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10.11.2001

ncod

all week long i've been saying to myself don't forget. don't forget about thursday... its thursday, and i forgot. but thanks to cal i was reminded. and now..

my coming out story? lets see.....
starting at age 11 or 12 i knew there was something different about me. though i didn't know what. i had some inkling of lesbians, though at the time i didn't put that word to them.. i just knew that there existed this group of women who loved women. and i believed that those women, on an evolutionary scale, were the most evolved.. though that wasn't the way i pictured it. and note, i was only about half conscious of this.. i'd get this picture in my head, kinda like the food pyramid, and up top there was this group that i hoped to be able to get too. i just didn't know how.

i have a journal from, oh, sometime in high school. the first page of the journal i write that this will be a place where i can face my fears, where i can write down all my thoughts, a place where i could pour my heart out. i knew at the time what i was talking about, though i still didn't reveal it to myself, and later, after i came out i knew what i was thinking.

jump forward..
college... my sophomore year i became good friends with ponte.. i spent a lot of time in her room, she took me over to the sigma alpha epsilon house, she introduced me to fraternity party life. but while she was introducing me to men i was falling in love with her.. but i took me awhile to figure it out. i finally admitted to myself that i was a lesbian when i was walking to hearst hall from my dorm. i don't know why i remember that moment, but i do. one moment i was confused and the next moment i was in denial.

i spent the next almost 2 years trying to convince myself that i was straight.

jump forward again.
april of my junior year i went to earth fest, held at stone mountain park. the line up was, lets see-- viva la diva, michelle malone, jackson browne, mary chapin carpenter, nanci griffith, and the indigo girls. for anyone *not* in the know-- when the indigo girls are playing there will be lots of lesbians around. i *was not* in the know until i arrived with my friends. i spent the day trying not to stare, i didn't want any of the lesbians to think i hated them.. i was more curious. i was curious what lesbians were like. i was in awe. i remember when the girls came on.. i'd been a fan since my sophomore year of high school.. this was the first time i'd seen them.. i wanted to get close. some really nice dykes (what i know now were dykes) let me in front of them so i could be in the very front of the crowd.

jump forward some more.
the summer between my junior and senior year of college i met a boy. the boy and i had sex.. my last fleeting days of trying to convince myself that i was in fact straight, and not a lesbian. but, we'd have sex and i'd imagine women. also during that summer i discovered the internet, got online and joined the indigo girls mailing list. i was quite active on that list. the boy and i broke up soon after school started again, and i had one last fling. it was during the break up of that one last fling that i finally came out. i'd met someone else in atlanta who was on the indigo girls mailing list and we started hanging out. she was a lesbian. one day i was over at her place and we talked for a really long time. i asked her lots of questions about her own coming out.

2 days later i admitted to someone for the first time that i was not straight. that was 7 december 1994. for about a month i identified as bisexual.. maybe it wasn't even a month.. but for a little while. yes, by christmas i was identifying as a lesbian.

christmas that year wasn't easy. whenever christmas of 1994 comes up i refer to it as the christmas from hell. i'd come out to my parents on the phone, but i wasn't out to zack or anyone else. christmas of 1994 was a big robertshaw family gathering in south carolina. my father, his sister and brother and their families and my grandparents. i remember dad and i going to the beach and having huge arguments. i remember coming out to zack and our cousin silas hearing me. i remember zack and i driving from south carolina to virginia beach-- our mom's parents.. zack and i discussed and yelled. when i got to va beach i gave my mom a book different daughters.. needless to say she wasn't ready to deal with it.

overall i'd say it took my family about a year to deal with it. my whole family knows now. my grandmother and grandfather both knew before they died. after almost 7 years at least my mom backs me up when i come out. she says that if they have a problem with it then its their problem and not mine. i had a chance to talk about it with my cousin judy when she was here to see her son.. we talked around it. she said somethings that bothered me, but i'm pretty sure she still loves me. and i rarely see her or communicate with her, so its pretty much a non-issue. if and when i see her next i'm going to treat it like i treat everything else-- just talk about that part of my life if it comes up.

my family situation isn't perfect, no. my dad and i were talking about personal safety after september 11th. we talked about my stepsister and stepmother and how my stepmother is feeling very protective of her daughter who lives in new york city. i told him how i felt about not feeling safe all the time, that september 11th didn't change that aspect of my life. he told me i should stop being so in people's faces about my sexuality, then i'd be safe. my response-- tell my stepmother to tell my stepsister to move out of new york city. he got the point.
overall though i'm quite lucky. a lot of lgbt folks aren't as lucky as i am. they go through hell because of their sexuality. friends and family members walk out of their lives, they loose their jobs and their children. none of that has happened to me. i didn't loose one friend because i came out.. and my family, even the great aunt and uncle that i just came out too, has reacted with "we love you very much".. they might have problems with my queerness, but they are able to look past that and still express love for me. yes. i'm very lucky.

hopefully one day we won't have to have national coming out day.. hopefully one day coming out won't be an issue, that kids will be raised with the knowledge that they can love any gender they so please and that they can be any gender they so please..

Posted by Beth @ 10/12/2001 04:36 AM PST

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