Coming Out To Myself: Being Hetero Queer

 The past few months, I have focused on healing from some recent traumas that have unfolded a slew of other traumas in my life. Something that has been extremely healing is connecting with my inner child. Connecting with my inner child brings a lot of pain, and also is what inspires and motivates me to continue believing in myself. I want to talk about my experience with trauma based upon my own discrimination with being queer. I can't think of a more appropriate time to come out to myself. A few years ago, a dear mentor of mine called me queer. I took it as a compliment as it was coming from someone who was gay. Over the years I have embraced it from an external viewpoint. I viewed it as others seeing me as queer. Recently, as I have been processing many moments in my life, who I was as a person fundamentally was shamed. Before writing this, I wanted to understand the term queer. I read a lot on the controversy of being hetero queer (identifying as both straight and queer). I fully support and understand the idea that no one should use a title meant to empower those who have been discriminated for their own empowerment. I want to tell my story of being hetero queer to help empower others who may be in a similar position or have experienced similar traumas in their life. I just want to have pride for who I am, and I want to encourage everyone to do the same. For me the term queer is an empowering term. It is a term I can embrace and fully be OK with being myself. Being queer for me is a way for me to own who I am, and while I'm still in my journey, my progress has come a long way.

I grew up in a homophobic religion and a homophobic household. Growing up as a millennial, society was quite homophobic in general as well in my childhood. I see my home and church as extremities of that. As a person I consider myself to be sensitive, caring, emotional, flamboyant, and expressive. That has been true since I was a child. I remember as a young child having beauty pageants with my sister. I used to put on dresses, sun hats, different high heels, and whatever makeup my sister would put on me. As a young child this was encouraged and considered cute, even my brother would participate. Then, one day my brother was "too old" for this behavior. So, I did it alone. I loved looking pretty, I loved the idea of putting effort into dressing up. I loved the idea of beauty in all its forms. Then one day I too was "too old" for this behavior. It was so confusing for me as a child to comprehend that someone could "outgrow" their passion for dressing up. This was the start of having to suppress this part of myself. We weren't exposed much to anything LGBTQ+ related as children. I was very much isolated from the world. I only was allowed to have church friends, and I was homeschooled much of my childhood. I do remember any time two men, or two women would kiss on television my parents would express so much disgust. I didn't really understand it, because I wasn't even allowed to date or kiss women. I know more homophobia was ingrained into me because of my reaction to things. I was just taught homosexuality was evil, and something an old prophet from my childhood religion taught was that homosexuality was responsible for the fall of Rome. One of my own homophobic experiences I remember was when the Katy Perry music video for Firework came out. I fully supported people being gay, yet I questioned why did it have to be “so in my face” about it. Imagine that, one romantic not even sexual kiss from a music video was "too much in my face with it".

I'm grateful to myself for the healing I have done, and the ability to de-couple the brainwashing from my childhood from the beauty of people expressing love in healthy ways. While this experience with homophobia was probably experienced by many, in my childhood, homophobia was also weaponized against me. While I don't think I'll ever know the truth, I suspect my parents thought I was gay or "at risk of being" gay. I'm not sure the motivations of their treatment of me, I do know how it affected me and made me feel. I felt homophobia was a way of control and essentially was weaponized against me. Certain behaviors were "not appropriate". As a teenager my Mom forced me to get a horrible bowl cut for my hair because she was being judged by the women at church for my lack of obedience to short hair rules in the church. As a child my flamboyant behaviors were to be suppressed, even if it was just hand gestures that were a little too expressive. My expressions and happiness needed to be more masculine. I needed to change who I was because who I was "not appropriate”. I am still working through my childhood memories to understand them and process the pain a little better.

My teenage years are a bit clearer to me. One example was when my parents "caught" me watching a pg-13 movie as a teenager. I had a secret stash, and I didn't want my parents to know about (pg-13 was not allowed in our house). As they knocked on the door, then promptly opened it (clear lack of boundaries!), the scene from Shanghai Noon where Owen Wilson and Jackie Chan are taking baths in a hotel and playing drinking games was going on. I quickly shut down my computer as I thought my movie collection would be taken away or my offline computer would be taken out of my room for watching a movie that portrayed straight sexuality and heavy drinking. The scene showed up for a split second as my computer shut down. My parents asked me what was on the monitor, I said a scene from a movie that's all. I just remembered being scolded and interrogated. I ended up changing my wallpaper on my computer to that scene to protect the secrets of my movies, and to show my parents that is all it was. Later my mother came to my room to lecture me on the dangers of gay pornography. First, she insisted that I was watching or looking at gay pornography, which felt so invalidating as this was a blatant lie. I felt completely unheard. She then went on to tell me the story of a boy who wrote a book my sister had read as part of a class at the church University she was attending. My sister was a social work major, so anything related to psychology my mother would use her as leverage (despite the shame she got for going into such a “wasteful and useless” field). The book, my mother claimed, was about a boy who wanted to watch straight pornography and knew it was a sin, so he started watching gay pornography. This exposure caused the boy to turn gay. My mother wanted to protect me from that (“turning” gay). I felt so confused, invalidated, and unheard. Who would just assume their child is watching gay pornography, and then lecture them on it in such a toxic way?

