Kill the Fear, Early & Often

[eredien]

Coming Out in Middle School by Benoit Denizet-Lewis. [NYT Times article, if you're not registered use BugmeNot.]

“When I first realized I was gay,” Austin interjected, “I just assumed I would hide it and be miserable for the rest of my life. But then I said, ‘O.K., wait, I don’t want to hide this and be miserable my whole life.’ ”

I asked him how old he was when he made that decision.

“Eleven,” he said.

Wow! Younger people are starting to understand the second part of the benefits of coming out--"you don't have to hide this and be miserable, and in fact, if you don't hide it, you might even get a shot at being happy"--really early. That makes me really happy, if a bit wistful.

Speaking as someone who knew they were queer in middle school and went through about a decade of just assuming that I was going to be miserable my whole life, I am so glad to see that people of all ages are now starting to have the support of a community, even if it's just the implicit community that the visibility of out queer people provides, which is starting to allow them to realize that they don't even have to make that assumption in the first place. They don't even have to make the false assumption and then work to kill what life it's gained from their belief in it; it's starting to be viewed correctly as a flawed premise, a dead premise, from the beginning.

I can't say that I can't even imagine who I would be now if I hadn't had that miserable decade of closeting, self-hatred and reflexive fear of other people (when you're hiding a secret that, if spoken, will make people hate you--and/or make you hate the self that loves, which you are told you yourself should hate--you tend to avoid people as much as possible).

In fact, I can imagine it pretty well now, and I wish I'd had it, based on the very tangible benefits that coming out has made to myself, to my friends and family, and to these people I don't even know.

If I'd been in 8th grade and had a community of people around me coming out, I might have had the courage to do it then (I was a courageous person, in some ways). I considered and rejected it in highschool, when there was a small community, mostly because by then I'd just built up too much fear of myself to bother doing the hard work it takes to find yourself after you've sent yourself away.

So, thanks, people who came out to me in junior high school and high school and college and beyond. Thanks, rax, for loving me, and encouraging me to come out instead of dumping my ass when you found out that I wasn't out. Thanks, queer and kinky friends from around the world and right here in Camberville. Thanks, pastor, for reassuring me of God's love when I was sure I ought to get rejected by it because I was broken in the wrong way and not the acceptable ways. Thanks, parents, for making me realize it's not going to be rainbows and sunshine all the time, and why I need to do it anyway. Thanks, me, for coming out and continuing to come out, and thanks, eighth-grade me, for making me remember why it's important to do so even when you don't particularly think it's going to be easy.

I'm dressing genderqueer today, and probably tomorrow, for that eighth-grade me, and for the today me, and for everybody.

Comments

[ckd]

For future reference, you can make no-reg-required links to the New York Times (for example, a link to this article) using this link generator.

[eredien]

Thank you!

[greenowl.livejournal.com]

You rock, E!

I raise my glass to you!

:D

[ckd]

On to the actual topic instead of the minutiae of URLs....

I was very impressed with the article, and with the kids interviewed for it. I'm glad things are getting easier than they were in past years. Not easy, not by far, but easier.

Do I wish people my age (or even your age) had been able to have the sort of experiences some of today's middle schoolers are having? Indeed. Middle school is tough enough for a cisgendered hetero kid, and the extra crap GLBT students have to put up with even today just makes it that much harder. One of the most hopeful signs IMO is the growth of GSAs; allies matter, not because they magically fix things or any such BS, but because they change the tone. (That comment about the GSA bringing all bullying down at one school made me cry.)

(As I said over on shadesong's LJ, I'm still a bit amused by the reaction "but how can you know that young?"; at 13 I knew exactly who I was attracted to, and recently got back in touch with that person using Facebook. :-)

[eredien]

*nod*

I enjoyed the kid's response to the parents, who asked "how can you know who you're attracted to? You haven't had sex yet!" To which the kid replied, clearly delineating the difference between "sex" and "attraction" to his parents.

[gaudior.livejournal.com]

<3

[lotusbiosm.livejournal.com]

Not to make this about me, but it breaks my heart that you didn't think you could tell me when we were in high school (I was there when you were in Junior High, I understand why you didn't think you could, even though you could have).

But it's OK now, because I don't think we have secrets from each other any more, which isn't something I can say about most of the people who knew me for the first 25 years of my life.

[eredien]

More to you in a private email.

[batshua]

You are awesome.

Thank you.

[krinndnz.livejournal.com]

Hooray for you! This was a thing of encouragement and courage-ment. Thank you.

[eredien]

I am glad you were encouraged and en-couraged. :)

[eredien]

I wasn't looking tremendously much for congratulations on this post, though I'm not going to reject them; it was more an open musing to myself about what I want out of genderqueerness, and what I've wanted in the past, and a kind of roadmap for courage for me for the future.