected reminder to me that home is where my husband is and with my children and grandchildren.

During my arduous coming out journey in mid-life, one of my fears was about the future which at the time seemed to be a black emptiness.  I clung to the past which was comfortable and familiar even though it was over and never to return.  What was once a black emptiness is now full with the husband, countless friends and a never ending whirl of social activities.  Getting to this point took a great deal of work, including throwing myself into organizations in order to meet new people and rebuild my world.  My advice to those coming out?  Focus on the future and let go of the past.  Don't forget the good of the past and honor it, but acknowledge that it is over.  Your life now belongs to the present and the future.  It took me far too long to figure this out.

A Somewhat Overlooked Impact of the Gay Marriage Ruling

One aspect of the recent same sex marriage ruling that is overlooked by many - in the case of the self-centered Christofascists, they don't care even if it has crossed their minds - is that for countless LGBT youth there is now a message from the highest court in the land that they are worthy of dignity and that their love is worthy of state recognition.   For straights, it may be hard to comprehend how deeply this touches emotionally - I shed some tears when I heard of the ruling - and how many may in the future suffer less from the self-hate and damaged lives that goes with trying to "pray the gay away" and living in the closet.  A piece in Huffington Post by a psychologist looks at this perhaps overlooked impact and the benefits that may flow from the ruling.  Here are highlights:

[H]omosexuality and gay marriage are highly emotional issues. And we therapists possess the privilege of a unique perspective on the emotional elements of most any issue. And the emotional elements are crucial in understanding the issue overall.

For I have sat across from the young man fighting against his truth, his gay-ness, with every fiber of his being. Because it will disappoint his parents. Because he won't be accepted or loved, but rejected. Because he has been taught that who he knows himself to be is wrong. So he fights. He fights against his very nature. The resulting anxiety and depression run so very deep.

I have sat across from the teenage girl who recognizes who she is, but loathes the fact of it, and loathes herself as a result. Because it makes her life so hard, so odd, so weird. It estranges from people she once considered safe. Thoughts of suicide hover in the shadows all around her. And yet in every conceivable way, she is better-than-fine: bright, driven, beautiful, athletic, funny. And gay.

And I have sat across from the man who has lived a lie his entire life, hiding beneath the trappings of 'normalcy': wife, children, house, couple of dogs. Family man. But he is tortured nonetheless. For he is gay as well, and he and those around him, he projects, would find this to be unacceptable. And now an entire family is drawn into the dark.

[T]his ruling suggests another wave in a sea change. For many people, many of my own clients in fact, can now comfort themselves with the fact that what they sense and know about themselves, this undeniable core essence of their being, is now lawful and allowable and acceptable by society's standards. And sure, that's good. 

But it goes beyond just that, right? Because for the majority of us, our loves and attractions are actually celebrated, from crushes to dates to proms to weddings. And we don't really need to give it a thought. There is a wild emotional divide between private shame and public celebration, and it is critical.

I like to think that a generation from now, if our sons or daughters are drawn to someone, male or female, and fall in love with that someone, that we will want to share in the joy that love will bring to their lives, and to our own. 

Making ourselves unavailable to that joy ensures, and has ensured, the opposite: fear and judgment and ego, enough to keep therapists like me flush with clients for generations, treating toxic, wholly unnecessary feelings of shame and depression and relentless anxiety about something that is organic and authentic and actually quite simple.

Fewer people will be compelled to live a lie their entire lives. Fewer people will feel a need to shield their deep reality in shame. Fewer lives will end tragically. This is no small deal.

So I celebrate today, for the emotional well-being of every gay person, man or woman,
who has suffered their love in lieu of celebration. I celebrate the deep breath they can finally draw, and the joyful, well-appointed weddings on the horizon.

Of course, upon sober reflection, we all know that legislation does not flip a switch on feelings, attitudes and emotions. These biases lag well behind.

So if you are the parent, brother, sister, teacher or friend of a gay man or woman and you find yourself bitter today, let me encourage you to turn a page. Allow yourself to open your heart and mind to them, for them and for yourself. Because the train has left the station, and you can continue to be a part of the pain and anxiety and costly emotional heartache, or serve as part of the joy.

