Letters & Opinion
Leaving the closet ... coming out on top
The Pointer
rking163@uwsp.edu
Saturday is National Coming Out Day – and I’d like to honor that event by sharing my own coming out story as the young gay grandson of a preacher man.
I come from a long line of preachers: my grandfather was a Southern Baptist minister, and my father was a deacon in one of Atlanta’s most prestigious churches. So, coming out to my deeply religious family wasn’t easy.
I remember first noticing guys in my dance and gymnastics classes when I was just five years old (even then I had a thing for older men!). My interest was innocent – these guys were like the older brothers
I wished I had, and I longed for the day that my skinny body would muscle up and look like theirs.
Like most boys in elementary school, I thought of little girls as weird and distasteful. In all honesty, I think I was afraid of them. I had five sisters back at home who took every chance they got to pick on me, and I thought all little girls were as mean and spiteful as they were.
The summer before entering junior high school, my mother signed me up for a diving program thinking it would give me an outlet for my exploding energy. Not the best move for a 12-year-old guy besieged by raging hormones.
Damn! I spent more time cooling off in the pool then I did heating up the boards.
A few years later, I found an outlet for all those hormones when I met my first love. For the next five years, Marcus and I lived happily in the closet. Until, I told my sister.
Then came Christmas and the day I’ll never forget. I got a call from my sister. She told me she had accidentally “outed” Marcus and I at Christmas dinner. A few hours later, my dad called. He told me I was a disgrace to our family and no longer welcome at home. I was on my own. He hung up. I called back and got no answer.
I then called my mom’s house. I told her, angry and begging for a fight, “I’m gay and this is the time for you to disown me if you want to.” The line was quiet for a moment. “Well, it’s about time you told me,” she finally answered.
Oh my God! Here was my father disowning me; there was my mother embracing me. That’s when I knew that my gayness would have some difficult consequences, but thanks to my mother’s unconditional love, it would also bring me great joy.
