It’s pride month, and not just any old pride month, but a presidentially proclaimed pride month. Which honestly, is pretty amazing. I have been an insane believer in equal rights since I first learned about the Holocaust in elementary school, and sometimes forward progress really just surprises you. Every little bit helps.
Everyone has a different story. And I know people have wondered about mine as I have about theirs. But if we’re going to talk about my coming out story, we really need to see this as the very story of my life – from when I actually came out of the womb. Because every moment of my life has shaped me to be who and where I am today.
I grew up in a very liberal area of Massachusetts, about 20 minutes west of Boston. My parents were lovers (no surprise where I get that from) – and close friends were family – sometimes more than family itself. My parents met doing theater, so you can imagine I had many gay “aunts” and “uncles” growing up. My mother’s very best friend since she was in 5th grade was gay at a time where it was much scarier to be so, and AIDs took his life when I was just a young child. Although I truly knew only gay men, I did know that gay was normal, for the very fact that it was actually common in my life and because my parents wouldn’t let it be any other way. You don’t worry where the love comes from, you just want it to be there.
Despite any other differences I may have had with my parents over the years, I always appreciated this value that they instilled in me from birth. I have felt incredibly lucky that this was just a given in my development, never something I had to come to accept, learn about, or fear in myself. If my best friend was black, gay, or Jewish – it was irrelevant. I walked around the world assuming everyone else had these same values for most of my adolescence. And no surprise, I found myself drawn to a very open group of “theater people” in middle school and high school. It wasn’t long before I was the first person people felt comfortable telling in secret – “I’m gay” and I would always say “I know. So let’s talk about your crush!” I did not accept, tolerate, or handle anything. I learned and loved and believed that someone who was terrified to tell me something so personal about themselves deserved the same respect in return.
Since the age of 9 I attended an all-girls sleepover camp (technically a Girl Scout camp – but as I was never a true Girl Scout, never making it past a Brownie, I had to pay $6 extra every session – that was the extent of the Girl Scout involvement). I adored my time at this camp. I grew up at this camp. I built incredibly strong friendships and I discovered who I was and what I was all about. In my later years, I came to realize that many of the staff were gay. And, surprisingly, this was really my first immersion with gay women. It was no surprise of course, who else wants to spend all 8 weeks of their summer with no social life other than the other female counselors. Honestly, these ladies had it totally right, they were brilliant. My last years at camp were incredibly formative. The relationships I built helped me learn to cope with all of the turmoil going on in my head and in my family at the time. I don’t think I would have survived without them.
A very unique relationship opened my eyes to a world of possibilities. There were three of us, and we were inseparable. I remember seeing them at camp for years before and thinking they were just “so cool” and wanting to know them (apparently that is just something I do). Finally we were in the same unit, and we immediately became close. We shared everything with each other, wrote poems, traded song lyrics, and connected. We belonged to each other in a way I hadn’t felt in a very long time. And we talked about love, or the possibility of love. I remember very clearly saying that I did not label myself, I did not care in what form love showed up for me, that I just wanted to find a great love. That no doors were closed, male or female, it was about the connection, always. And we all agreed. As most adolescents do, we felt we had to define what this meant for us. So we labeled it. We were riding the line of bisexuality, in whatever that meant to us. And we were Bi-Rider 1, 2 & 3. I know we all laugh (hard) at this now, but you should have seen how many times we wrote those absurd labels that summer. Because we wanted to be understood and we wanted to belong, and we did, to each other.
Although my “open door” philosophy was a concept I had since maybe age 12, I had never acted on it. I had never acted on anything. I was shy and body-conscious and I had my first kiss on the dance floor of my junior prom, with a boy I “dated” for a hot second. I was awkward to say the least. But I didn’t care, I had a lot I was happy about and I just continued my quest for love. When I met my calm, stable, kind boy just before my senior year of high school, he felt like the end of my quest. I closed the doors and sat in my love house comfortably for years. I didn’t believe looking at anyone else’s lawns, so I just stayed in my own yard and enjoyed my own greens for over 10 years. I never let go of my belief that love comes in all forms, but I never acted on it either.
I have had very close gay friends and mentors for most of my adult life. I’ve also had very close straight friends and mentors. I personally find that the trait of being gay is just as informative as being a female, a mother, a daughter, etc. You may know something about a person with this knowledge, but there’s a whole lot more unknowns than knowns. As I grew up, the label seemed so much less important, so much less helpful. When I told friends and family that I had fallen in love with a woman, there were a lot of questions – “did you always know?”, “were you hiding that you were gay all these years?”, “when did you realize?”, “could it never have worked out with a man?” But what was far more interesting were the number of people I met that had experienced the “open door” policy as I had – that had had relationships with men and women and were just looking for the right connection. Not everyone may think like us, but there are more of us out there than you may realize.
Today, I do not use labels. I probably have never had to say to anyone “I am gay”. The only time I use the word “lesbian” is when I’m quoting Serendipty (“my lesbian lady lover”) or in some form of humor related to what others must think “we’re” like or how “we” differ from all those “stereotypical lesbians” (whatever that means). I am an adult, and I fell in love. When I tell people about myself, I tell them about my partner in love, who yes, is a woman. I still live in a very liberal, accepting part of this country and I believe our country is so much more accepting now than it ever has been. And I do not allow for the opportunity of discrimination. I am not naive, but I am not tolerant of anyone having outward opinions of what they do not know. There are likely people who have met me and do not like me. But I do not live in a world where people do not like me because I am with a woman. And I refuse to live in that world.
My story may look nothing like yours. I was not hurt, persecuted, ashamed, scared, or hidden as I realized who I was. I know many of you were and my heart aches for those of you who have suffered even the slightest as a result of who you love or who you may love one day. As a parent now, I find that one of my most important jobs is to continually show that love comes in many forms and that real, true love is very hard to undo. But more importantly, fear should never be stronger than love. I know that fear is the root of so much prejudice, so I strive to be brave and raise beautifully brave children. We may get scared, but we will do it anyway.
So when you are scared, come out and find us, and do it anyway. Because Together We Are Better.
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