Brantinham Lake - A Life Saver for a Gay Youth

In some of the earliest posts on this blog I spoke of my summers at our family summer home on Brantingham Lake in the western Adirondack Mountains.  Thankfully, the "camp" as they are called in the Adirondacks remains in the family and this summer I plan to take the boyfriend - who will be my husband by that point - for his first visit.  For those who watch the video, our place is the white boathouse to the left of the long point (named Long Point) that extends well out into the lake from the top of the frame.  Not excelling in team sports and suffering from jeers of "fag" at times at school during the school year, summers - where I excelled in swimming, water skiing and sailing - and my wonderful summer friends were literally a life saver.  No matter how long I live, a part of my heart will always be at Brantingham.

Internalized Homophobia Still Plagues Some in the LGBT Community

Click image to enlarge

When I came out in mid-life one of the biggest hurdles I faced was overcoming the homophobia I had internalized from my religious upbringing and the larger society.  Thankfully, by leaving the Roman Catholic Church and seeing two exceptional therapists, I was able to let go of the religious brainwashing and the associated self-hatred that went with it.  Many in the LGBT community, including some friends I know, however, have not been able to let go of their internalized homophobia.  These individuals continue to be plagued by religious based guilt, some refuse to enter into committed relationships, and others go out of their way to avoid being around other gays out of fear that their "secret" might be discovered.  It is a soul killing phenomenon.  A piece in the Dallas Voice looks at the issue.  Here are excerpts:

Scott and Alan agreed to interview with Dallas Voice on the condition of anonymity, and during three meetings, they discussed their secret relationship and Alan’s closeted status and internalized homophobia, which he denies harboring. The contact was made through a mutual acquaintance, a Marine Corps officer, who has known Alan for three years.

“I don’t think I had ever heard of internalized homophobia until now,” Alan said. “It’s not something I have, so I don’t agree that’s the problem. I’m not out simply because of my job. Coming out would probably ruin my career.”

An executive with a Dallas-based professional sports organization, 32-year-old Alan has never been to a gay bar, has never attended a social event with a same-sex date and will only do things publicly with Scott that won’t be interpreted as a couple’s thing.

“We can go to a sports bar and have a beer, but we can’t go for a walk together,” Scott said. “I live with a long list of rules.”

Mental health professionals who treat LGBT issues would stamp Alan with one of the signs of internalized homophobia, regardless of his thoughts about it. In Beyond The Closet: The Transformation of Gay and Lesbian Life, author Steven Seidman describes being in the closet as a “life-shaping pattern of concealment.” Seidman writes that the closet seems to be on the wane, but it’s not gone, and its profound effects, including shame and homophobia, linger.

“Alan doesn’t realize it, but he’s put me in the closet, too,” Scott said. “I can’t go on a date with him because no one can see us out together like that, but I can’t go on a date with anyone else, either, because I’m with Alan, which makes no sense. This isn’t the way I want to live. I don’t do well with concealment.”

Sociologists and mental health professionals who treat and write about internalized homophobia say gay men and lesbians often use the demands of their jobs as an excuse not to pursue romantic involvements. They believe it keeps them safe from the toils of dealing with who they are.

“Most of us are concerned at one time or another with feeling bad about being gay or lesbian,” said Candy Marcum, a community counselor and president of Stonewall Behavioral Health. “It has to do with incorporating messages that say it’s not good or it’s even bad to be gay or lesbian. Those messages come from our families, the church, friends and the media, and they can linger into adulthood.”

Internalized homophobia takes root in those messages and leads to being closeted and a profusion of other traits that ravage a person’s self-esteem, among them contempt for the more open members of the LGBT community.  

The issue also is complicated by the LGBT community’s many facets. Tension between gay men and lesbians sometimes surfaces, and there are individuals in both camps who are opposed to drag queens and trans people. In that regard, gays and lesbians are no different than the heterosexuals who burden the community with hate, counselors say.

“Internalized homophobia leads to gay-on-gay acts of meanness and rudeness,” Marcum said. “Those people tend to hurt other gays and lesbians.”

The development of a scale to measure that internalized homophobia, written about in the Oxford Journals, suggests four dimensions to the issue: public identification with being gay, perception of stigma associated with being gay, degree of “social comfort” with other gay men and beliefs regarding the religious or moral acceptability of homosexuality.

One high-profile woman can relate to both Scott and Alan. Edie Windsor, the plaintiff in the case that led the U.S. Supreme Court to rule parts of DOMA unconstitutional, spoke publicly shortly after the decision, explaining her own struggle to speak honestly about her marriage with colleagues.  “Internalized homophobia is a big bitch,” she said.

One additional thing I will note is that the longer that I have been totally out socially and professionally, the easier it has become to simply be who I am.  No excuses, not pretense.  If some do not like me, that's their loss.   But over all, I have found that most people could care less - this includes my Hindu and Muslim clients and some of the old money crowd at the yacht club we joined last February.

