Blog: out of the closet- another blog about gay things
Posted on 12/25
So first of all, this has nothing to do with Christmas. Secondly, if you haven't watched Prop 8 the Musical I want you to go do that.
I went to see Milk yesterday with my mother. Everybody go see that movie NOW. It was AMAZING. (Mind you, I'd rather have gone with the GSA, but my father banned me at the last minute from doing that-- not out of intolerance, we just had a family thing.)
Anyway. At one point in the movie, Harvey Milk was saying that if everyone came out, gay rights legislation would be more likely to pass. The line was something like, "They vote for us two to one if they know that they know one of us."
I find coming out to be awkward- not so much with people my age, but with everyone else. I came out to my mom, and that was awkward. My dad found out when I showed him my Myspace. I covered with an unconvincing lie, "Oh, I thought I told you."
This is one area in which Stevie actually helped me. I can surreptitiously come out by referencing her as "my ex-girlfriend". Usually, though, even this is too much for me- generally I tend to refer to her as "my ex", and then slip in a personal pronoun.
So I'm out to my parents. I used to be pretty discreet about it, but I wrote one of my UC essays on being bi, and both of them read it. So now I express my thoughts on girls as often as I would those on guys. Just yesterday, when we were all three of us watching A Christmas Story, I called the leg lamp sexy.
I don't know if my parents are bothered by this. For a while, they thought I was going through a phase. But I act as if it's the most ordinary thing in the world (which it is!).
People I'm not out to include: my grandmother, my aunts, uncle, cousins… my boss… a lot of people at school who I'm not quite friends with (classmates, ect.), teachers…
I'm totally fine with all these people knowing (I'd kind of rather my grandmother didn't, though, because I don't know if she'd understand), I just don't know how to actually TELL them. I especially would like my aunt Louise to know. I'm very fond of her. I gotta find a way to surreptitiously out myself at the next family gathering.
How does one come out, anyway? I can't picture going up to my boss, say, and saying, "Hey, did you know I'm bisexual?" I'd so much rather do it surreptitiously… like, "Oh, yeah, my ex loved manga… she had like a whole bookcase full, it was ridiculous."
I've started wearing my rainbow belt again. It doesn't really hold my pants up too well, which I think is why I stopped in the first place. So that (along with my "I know what girls like" rainbow t-shirt) might eliminate the need to come out at school.
Not that I wear either of these to work. I would, if I didn't work with kids. I figure if they know what the rainbow means they'll ask questions, and tell the other kids who don't know, and this is really something they should be getting from their parents- who I also meet, and that's another reason I wear my skull and crossbones belt to work instead- if the parents are the intolerant type, I really don't want to know.
But my official excuse is that I really can't handle having to pull up my pants and fix my belt every five minutes when I'm at work.
Speaking of work, here's an anecdote. A couple of the horses were acting pretty friendly, and a few of the kids decided that they must have a crush on each other. But then one kid, Y------, remembers, "They're both boys!" Another kid, A-------- asks me, "How could two boys have a crush on one another?"
My inner camp counselor comes up with, "Maybe they're just best friends," but I bite my tongue before I can say this. (Hey, for all I know, they DID have a crush on each other- homosexual behavior has been observed in many animals.) My next thought is to say, "I don't know," but I balk at this too- because I DO know. Briefly I entertain the idea of telling the kids, "That happens, you know," but then I imagine them going home to their parents and saying "Emma told us two boys could have a crush on each other!" So in the end, I give shrug and a very lame, "Eh…?"
We were doing this in the arena (so the kids were on horseback), and luckily it was A-------'s turn to go do the zigzag exercise, so she has to be content with that. Y------ is next in line. "One time," she tells me. "I saw a picture of two girls kissing- on the lips. Isn't that weird?"
I'm hoping the ground will swallow me up at this point. But at least this time I know what to say. "Oh. That's… interesting," I tell Y------, and send her off to the exercise.
Later on in the class, Y------ tells A--------- how to tell whether a horse is a boy or a girl- "Boys have this thing called the penis-" (thank goodness, it wasn't anything A-------- didn't already know) and it doesn't seem that bad. At least this time telling them that that is NOT an appropriate subject feels like the right response.
***ETA: My grandmother came over for Christmas dinner. She was more affectionate than I'd seen her in a while. I remembered what I wrote about thinking she wouldn't understand, and I thought, /Surely she would, if I told her. Surely./ Maybe I will tell her, one day...***
So first of all, this has nothing to do with Christmas. Secondly, if you haven't watched Prop 8 the Musical I want you to go do that.
