The blatant, yet often still hidden, truth is that I am gay. This simple fact has become less hidden over the years. Nearly twenty years ago I came to the horrific conclusion that I was gay. I cried for at least two hours. Two hours was not enough to release the pent up anger, frustration, and hate that I felt for myself and my oppressive family life. Two hours was not enough time for the light to penetrate the darkness I had been carrying for throughout my life thus far. The transformation had begun and there was no turning back, the beast within was finally set free. But once the truth is out it can be hard to ignore. The truth was out and the first step was admitting it to myself and accepting myself for who I was and am today, still in a transformational process.
During adolescence the truth was not known to me but it was known to others. These others kept the truth secret because they did not want to believe it to be true and to speak of it would make the secret a reality. The truth must remain hidden and maybe he will grow out of this phase. The truth became more known to me once I reached the age of pubescence, and the hormones were set free throughout my body. The transformational truth became a journey of its own. I had no one to ask about the feelings I was experiencing for the first time. My family was not the most emotionally available. When it comes to the stereotypical Nordic type my family could almost be considered lukewarm. Therefore, discussion or open displays of affection for one another or others was simply frowned upon. Matters were amplified because my family is highly religious and my grandfather is a Southern Baptist minister and believed all sins would deliver an individual straight to Hell. Being an impressionable child I believed this, because why would my grandfather lie to me?
When I reached high school I found being gay was more difficult than originally believed. I strived to maintain a heterosexual persona. This was difficult to maintain because there was the dreaded gym class and I was never an athletic individual and was teased relentlessly for my physical shortcomings. High school defeated me because I hated it. Interesting thing about hate, it will eventually crush the individual not the object it is directed toward. The hate I had for myself was a heavy weight. The fact that I did not fit in made things worse. I just did not fit in with all of the jocks or the stoner kids, I did not even fit in with the geeks. I was a loner.
Girls would laugh when I asked them out or give me looks like “Is he serious” then laugh in my face and tell everyone around them what happened completing my social demise. Then one year I somehow regained my confidence and found a girl that would go out with me. I believed that she actually liked and I still believe that she did. But this too, was to soon become a member of a growing number of revelations that would complete my transformation. This love struck girl and I became engaged and planned to get married after high school. My parents and grandparents were shocked. But again said nothing in the hopes that it would work itself out. They thought this not because they knew I was gay but were hoping she would figure it out and then tell me. She did figure it out but never told me. I found out from someone else what she thought and denied it to the informant and myself. I had to deny it in order to survive high school.
A student had transferred to my high school, surrounded with farm land and matching mentality, from a public school in Seattle where being gay was more tolerated. The unrelenting students of the Senior class at my school would torment him with name calling, faggot, gay, and queer. He continued to put up with it, until one day he admitted he was gay. I remember this very clearly, one student got right in the gay student’s face and said “I am going to kill you faggot.” From this point on the tension got worse. The gay student, unaware to anyone else, started carrying a gun with him for his own protection. The gay student was harassed for the last time, he pulled out the gun and pointed it at the harassing student and his friends. I remember feeling a sense of dumbfounded pleasure at the sight of the harassers running and wishing I could wield such power over my own harassers. The incident was reported and the police arrived at the school. The gay student was never to come back for the rest of the year or be seen again. The memory of this event would eventually play a major part in my eventual transformation. I felt like a weaker individual because he could admit it, not only to himself but to others that he was gay, while I was still trying to convince everyone, including myself, that I was heterosexual.
High school graduation came and went without incident but I was free from the oppression that was felt while in high school. A little freer but none the wiser. Work life was just as oppressive as high school. The fear of someone discovering my hidden truth was a perpetual fear that would not go away. People would hint about my hidden truth and I would immediately become defensive until they backed down. It was not until I started working in grocery where I worked with a fellow high school student and became friends outside of the narrower minded mentality of high school. A year or two into our friendship he ‘came out’ to me and I started to realize the ugly truth wasn’t so ugly. There were more people like me in the surrounding area that I could relate with and openly talk about my feelings.
Now that the truth had come to light it would not recede back into the darkness. The truth had experienced some freedom and wanted more. There was no going back. Now I had to tell people the truth but first I needed to tell myself the truth. The action of saying the truth aloud had tremendous and powerful affects on me. Voicing my anger, hate and all the judgments placed upon me by family and myself relieved a heavy burden from my shoulders and heart. Now I was able to stand up for myself because I now knew who I was, I am gay. All of the events that had happened up to this point contributed to the biggest transformation in my life.
Outspokenness suddenly became the norm. I would no longer accept the judgment of others, this startled people. Everyone I knew had become so accustomed to my not talking back and just accepting their insults. The one thing to learn at this point was moderation and how far to take things before I found myself in too deep with an opponent. Somehow I managed to find inner strength and enough smarts to know when to shut up or talk myself out of my own mess. Transformation built upon transformation and I learned quickly from every new challenge that came up how to handle myself with confidence.
The present time finds me with more confidence about life. People suspect I am gay but I do not volunteer information, I make them ask and say the word ‘gay’. If they cannot say the word I do not say if for them and just ignore their question. I have been called gay by so many people and it came easily enough for them to say and use so what makes it so difficult to say now. Maybe it is because times have changed and being gay is more acceptable in society. I do not find this to be much of a valid excuse. In the past is was so easily thrown in my face and now society treats it like it is a bad word.
The minor transformations that occurred in the above paragraphs all led to the largest and best transformation of my life. I was finally free of my persecutors, as well as my own self inflicted persecution. Times may have shifted a little but the need for real shifts in thinking and acceptance of others is now. People are varied in many ways, and overall acceptance of these variations can carry people a long way towards love and peace within and finally outside of themselves.
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