Pro Soccer Player Robbie Rogers Comes Out

I am continuing my dialogue with Pastor Will Coats - I wrote a post a while ago about horrific anti-gay sermons Coats had published - which so far has been amazingly respectful and, admittedly much to my surprise shown Coats as wanting to understand how such preaching harms others regardless of how well intentioned it might be.   One of the issues that we've been addressing is the damage done by living a closeted life and the manner in which it isolates one from your loved ones.  Professional soccer player Robbie Rogers (pictured at left) has come out and on his personal blog he explains the difficulties of his years in the closet.  I completely identify with Rogers' narrative.  Here it is via his blog:

Things are never what they seem… My whole life I have felt different, different from my peers, even different from my family. In today’s society being different makes you brave.  To overcome your fears you must be strong and have faith in your purpose.

For the past 25 year I have been afraid, afraid to show whom I really was because of fear. Fear that judgment and rejection would hold me back from my dreams and aspirations.   Fear that my loved ones would be farthest from me if they knew my secret.  Fear that my secret would get in the way of my dreams.

Dreams of going to a World Cup, dreams of The Olympics, dreams of making my family proud.  What would life be without these dreams? Could I live a life without them?

Life is only complete when your loved ones know you.  When they know your true feelings, when they know who and how you love. Life is simple when your secret is gone.  Gone is the pain that lurks in the stomach at work, the pain from avoiding questions, and at last the pain from hiding such a deep secret.

Secrets can cause so much internal damage. People love to preach about honesty, how honesty is so plain and simple.   Try explaining to your loved ones after 25 years you are gay. Try convincing yourself that your creator has the most wonderful purpose for you even though you were taught differently.

I always thought I could hide this secret. Football was my escape, my purpose, my identity. Football hid my secret, gave me more joy than I could have ever imagined… I will always be thankful for my career. I will remember Beijing, The MLS Cup, and most of all my teammates.  I will never forget the friends I have made a long the way and the friends that supported me once they knew my secret. 

Now is my time to step away. It’s time to discover myself away from football.  It’s 1 A.M. in London as I write this and I could not be happier with my decision. Life is so full of amazing things. I realized I could only truly enjoy my life once I was honest.  Honesty is a bitch but makes life so simple and clear.  My secret is gone, I am a free man, I can move on and live my life as my creator intended. 

 I wish Rogers success and happiness as he moves forward with his life.  I hope he reconsiders leaving pro-soccer.

High School Senior Comes Out as Gay to His Entire Class, Gets Standing Ovation

I will concede that there are many times that I get very depressed at the current state of LGBT rights.  Yes, huge advances have been made in some ways, but here in Virginia progress seems to have passed us by and LGBT individuals remain third or fourth class citizens.  Indeed, over the last 10 years in Virginia, the only advance has been that we can no longer be charged with a felony for consensual sex in the privacy of our own homes thanks to the 2003 ruling in Lawrence v. Texas.   But then I see something like the brave coming out of New Jersey high school senior Jacob Rudolph (see the video above) and I realize that things have indeed changed for the better.  Rudolph exhibits a courage and bravery that I could never have exhibited decades ago when I was his age.  Here's a portion of the high schooler's statement as he received his school's best actor award:

Sure I've been in a few plays and musicals, but more importantly, I've been acting every single day of my life. You see, I've been acting as someone I'm not. Most of you see me every day. You see me acting the part of 'straight' Jacob, when I am in fact LGBT. Unlike millions of other LGBT teens who have had to act every day to avoid verbal harassment and physical violence, I'm not going to do it anymore. It's time to end the hate in our society and accept the people for who they are regardless of their sex, race, orientation, or whatever else may be holding back love and friendship. So take me leave me or move me out of the way. Because I am what I am, and that's how I'm going to act from now on."

His remarks about living his life as an actor hit home with me.  I did it for 37 years and know how soul killing it is.  Kudos to Jacob Rudolph.

Today is National Coming Out Day

Unwittingly, eleven years ago almost to the day I came out to my former wife.  It was the first step on what would prove to be a long turbulent journey.  Admittedly, I was clueless at the time on many gay rights issues that I write about all the time now.  All I knew was that I could not go on living my life like some actor on a stage playing a role that wasn't the real me.   The stress of always maintaining a glass wall between myself and the world was becoming simply too much to handle.  Add to that the emotional and psychological damage done to me being raised Catholic and my foolishly believing the "pray away the gay" myth, and suicide really looked to be the only alternative to finally trying to face who I really was.  Since taking that first initial step, the intervening years have certainly seen triumphs and tragedies.  But I have accomplished one thing: a level of self-acceptance and peace with who I am that had eluded me for nearly five decades.

