Coming Out, Again.

/

Coming up to my thirtieth birthday I’ve been trying to challenge myself to achieve goals I’ve been putting off for years. I spend countless hours starting outlines for plays, shows, novels, articles and never seem to, or at least, rarely seem to finish them. Reflecting on the reasons why, I’ve managed to decipher that there are things that I get passionate about and things that I am interested in. I may get really passionate about an idea for a dance-based show but then find myself only being interested in choreographing the individual numbers, suddenly making it feel more like work than artistic fulfillment. Using this newfound knowledge I ask myself, as I write publically for the first time, what is it that I am passionate about? The easy answer is I am passionate about developing inclusive behaviors, and pushing myself to act in a way that can help the world become a better place. With this in mind, here is my coming out story albeit perhaps not the story you may expect

The story of my coming out is not done so as a recount, but in real time. Here it is... I am not gay. I am coming out as ‘not gay’. It sounds like a bad skit but all I ask is that you stay with me for this brief retelling of how I got to this point and hopefully you can understand why now I am saying this in such a public setting. 

While some people know I’ve never felt gay described who I am, I didn’t realise how big a part it played in the way people defined me. Two years ago at my apartment in Melbourne I was reading up on sexual identity and came across the term pansexual; a person not limited in sexual choice with regard to biological sex, gender, or gender identity. As I read I thought, this is what I’ve not been able to put into words, this is me. That day I went to see a friend and decided to bring it up. “Have you heard of pansexuality? Yeah? I think that’s me! That’s what I can really relate to and feel that’s how I identify, I just didn’t have the word”. His reaction was something along the lines of always seeing me as a gay male, like himself, and that he needed, for lack of a better word, to deal with changing the way that he had placed me. I wasn’t offended or upset, it simply opened my eyes to how I presented and was accepted in the world when I didn’t interject with the facts of who I really am. 

I have without a doubt known my entire life that I have an interest in the same sex. I wasn’t given the proper word and identity in my schooling so the only resource I had was the internet. At this time, it was an especially unsafe playground for predatory behavior but it was the only way I felt I could find the answers I was looking for. 

Once I had some information and a little clarity, I wanted to start opening up about it. To set the scene: I’m like fourteen years old with a bad centre parted bowl cut, it’s after school one day and a friend and I are walking to the tram stop. “I think I might like boys too. I think I’m bisexual”. It was a jolty, awkward kinda way to say it but surprisingly she replied with the same sentiment. “That’s cool. I think I actually like girls too. I think I’m bi as well”. It was a great relief and great start to sharing this with people. Not only knowing that I wasn’t alone, but that someone supported me. 

It gave me a little bit of confidence so I started looking online for more. Blogs, personal recounts and more people to connect with. One thing I came across was an underage LGBT+ club and instantly I knew I wanted to go. By now my circle of confidants had grown, so a small group of us set a date to attend. Unsure of what we would find, when we arrived and were greeted by a room of love and support thanks to the people who saw the need to create safe queer spaces for teens. The few hours spent at the event opened my eyes to the fact that I was so far from being alone, and this filled me with confidence. 

At the end of the night, my Mum came to pick me up and at some point during the ride home I decided that this was a good time to share. Buzzing with the endorphins of love and acceptance from the night, I start to come out to her. “Mum, the club night tonight was an underage club for people who are gay, and lesbian, and bisexual... And, I think I’m bisexual”. I sat quietly in the passenger seat waiting for a response. “What do you mean bisexual?”. Straight away I realised that this wasn’t going as I thought it would. She started to seem more annoyed, “You can be gay or straight. If you’re bisexual I don’t see how you can form a committed relationship if you’re choosing to be with a man one week and a woman the next? I know people who are bisexual, they just sleep with people. No. if you’re gay or straight that’s fine, but not bisexual. I want you to take some time and reflect, and see what you resonate more with and choose for yourself”. 

I know that everything said came from a misinformed place of care and I know I am supported in so many other ways. I have to ask though, how can you say you support someone fully when you only do it within the parameters of what you see as acceptable, and not acknowledge what the person is presenting to you?  Nevertheless, I can forgive it all today, and I know I have always been loved.