A year or two later I was in college. I also went to the same church University. I had one friendship that developed and fruited into a relationship which I just felt myself in. We were best friends, I spent so much time in my friend’s dorm room playing Halo, listening to T.I., and watching sports center 24/7. I didn't even like sports that much, I just liked having a friend and things to follow together. Naturally I spent less time in my room. I was less responsive when my parents called me and would not call back as often when they left messages. When my parents would ask what was keeping me so busy, I would talk about my friend. I also had another mutual friend who was a self-identified metro sexual. I at first asked him many questions and wanted to learn more. It sounded very “gay” (which was still evil to me at the time), and yet he was so successful with women. We had a good relationship for a while, but one day many things changed.

I remember my mother telling me the college friend I was spending so much time with was gay and she no longer wanted me to hang out with him. He was my friend, I loved him like a friend and a brother. I wasn't going to let that friendship go away. I asked my mother how she knew he was gay, she said "I have a feeling", and Mom's feelings were “always right”. My mother used feelings, dreams, visits from angels, and answers to prayers to gaslight me. I didn't end that friendship, yet I did start treating my metro sexual friend with malice. I projected all my mom’s guilt and shame onto this poor innocent person who had just brought kindness and understanding to the world. I justified that perhaps “this person” was the bad influence my mother’s feelings came from. It started with just being overly defensive, then turned into much more aggressive homophobic comments. I lost him as a friend, and we went our separate ways. I still feel so sad that I missed out on that friendship because of the homophobia of an over controlling and manipulative parent.

Later, as I started healing and finding my own way, I was able to let go and explore. I became more open minded and let myself see people for who they are without the labels. I recognized and even once attempted to argue with my mother that homosexuality did not cause the fall of Rome. It wasn’t worth arguing, I tried though. I started going to gay clubs, and even having a fun time just getting to know people, slowly I came out of my shell. I still suffered with the feeling that being myself was shameful and sinful. Several romantic partners criticized me for my "gay behavior" and expressed embarrassment of being with me when I behaved like that publicly. It was often used as an excuse to break up with me or to justify why I wasn’t good enough for those partners. Much of that “gay behavior” was me starting to feel secure with my sexuality, and now I was starting to question who I was fundamentally as a person. The shame and guilt from others in my adult life just compounded that idea that I needed to remain in my shell. I am still working on overcoming that shame, and in writing this, it's my way of expressing my journey, pain, and now my empowerment as I work towards a future I am comfortable with.

Embracing the term queer for me was a way to tell myself I'm allowed to be different. I'm allowed to talk, gesture, and express myself just as I am. As a child and even as an adult, being bullied for being supposedly gay yet knowing I was straight was extremely confusing and damaging for me. I was taught being gay was evil, that my behavior was gay, and it wasn't OK to be me. It made me question my sexuality a lot, and I even now question if I would be on a spectrum towards homosexuality if not for my extreme and abusive repression. Being able to call myself queer is a way for me to say I can be myself and I don't have to fit others perception of who I am. I can behave the way I want, and still be the sexual orientation I am.

A few years ago on a work trip, after meetings we ended up in a gay club in New Orleans for a drag show. I was with two friends of a friend, and at one point one of these new friends asked me if "this was my scene". Not sure what that meant, I responded "I'm not sure if you are asking if I am gay, if you are I am not, I get that alot though and I'd be curious to know why." He responded, "you just look so comfortable here", I put both hand on my heart and told him how much that meant to me. I hugged him and thanked him for such an amazing compliment, and that I just felt at home in the environment. That's what queer is for me. I connect with so many gay friends because we all have experienced judgement for being ourselves. When I'm at a drag show, I feel empowered by those who can fully embrace who they are and overcome the toxic shame and judgements. My journey is not over yet. I remember seeing on Instagram a father who put up pigtails with his adorable daughter. While the daughter was indeed so very cute, it was the man that caught my eye. Muscular and full of tattoos yet with the same beautiful pig tails as his daughter. It reminds me of watching an episode of Duck Dynasty where the grandfather (who is arguably homophobic) was getting his nails painted by granddaughters. We view this as so lovely and endearing. Just like my wearing dresses as a child was cute. Yet as an adult it would bring shame and judgement from my family, and many of those people I grew up with. One day I hope to have the courage to wear cute pigtails without feeling shame or guilt. I hope to be able to express myself the way I love to. For now, my empowerment comes from accepting who I am to myself which is the first big step in my journey.

To those who have been gaslit, shamed, guilted, and discriminated based on who you are, my tears run down my cheeks with you. To those of you finding the courage to express yourselves as you are, my energy and support is with you. To those of you who have faced discrimination and courageously stood up to it so I can have the courage to write this discourse, my biggest and most heartfelt thanks. I love pride because it's about self-esteem and being yourself. I grew up in a church and family where pride was a sin. The true sin is not allowing people to be proud of who they are when they are kind, loving, energetic, expressive, intelligent, caring, and overall, the kind of people I wish we had more of in the world.