I know from the e-mails I receive or even from venturing into gay chat rooms, that there are still so many individuals who are not "out" and still living their lives in various levels of fear of discovery.   It is a scary place to be.  I've been there.  But coming out is not only liberating, it is also the strongest form of activism that one can undertake.  Living out and proud is a daily testament that the lies and smears told about LGBT individuals are not true.  Being out is truly the most powerful way to alter hearts and minds.   It's not always easy and, yes, it can be terrifying at times.   But it beats the hell out of staying in the closet.

 

The Torment of Life in the Closet

As long time readers know, I spent decades in the closet consumed with efforts to deny reality, self-hate and a never ending fear that "my secret" might be discovered.  Growing up Roman Catholic, a denomination where inflicting guilt and self-loathing is an art form, certainly did nothing to make matters better.  I found myself to be like an actor on the stage, always "in character" except when totally alone.  Never able to be fully close to anyone, always maintaining an invisible glass wall between myself and others.  It is a very miserable and unhappy place.  And this whole horrible word derives from a few passages in a book that is the written version of stories authored by ignorant uneducated people of 2000+ years ago.  So many lives either ruined or made to be a constant torment just because others cling to these archaic writings due to either childhood brainwashing, a fear of thinking for themselves, personal demons, or a fear of modernity.  Oh, and let's not forget those who are out to enrich themselves financially.  A piece in SB Nation looks at the experiences of David Testo (pictured above), a former pro soccer player who came out recently.  Much of what he describes I identify with because I've known the fear, known the self hate, and known the misery.  And LGBT youth (and adults) continue to experience this living Hell.  Thanks to Christianists and professional Christians who have a sick need to feel superior to others or who seek to enrich themselves while peddling bigotry.  Here are some story excepts:   

David Testo doesn’t remember anything from before the day his dad died of colon cancer, when he was 10. But from that day onward, he knew a few other things to be true. One, his father was gone. Two, he was gay. And three, he would pay a terrible penitence for it.

He wasn’t quite sure what it meant to be gay. .  .   .  .  .  . He could only imagine being with other boys, recognizing himself in what his surroundings railed against. The Bible, the only truth in his pious Baptist community down in North Carolina, was pretty clear on the evil of homosexuality: "Thou shalt not lie with the male as one lieth with a woman: for it is abomination," Leviticus, 18:22. 

"I kind of hated myself. When you’re told gay people are sinners and are going to burn in eternal hell and you’re a child, what are you supposed to feel? It just couldn’t be the truth. I didn’t know who I was." There was no Internet then, no way of circumventing Bible Belt propaganda and discovering other truths. "If you’re straight, you learn from examples everywhere around you," says David. "But if you’re gay you’re just left hanging there – you learn about your sexuality anonymously, through dark spaces."

"It takes a long time to accept it because you really do try to change or deny it. It’s the one thing I can’t change. I can change pretty much everything else about me but I can’t change who I’m sexually attracted to."

He tried anyway. 

He decided to do what closeted gay men have done for centuries: construct a beautiful facade behind which to huddle. So he wouldn’t go to hell after all, he decided. Yes, that was the best option available; the only option, unless he wanted to become a pariah and the target of constant proselytizing over his "disease." He would be unimpeachable – get good grades, join the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, be elected captain of the soccer team, date a cheerleader, have straight sex. He bullied kids suspected of being gay, called them "faggots."  He became the golden boy, hiding in the spotlight.

A sanctuary for others, the locker room had been a deeply uncomfortable place for David. He'd spent as little time there as possible, missing out on much of the bonding he so cherished. There was a lot of talk of sex. David dodged the questions. He'd looked at the ground and avoided the inherent sexual undertone in locker rooms. He’d bang on the windows of the team bus along with the others when an attractive girl walked by.

David had been a permanent resident of the gray area. Who knew; who didn’t know? Who was OK with it; who was judging him behind his back? He had no clue. It drove him crazy. Never once, in all of his years playing soccer, did a teammate ask straight up if he was gay. And he never formally came out to anybody either.