Over the following days in my teen-style journaling, I tried to figure it out, finally coming back with a response: “Mum, I thought about it and I think I’m just gay”. I had to make a decision and I deduced that I must have gotten it wrong with bisexuality. Since I had an interest in men, that must mean gay. Right? 

Over the next few months I continued to go to the underage club and met more people. One night in particular there was a girl there who I found myself really taken by. We exchanged numbers, and over the coming weeks we texted and called each other on free-minutes because no one had decent data packages then. The thing is that I found myself trying to keep it a secret because I didn’t want to get in trouble for talking to a girl after saying I was gay. Only in hindsight can I see how my initial coming out experience was affecting me, causing me to suppress and hide my interest in a person of the opposite sex. 

By fifteen I had dated a couple guys as much as you can at that age, but found myself with a girl. I didn’t shy away from it this time though and went with what I was feeling. This relationship simultaneously lined up with me joining a LGBT+ youth choir and all that seemed to stir up issues with my mum again. “How can you be in this choir if you have a girlfriend?”. My girlfriend, our friends, her family, none of them had a problem with my sexuality. After a Christmas event where the choir performed, my mum comes up to me to express her disapproval of the whole thing and demands that we leave. “You’ve got a girlfriend. How can you be in a ‘gay’ choir?”. 

I saw friends who were identifying themselves as bi then following it with, “Oh but you know that saying bi now, gay later”, as if the identity doesn’t exist as more than a passage to one sexuality or the other. People and parents referring to it as a “phase”. 

For a long time, I’ve been trying to fit in the boxes people have put me in. Feeling like I wasn’t allowed to open myself to my full identity because my “straight side” wasn’t strong enough. That initial reflection: if I have an interest in men, it negates any interest in the opposite sex because bisexuality isn’t allowed. By suppressing my personal identity and not speaking up as to who I am, there was an assumption of my sexuality. How do you feel as a gay man? People often say things like: “I just refer to you as Gay Patrick when I need to tell someone who you are. Gay besties! You’re so gay!” When I did mention an interest in people other than men, it was often met with, “But you’re like mostly gay right?” Even with all the support that there is from an individual, if someone has decided a detail about you it doesn’t take much for it to be regarded as factual. 

My real time coming out is that I am pansexual. You may be saying this is all great but why did I have to read two pages of anecdotes for you to pridefully say one sentence? This year the UK is rolling out compulsory LGBTQIA+ education and it seems that Australia is doing the same. These classes are so integral not just for children who identify as anything other than straight, but to help others develop a proper understanding that their identities are not an attack or part of an agenda. In 2016 the Safe Schools Coalition Australia (SSCA) released the Safe Schools programme to work with schools nationally to create a safer and more inclusive environment for same sex attracted, intersex and gender diverse students, staff and families.  Many rebuked it as going “too far”, and some even called it abuse of their children in regards to the new regulations and information being taught. Queensland MP George Christensen said, “This material is putting children at risk of being sexualised at an early age”, drawing parallels between the programme and how paedophiles groom a victim. 

The point being missed is that having open, welcoming discussions in safe environments removes the risk of victimisation; to go it alone only proves more dangerous. Allow me to quote myself here, “I wasn’t given the proper word and identity in my schooling so the only resource I had was the internet. At this time, it was an especially unsafe playground for predatory behavior but it was the only way I felt I could find the answers I was looking for.” Restricting information does not mean a person won’t still try to find the answers. 

Parental support and teaching in such formative years is great in theory, but it must go further. Parents and teachers need to fully understand what it is that they’re saying and teachers especially must be wary not to simply fulfill a requirement on a teaching curriculum. I look actively for positive role models in my community. People fighting for change. Same sex parents. People who are shamelessly putting themselves forward with their stories and messages. I felt that there was a message missing and instead of waiting, I wanted to be the person to say it for once. 

Today I am happily in a committed relationship. We are from opposite sides of the world and only met by chance when the musical theatre fates brought us together for a performing job on a cruise ship. After opening up to him about my sexuality, his full support allowed me to see the distorted views that I had created for myself, and with his support I was ready to say it out loud.