When Your parents found out :o

Well, everyone seems to be posting their coming out stories on here, so I figured I might as well too.

A warning though; this post is ridiculously long and full of waffle, as all of you can no doubt see.

I first tried to come out to my parents when I was 13. My mum and I were in the car and everything went silent. I'd been planning to say something for a while, but whenever I tried to all I could do was walk back to my room. This time that obviously wasn't possible. So I told her that I thought I was gay and she kept asking me if I was sure and questioned whether I could be sure at 13. In retrospect, I doubt I was definitely certain, but I was pretty sure by that stage.

A couple of days later I told her that I was pretty sure about it, but the same thing happened.

So I left it and it was never spoken of again until 3 years later, when I went to see Brokeback Mountain. I began to realise that, if I kept it all in like the main characters in the movie, I really would not be happy. So when I got home I sat in my room knowing I had to come out. It was a terrible feeling, and I cried a bit. Then dinner time came and I sat down and ate a few bits of pasta, then went back to my room leaving the rest of my meal. After my brothers were finished I went back out to the dining room and said to her "Remember that conversation we had in the car that time? Well, it's true." Then she asked me if I was sure, and I told her that I was. Then I broke down and kept telling her that I’d never have a future and be able to live with dignity (obviously that attitude has since changed). That was Saturday, 13th February, 2006 at roughly 6:15 p.m..

Then at the beginning of Term 2 (Monday, 1st May 2006) I came out to friends at school. I’d just had two weeks of holidays and, for the most part, coming out was all that was on my mind. I was on the ferry on the way to school and I was really nervous. I thought I might delay it again. Then I got to school and my friends were in a circle chatting. I walked away after a short while though. It was still on my mind. I kept circling around the schoolyard pretty quickly. And then one of my friends came and asked me what's wrong and, after a fairly long pause, I basically said "I'm gay". Then I told him to go and get another person from the group. I told her and she gave me a big hug.

About 2 minutes later classes began. It was English. I sat down, got out my books, and started to read over the poetry we were doing to try and take my mind off things. I didn't really have any close friends in that class. For some reason I really had this compulsion to get up out the front of the class and just shout it out, but I didn't (thank God!). And so then I ran out of the class and went to the boys toilets - I sat there and cried a little bit. Later someone told me I looked like I was about to faint. I was so nervous I felt like I was going to throw up. I tried to throw up, but it didn't happen, so I went back to class. As I was going back, some of the idiots kept asking me what was wrong. I ignored them and went back to class. This process of running out of the class was repeated twice. Once I’d arrived back the third time, the girl sitting in front of me started asking me what was wrong and I told her. I hardly even knew her, but I had to get it out of my system, or so to speak. The person sitting next to her overheard and the expression on her face was pretty funny. Telling someone got me through until the end of the lesson though. It actually turned out that everyone in my class thought I had gone to get the teacher, who was late and turned up right before the class ended. The bell went soon after, and I went off to roll call. I did not say a word there.

Then I went straight to the Student Office and asked if I could speak to the counsellor. The response was "He's not in today, but we can contact Sister Anne to talk to you." And so then I went to her office and she kept asking me what was wrong. Obviously I was a little concerned about telling a Catholic nun, of all people. After some hesitation, I told her and she took it quite well. This is where my memory lags a bit, but I remember her giving me numbers and addresses to contact in Newcastle – I didn’t end up doing this until February the next year, days before I moved to Canberra. The only problem was when she assumed that I was religious and started going on about how God loves everybody, but that I shouldn’t question Vatican doctrine or join so called “radicals”. It turned out that she knew of other gay people who had gone to my school, but it seemed like being gay was all very kept in and didn’t leave the counsellors’ offices. There were 500 people in my Year 12 class, so there must have been a fair few others out there too.

Soon after that, I called my mum at work and told her what happened that morning. I distinctly remember saying to her something like “I think you know what this is about” and she replied “yes”. After that the people in charge at school asked if I wanted to go home and I told them I did. They apparently rang my mum at work and told them I was going home, but I soon changed my mind and stayed. This message didn’t get through though so what happened was that Mum got home and realised I wasn’t there. She must have thought I’d run away or done something drastic.