Call it a karmic reckoning. David didn’t actually know he’d be the first active male pro athlete in a major team sport in North America to publicly announce that he was gay last November, but he knew that what he had to say would matter. When he learned that yet another bullied gay teen took his own life — 15-year-old Jamie Hubley from Ottawa — his mind was made up. David hoped he might help make a difference for all the boys just as lost as he once was. That he could make amends for the bullying he did himself. Regret can be productive sometimes.

Testo came out in November, 2011.  He hasn't played pro soccer since.  While his story is inspiring, the aftermath sadly will convince other young LGBT individuals that the only safe place is in the closet as tortured a place as it may be.  In my own life, coming out eventually severely damaged my legal career as I became radioactive in the minds of most local law firms.    I've paid a high price for coming out, but the only alternative was to come out or die.  I chose life.  It's ironic that the "godly Christians" who are always saying "choose life" in the abortion context by their anti-gay bigotry condemn countless LGBT individuals to remain in a living Hell or to choose death as their best option.  Talk about hypocrites.  They only care about choosing life for unborn fetuses.  They care little about the living.

Former Pirates Owner and Newspaper Heir Kevin McClatchy Comes Out

In some ways it is heartening to see older gays finally coming out.  Finally coming to terms with who one is - even if it takes years of therapy to make the transition - is extremely liberating and not hating and despising oneself daily makes for such a sense of inner peace.  That said, there are still many trials and tribulations that need to be surmounted and, as noted in a prior post, for married gays there is the calamity of telling your straight spouse and in many cases children.  Indeed, I DO understand why some individuals choose to take their own lives as an alternative given the daunting journey coming out later in life entails.  One individual who has decided to take the plunge and be honest with himself and the world is former Pittsburgh Pirates owner and newspaper heir  Kevin McClathy.  In a column with Frank Bruni of the New York Times McClatchy (pictured above) talks about his decision to come out.  Here are some excerpts:

THE way Kevin McClatchy figured it, he had to choose. He could indulge his dream of presiding over a big-time professional sports team, or he could be open about his sexuality. The two paths didn’t dovetail.

He went with sports, and in February 1996, at the age of 33, became the youngest owner in major league baseball when he led a group of investors who bought the Pittsburgh Pirates. For the next 11 years, he was the team’s managing general partner and chief executive officer, not to mention its public face. And for all of that time, he took pains not to let his players, the owners of other teams or anyone beyond a tiny circle of family and close friends learn that he was gay. 

He stepped away from the Pirates in 2007, but it took five years for him to reach the point where he felt even remotely comfortable sitting down with a journalist, as he did with me recently at his home here, about 50 miles east of Pittsburgh, to talk about his private life. Secrecy is a hard habit to break. And the world of professional sports, to which he is still connected, isn’t exactly crowded with proud, out gay men and women. 

He once did some arithmetic. Over the last four decades, he said: “Tens of thousands of people have played either professional minor league baseball or major league baseball. Not one has come out and said that they’re gay while they’re playing.” Nor has any active player in the principal leagues of football, basketball or hockey, America’s three other major professional sports. That silence is a sobering  . . . 

McClatchy, whose interview with The Times was his first public acknowledgment of his sexual orientation, could do considerable good.

And pro sports offers a frontier on which there’s considerable good to be done. One reason there has been so much attention lately to statements about homosexuality, supportive and derogatory, from prominent male athletes is that they inhabit a stubborn bastion of reductively defined masculinity, and many impressionable kids take their cues from it. If its heroes make clear that being gay is O.K., the impact could be profound: fewer adolescents and teenagers bullied, fewer young and not-so-young adults leading stressful, painful double lives. 

McClatchy, 49, said that his took a toll. “I think I was more paranoid, for sure, about people,” he said. “And suspicious, definitely. And angry.” His serious romantic relationships with men were few and strained until he left sports, and his partner of the last four years, Jack Basilone, who shares his home here, told me that McClatchy remains guarded, wary.

McClatchy said, “I’m sure people will criticize me because I came out later, and I should have come out while I was in baseball and in the thick of it.” 

But, he added, “I could find excuses for why not to do this article until I’m blue in the face.”

“I’ve got a birthday coming up where I’m turning old,” he said, referring to his 50th, in January. “I’ve spent 30 years — or whatever the number is specifically — not talking about my personal life, lying about my personal life.” 

He shook his head. “There’s no way I want to go into the rest of my existence and ever have to hide my personal life again,” he said.

I wish him well and hope he finds the peace I found eventually.  The saddest thing in my view is those who spend their entire life in the closet and never know the feeling of self-acceptance.  I cannot image an entire life of lies and unhappiness and possible futile efforts to change the unchangeable.