Burn The Closet: Coming Out Stories

Joseph Allen's Story

I received a letter from my mother and father in the mail today.  When I opened the envelope the contents brought back a painful moment that occurred in my life over 12 years ago.  Inside the envelope was a policy transfer – a life insurance policy fund transfer.  I wasn’t supposed to live to see this letter; I was supposed to succumb to AIDS a few years ago because I’m a FAGGOT!  You see back in the spring of 1998 a rather volatile conversation between my father and I prompted him to potentially capitalize on my untimely death. 

            I always knew I was “different”, even before I knew what to call “it”.  In kindergarten I remember playing house, and distinctly recall being the housewife while my “pretend” husband went to work –yes you heard right.  All throughout elementary school I remember having crushes on certain male classmates, and these feelings of same sex attraction felt completely normal.  It wasn’t until my junior high years that I had a horrible revelation.  The first time I heard the word “faggot”, I knew it wasn’t a nice word.  After the “white boy wanna be” jokes wore off, my peers would soon commonly refer to me as the “f” word.  According to the cruel “s.o.b’s” at West Craven Middle School I didn’t walk right or talk right, and I had a limp wrist.  I thought I’d taken care of my limp wrist habit when at the age of ten, a cousin told me in the garage of my parent’s home my limp wrist disorder wasn’t “normal”.   Three years of ridicule in junior high school coupled with a very impatient and militant father crushed my self-esteem into a thousand pieces (one reason I’m on anti-depressants though my parents don’t know it).  In fact, it wasn’t until I was twenty-five that I was able to look a man in the face.  It was also during this time that I began to withdraw a bit, and found solace in the solitude of my own thoughts.  My high school years at West Craven High School proved to be no different, and the cruel jokes continued.

I remember trying to pretend to like females in both junior high school and high school, hell, when I was a kid and my cousins and I discovered porn I would pretend to be turned on by the female anatomy (all the while I found myself liking what “he” had to offer).  I did the most horrible thing one could do to another when I dated a girl knowing I wasn’t in to her, just to hopefully bring the ridicule to a halt.  I distinctly remember knowing what these “feelings” were, but wasn’t ready to accept them while in high school.  I found myself reading the bible more, and attending church more because I remember my mom calling homosexuality morally wrong, and the "white man's" disease.  A former classmate of my father’s was gay, and one day while I was working with my father when I was about fourteen at one of his rental properties, this former classmate walked past the place we were working and spoke to my father and the other men working with us that day.   My father and the rest of the men greeted him with kind words until after this man left. Once the man walked off, the gay jokes began.  I felt so awkward, because I was facing the same scorn from my peers at school.  I remember when I was fixing a ham and cheese sandwich and decided to put potato chips on it.  When my father walked in, he was horrified at the sight of me fixing this “weird” sandwich. He chastised me, citing my very “odd” sandwich was what had “men doing other up the butt”, and told me that being “different” was a bad thing.  I was around fifteen then, and remember it like it was yesterday. 

When prayer didn’t work, and ignoring it or trying to make myself straight didn’t do the trick I turned to suicide.  In the winter of 1997 around February, not long after my 18^th birthday I tried to take my own life by overdosing on pills.  When I woke up after what I told my parents was an unusually long sleep, I cursed myself for being alive.  When I had come to my wits end, after the tears and other attempts to kill myself, I finally decided to accept my sexuality.  There was no way around it, I was gay and had to come to terms with it.  After research, I realized that God didn't have a problem with my sexuality, PEOPLE had a problem with it.  I graduated from high school in spring of 1997, and graduated from my own self-loathing shortly thereafter.  As an affirmation of my acceptance of my sexuality, I came out to my high school best friend.

In the fall of 1997, I started attending Craven Community College.  Self-liberated but not yet fully out of the closet, I celebrated the male physique to myself, admiring men, only this time not being ashamed of it.  It was in this same year that I met a young man who would become my first official boyfriend.  This man became my priority beyond schoolwork, and I found myself having to be with him every second.  He would stay with me during the weekends at my parent’s house, and I think our “unusually” strong bond between the two of us became increasingly obvious to my parents.  Soon, my parents began throwing subtle hints of how I never brought girls around and was always with this “boy”.  After bringing my best girl friends around to create a diversion, the weight of lying and pretending to be someone I wasn’t became insurmountable. 

I decided to tell my parents the truth.  In the spring of 1998, my mother was outside watering her flowers as she always does.  I walked outside, and told her I had something to tell her.   Mind you, I always begin my conversations this way, and this sunny spring day was no different. Before I could tell her, she looked up at me, and told me “that I wasn’t gay and was to never think of myself as such”.  I was so speechless, that I couldn’t say anything.  She promised to not tell my father, but the next morning he “mysteriously” found out.  During our hostile conversation, my father mentioned he would get me psychiatric help, but when I refused, he unleashed his anger.  I’m not sure if his anger was fueled by my being an only son, but the words that came from my father’s mouth still hurt today.  I remember him saying he “wished Hitler was alive to kill all the gay people (including me)”, and he “wished he never adopted me”.  In addition, he mentioned I had all the devil’s angels all around me.  The worst blow was when he said he would take out life insurance policies on me, because I would die after developing AIDS.  Mind you, my father thought I’d contract AIDS simply by “being” gay.  These same life insurance policies my father took out on me were referenced in the letter I received today.

 I moved out of my parent’s home in response to their negative reaction towards my coming out (sometimes feeling my life was at risk after witnessing my father’s reaction to the news), moving in with my boyfriend.  To add insult to injury, I had to drop out of college.  The stress was too much for me to concentrate on my academic affairs.  My father even to this day has taken a vow of silence, and my mother opts for denial ("Marty when you get married to your wife and have kids of your own", really mom, wake up).  I simply didn’t feel comfortable in my parent’s home any longer, and the tension was only getting worse between us when I came out.  Eventually, this caused a rift in my relationship with my parents, and we didn’t speak to each other.  This really hurt because I’m especially close to my mother. After eventually disowning me, I became completely rebellious towards my mother and father.  Filled with anger, I dyed my hair platinum blonde; visually announcing my sexuality in the small town we lived in, choosing an in-your-face gesture in regards to my sexuality towards the citizens of New Bern, NC hoping it would humiliate my parents.  My anger and rebellion only put a strain on my relationship with my boyfriend, and as a result it eventually ended. 

            Coming out was definitely a very tough situation, but it made me a stronger more confident person today.  As a result of surmounting that situation, I no longer care about any ridicule or strange looks I may get.   The confidence I found to tell my parents revealed truths, ultimately revealing the true me, and I was no longer living a lie.  My parents and I talk (though as I mentioned before my father doesn't talk about it and my mother is in denial), as our love for each other overcame the silence, although letters like the one I received today are a bitter reminder of the past.  Overall, I am happy I came out, because I don’t have to lie about who I am anymore to anyone; and overcoming the conflict with my parents reinforced this truth.  If you can remember nothing else I’ve told you, remember this quote (with a slight addendum), “To thine own self be true, no matter the odds or struggle you must overcome to find that truth within you”.  The true sin you will find is denying who you really are, and who and what God made you.  You are condemning yourself to the “hell” of lies, shame, guilt, and stress when you deny the real “you” whether you choose to admit the pain and stress of living a closeted life or not.