So I stuck it out at school for a while, first sitting around the school office reflecting on what had just happened, then going to class. It got better as the day went on. School ended at 4:30 p.m. and I went off to my flute lesson. After that I can remember walking across a pedestrian railway overpass ready to get the 6 p.m. ferry from Newcastle and for the first time that day I felt happy about myself, as though things were looking up. The sun was setting. I looked over the harbour and the beach and knew that I reached a new stage in life and that I’d definitely done the right thing that day by coming out.

When Mum came to pick me up from the ferry wharf, we had a bit of a chat on the way home. This was when I found out that Dad knew. He was away, and I told Mum not to tell him, but it turned out she did. I asked her if he knew, and she said that he did and that, even though he might appear to be a little cold and unemotional at times, there was no problem in his mind. This was later confirmed by a text message he sent to her phone, which we all used when he was away. It said something like "Tell Nat that I have no problem with it and that I'm not ashamed of him. I am supportive."

So that’s my coming out experience.

Thanks for that story, it provided a good insight into the highs and lows of coming out.  I reckon it must be harder to come out at school, as (some) people generally become more tolerant and understanding of such things as they get older, whereas at school there's still a lot of gay bashing (at least there was at mine). 

I still haven't told my parents yet, though they did announce at dinner one time last year that if any of us kiddies were gay then they'd have no problem with it whatsoever and would be highly supportive (I can't remember in what context that arose).  I do also remember telling my brother many years ago that I had just gotten a girlfriend and he replied "What? You're not into girls."  So maybe they're all hints from my family, though most likely I'm reading too much into the whole thing.

It seems though that coming out is a big part of being gay to begin with.  Having told a few of my friends I do know how awkward yet liberating it can be.  It's also good to hear that more and more people are having a good experience afterwards because of it.  I think it's a sign that our society is slowly moving towards acceptance.

Yeah, there was a fair bit of gay bashing at my school (only verbal though). I'm pretty sure word got around, because just after I came out to that second person at school, it turned out that she thought I didn't care who she told. She went and told her friends and then they must have spread it around, as I had a couple of my other friends (and some people who definitely weren't my friends) ask me if I was gay. Knowing any school, I'm pretty sure it got round. One of my friends who wasn't gay also recalls being asked fairly often if I was.

In religion classes I used to get a couple of idiots who kept trying to hit on me for fun and test my reaction. From years 8 to 10 a lot of people thought I was gay, because in that context gay equated with unpopular. People there also tried to test my reactions, but I just ignored them. This is part of the reason why I tend to keep things bottled up.

Also, if you attend a Catholic or independent school in NSW, then the school has exemptions from the Anti-Discrimination Act. Therefore I could have been expelled from school on the basis of my sexuality. I found an article about this: http://www.ssonet.com.au/display.asp?ArticleID=5955. It was published in November 2006, so I'm assuming that nothing's changed since then.

In relation to Nat's hyperlink...IT'S ABOUT DAMN TIME!!...gosh!

Well the article did say that debate on the bill had been blocked until after the New South Wales election, which has since passed, although I don't really know how likely it is to succeed. I found a statement from the former NSW Education Minister before the last election: "A re-elected Iemma government would maintain its commitment to current anti-discrimination provisions covering religious schools." (http://www.ssonet.com.au/display.asp?ArticleID=6335). Hence there is probably little chance of things changing in the near future.

That's disappointing. I think that private schools should be able to discriminate in some ways (e.g. religious denomination, gender for single sex schools), but I don't think discriminating on the basis of sexuality should be allowed. I really can't put up a coherent argument as to why right now, but that's just my attitude.

There was a catholic school in my area which expelled two gay students.  Admittedly they were caught having sex in a classroom.  The weirdest thing of it all though was that the student that walked in on them (a year 12 prefect) was apparently "traumatised" and underwent counselling.  I mean seriously...you think they were practicing devil worshipping or something by the way it was talked about across all the catholic schools in Melbourne. 