I went to see Milk yesterday with my mother. Everybody go see that movie NOW. It was AMAZING. (Mind you, I'd rather have gone with the GSA, but my father banned me at the last minute from doing that-- not out of intolerance, we just had a family thing.)
Anyway. At one point in the movie, Harvey Milk was saying that if everyone came out, gay rights legislation would be more likely to pass. The line was something like, "They vote for us two to one if they know that they know one of us."
I find coming out to be awkward- not so much with people my age, but with everyone else. I came out to my mom, and that was awkward. My dad found out when I showed him my Myspace. I covered with an unconvincing lie, "Oh, I thought I told you."
This is one area in which Stevie actually helped me. I can surreptitiously come out by referencing her as "my ex-girlfriend". Usually, though, even this is too much for me- generally I tend to refer to her as "my ex", and then slip in a personal pronoun.
So I'm out to my parents. I used to be pretty discreet about it, but I wrote one of my UC essays on being bi, and both of them read it. So now I express my thoughts on girls as often as I would those on guys. Just yesterday, when we were all three of us watching A Christmas Story, I called the leg lamp sexy.
I don't know if my parents are bothered by this. For a while, they thought I was going through a phase. But I act as if it's the most ordinary thing in the world (which it is!).
People I'm not out to include: my grandmother, my aunts, uncle, cousins… my boss… a lot of people at school who I'm not quite friends with (classmates, ect.), teachers…
I'm totally fine with all these people knowing (I'd kind of rather my grandmother didn't, though, because I don't know if she'd understand), I just don't know how to actually TELL them. I especially would like my aunt Louise to know. I'm very fond of her. I gotta find a way to surreptitiously out myself at the next family gathering.
How does one come out, anyway? I can't picture going up to my boss, say, and saying, "Hey, did you know I'm bisexual?" I'd so much rather do it surreptitiously… like, "Oh, yeah, my ex loved manga… she had like a whole bookcase full, it was ridiculous."
I've started wearing my rainbow belt again. It doesn't really hold my pants up too well, which I think is why I stopped in the first place. So that (along with my "I know what girls like" rainbow t-shirt) might eliminate the need to come out at school.
Not that I wear either of these to work. I would, if I didn't work with kids. I figure if they know what the rainbow means they'll ask questions, and tell the other kids who don't know, and this is really something they should be getting from their parents- who I also meet, and that's another reason I wear my skull and crossbones belt to work instead- if the parents are the intolerant type, I really don't want to know.
But my official excuse is that I really can't handle having to pull up my pants and fix my belt every five minutes when I'm at work.
Speaking of work, here's an anecdote. A couple of the horses were acting pretty friendly, and a few of the kids decided that they must have a crush on each other. But then one kid, Y------, remembers, "They're both boys!" Another kid, A-------- asks me, "How could two boys have a crush on one another?"
My inner camp counselor comes up with, "Maybe they're just best friends," but I bite my tongue before I can say this. (Hey, for all I know, they DID have a crush on each other- homosexual behavior has been observed in many animals.) My next thought is to say, "I don't know," but I balk at this too- because I DO know. Briefly I entertain the idea of telling the kids, "That happens, you know," but then I imagine them going home to their parents and saying "Emma told us two boys could have a crush on each other!" So in the end, I give shrug and a very lame, "Eh…?"
We were doing this in the arena (so the kids were on horseback), and luckily it was A-------'s turn to go do the zigzag exercise, so she has to be content with that. Y------ is next in line. "One time," she tells me. "I saw a picture of two girls kissing- on the lips. Isn't that weird?"
I'm hoping the ground will swallow me up at this point. But at least this time I know what to say. "Oh. That's… interesting," I tell Y------, and send her off to the exercise.
Later on in the class, Y------ tells A--------- how to tell whether a horse is a boy or a girl- "Boys have this thing called the penis-" (thank goodness, it wasn't anything A-------- didn't already know) and it doesn't seem that bad. At least this time telling them that that is NOT an appropriate subject feels like the right response.
***ETA: My grandmother came over for Christmas dinner. She was more affectionate than I'd seen her in a while. I remembered what I wrote about thinking she wouldn't understand, and I thought, /Surely she would, if I told her. Surely./ Maybe I will tell her, one day...***