National Coming Out Day

Today marks the 20th anniversary of National Coming Out Day. In honor of this auspicious occasion, I will share my coming out story.

I was junior in High School. My dad drove me to Dallas (we lived about 45 min away) for my SAT. After spending a few hours hunched over a little desk filling in bubbles, we headed back to Denton. Once we were on the highway, going 70 mph, my dad turned to me and asked, point blank, if I was gay. I was stunned into silence.

He went on to tell me that my mom had "overheard" a phone conversation where I was talking about some guy. I did the standard, "I don't know, I think I might be bi" thing. The remaining 32 minutes of the ride was mostly silent. Once we got home and he confirmed his findings with my mom, she locked herself in her room. I didn't see her for 3 days.

My dad spent that time talking to me, asking questions. He is very inquisitive, but it isn't judgmental so much as curious. This is when he told me that my maternal grandfather, who died when I was a baby, was gay. My parents were still very involved in the church and I had been shunned. I felt as though they were choosing religion over me and became a very unpleasant person.

In my anger I informed them that I wasn't "bi", but a full-blown homosexual. They weren't amused. We lived in a state of tension until two years later my dad came up to me and asked for my forgiveness. What?!?!? He apologized for the way the acted when I came out and said that there was nothing wrong with me, it was their problem to resolve it with their beliefs. They are no longer members of the church that turned its back on me. In fact, they aren't a member of any church right now.

Since then our relationship has been great! It's been 15 years now since I came out and while I'm not crazy about how it happened (on someone else's terms) I am happy that it happened when it did.