I'll save my rant about how certain christian churches' anti-homosexuality stances are based on such sketchy premises for another day, but in the meantime, there's a great episode of the West Wing (yes the political nerd in me is surfacing) where the President rattles off all the other 'laws of God' such as burning your mother alive if she weaves a garment from two different fibres, which come from the same book in the bible that most people cite to argue being gay is morally evil.  It's hilarious.

LOL! BUSTED!

There was a similar incident at my old junior high school only recently. The people in question weren't having sex in a classroom, but apparently there was a group of Year 10 guys in the boys toilets taking photos of body parts that they probably shoudn't have been taking photos of. They were then showing each other the photos and were reportedly getting quite excited. Apparently a Year 7 student (who had only been there a couple of weeks - probably not the best first impression of high school) walked in, found them and told a teacher. It could well have just been a case of stupid little boys trying to play a "mine's bigger than yours" game, but, really, as the saying goes, take a picture; it'll last longer...

So then one of the guys got expelled and about 8 others got suspended for a while. The school threatened to call the police if they saw anyone with a camera phone from then on, so I guess they were trying to protect God's children from devil worshipping under the guise of maintaining privacy.

? hey i got expelled for something else, they only suspended me for that you tool.

SRSatan, I don't know if your reply is sacrastic, but I really don't think you went to the same junior high school as I did. Thus, I doubt I was talking about you.

Another small footnote to my story happened this morning.

My plan today is to go out to the hospital to see my grandpa before I go ice skating. He's in a pretty bad way, and won't be around much longer. But I really don't have any ideas of things to talk about with him, so I asked my dad if he had any ideas for things to talk about, and things to avoid. He said there was one thing I should avoid, so I assumed he was talking about death, but then he said that that made two things to not talk about. At that point I knew he was talking about the whole gay thing.

I'd never intended to tell my grandpa that I was gay. Although he had a lesbian daughter, I just didn't think that telling him would be beneficial to anyone, especially given his current circumstances.

Back to my dad, it was only the 2nd time we'd spoken about my sexuality since I first came out to him six weeks ago, and it was quite unexpected. He's still not comfortable with the idea, and he asked me a few times if I was *really* sure, and mentioned again that I didn't fit the stereotypes. Last time when he raised those things (5.5 weeks ago), I got pretty defensive (I'd been out like 4 days), but this time I was a lot more assertive. I basically said that I was more or less completely sure about it, and I also said that coming out was by far the best thing I'd ever done.

I don't think he's comfortable with my sexuality yet, but at least he was prepared to talk about it directly for the first time in over a month. That has to be a positive thing. Sorry for rambling.

10th post, yay!

lol of course im being sarcastic, i've never been expelled.

...I guess they were trying to protect God's children from devil worshipping under the guise of maintaining privacy.

Okay, from what you've told us Novo, that mockery is way off mark. The school was responding to a legitimate concern.

We don't have to get uppity just because it was a same sex thing.

In fact, we'd be better not being sympathetic, because

taking photos of body parts that they probably shoudn't have been taking photos of

in a boys' toilet is invasive, can be hazardous (even if they were just taking 'self-portraits'... they could end up with phones being stolen, and images broadcast), can lead to bullying, and can inculcate a culture of sexual harassment and abuse; all things that we should not only oppose actively, but also seek to dissociate from same-sex attraction in school environments.

Having seen similar eventualities happen in a case after administrators did just decide "boys will be boys", I can unequivocally say that you are being extremely naive in viewing the situation as a fight against 'the man'.

 

Seperately, kudos to Chris Dude. It's always a 'judgement call' not telling someone, but one where you probably know best. Just like death is a fact, but not always an appropriate thing to bring up (again, depends) your own sexuality is not always something to concern somebody with. Especially as accepting that knowledge can sometimes take time, and be news that some find distressing. Hey, even a lot of us have to debug what we've been taught, and come to accept it as not being a problem (and therefore, not something that we need to grudgingly 'accept'; which is a wonderful conclusion to make).

Good on you Chris.

Haps