Coming out means identifying yourself as gay, lesbian or bisexual. The first and toughest person you have to reveal this to is yourself. Then you can deal with friends and family. For many people, the coming out process is difficult. But most people come out because, sooner or later, they can't stand hiding who they are any more. Once they've come out, most people have to admit: It feels much better to be open and honest than to lie and hide.
Melissa Etheridge, singer: [People] think they'll lose everything if they come out. This did not happen to me at all. In fact, everything came back tenfold.
Ellen DeGeneres, actress: For me, [coming out] has been the most freeing experience because people can't hurt me anymore.
Andrew Sullivan, writer: ...to me, it was like being in a black-and-white movie that suddenly converted to color.
Coming Out to Yourself
"Growing up, I felt there was something about me that truly set me apart from other kids. But I didn't have a grasp on what it was," says Candace Gingrich, a spokeswoman for the Human Rights Campaign and half-sister of House Speaker Newt Gingrich."
"I had a few fleeting crushes on girls and, then, a full-blown crush. Inside, they felt right and normal. But at the same time, I didn't have any way to process those feelings because I didn't know any gay people or know that I knew them. I felt that I would risk something if I expressed my feelings."
Candace started playing on a rugby team, and for the first time saw women being openly affectionate to each other. "It was like being dropped into what was originally a foreign country but, once there, I realized it was my country of origin. I thought, Wow, the feelings I've been having are normal. It is OK to be who I am."
Coming out to yourself means recognizing and accepting that you're primarily attracted to the same sex. But how do you get from recognition to acceptance? It helps to talk to someone. But who? And what should you say?
Coming Out to Others
Some people come out when someone asks them if they're gay or lesbian. Others make a point of pulling people aside and saying, "There's something I have to tell you."
If you choose the latter option, ask yourself: "Who is the most open-minded and caring person I know who is also the least likely to be shocked, threatened or put off?" This might be a friend, a relative or a teacher. Tell that person you have questions about your sexual orientation, or you're trying to come to terms with your sexual orientation, and you'd like to talk. Say you've come to them because you trust them.
If you don't already know someone like this, consider talking to a school counselor, a therapist, or a member of a gay and lesbian student group. Gay-straight alliances exist in many high schools and colleges. There are support groups at most gay and lesbian community centers. Many communities have lesbian and gay switchboards. You might seek out nearby churches or synagogues that minister primarily to lesbians and gay men. And there are many gay youth and coming out sites on the World Wide Web, including the Human Rights Campaign's National Coming Out site, which you can access through http://www.hrc.org. (See Additional Resources for more details.)
Testing the Waters
You can get a sense of how accepting your friends and family are by the things they say, or don't say, when the subject of homosexuality comes up in conversation. You might try to bring it up yourself by talking about gay issues in the news - such as the Ellen TV show, or the debates over equal rights in the workplace for lesbians and gays. If your friends' or your family's reactions are positive, chances are they'll be more accepting of you. But keep in mind that it's easier for most people to accept gay men and lesbians in the abstract; it's a bit different when it's "my son"or "my daughter"or even "my best friend."
Telling Friends
When you're ready to come out to your friends, you may be lucky enough to have some gay or lesbian friends to help you. But heterosexual friends can also be staunch supporters. Choose carefully as you reveal this fundamental part of yourself. Many gay people find that the friends they thought would be most judgmental were the first to drop them, while those who seemed unlikely allies offered the strongest support. Along the way, you might lose a few people whom you thought were friends. But you'll learn many valuable lessons about what the word "friendship" really means.
Actor Wilson Cruz, who played Ricky on TV's My So-Called Life, says he was fortunate. "There was a group of us who had been friends since junior high school. I think we all knew everyone else was gay but we never said anything to each other.
"Then, in the beginning of our senior year, we all started to come out to each other. I came out first, and they were relieved that I told them and then they were relieved to tell me. It was very cool because by the end of the year, we had an incredible support group and didn't care what anyone else thought."
"She said, This isn't really who you are. This is a phase. You can change. You can go to therapy.
"But I said, No, this is who I am, and I'm happy."
While it took time, Linda says her family finally let go of the fantasy of the person she was and came to accept the real Linda Villarosa.
The worst did happen to actor Wilson Cruz: His father threw him out.
"I lived in my car for three months," Cruz recalls. For a year, he and his father barely talked. Then one night, My So Called Life aired an episode in which Cruz's character was thrown out of his house for being gay. Cruz's father was watching.
"He called me up after that, and it was very moving. He saw what I went through on an emotional and a physical level, and started to see what he'd done wrong. Now, I wouldn't say it's a complete transformation but he's definitely a lot more accepting of me. We talk all the time, better than before I came out."
While Wilson's experience was more dramatic than most, it shows that even people who react negatively at first can come around in time. It may not be easy for you to give them this time. But don't be discouraged. In the long run, nothing helps as much as patience.
CONSIDERATIONS
Spirituality and Coming Out
Many people find strength and support from their faith as they struggle to come out as gay, lesbian or bisexual. At first, this might sound like a contradiction, since so many organized religions teach that homosexuality is wrong or immoral. But most religions also teach that God is merciful. Youth activist Jamie Nabozny was raised Pentecostal and hoped to become a minister someday. But he was gay and thought the only worse thing he could be was Satan himself. So he tried to put his same-sex attractions aside until, one day, he had a talk with God.
"I walked as far as I could into a big field. I was crying, praying and hollering at God. I said, I've read the Bible, I've prayed, I go to church three times a week. Every time I have a homosexual thought, I rebuke it in the name of God and yet still I'm gay. Either you're not there, or you don't give a damn that I'm gay. It took me a little while but then I realized God was OK with it. The God I really believed in was not a God that hated or condemned people."
This is an experience many people go through. Faced with a conflict between their religion and their feelings, many people come to realize that the God they truly believe in could never condemn people for loving. Some people, like writer and lecturer Brian McNaught, find their spirituality even helps them come out.
"I found strength in Christ's message about being true to yourself, " says McNaught, "in loving yourself, being willing to suffer for the sake of what you know is right, and trusting that a power greater than myself loved me just the way I was."
If You Already Belong To One Minority Group...
"I was taught from early on that Latinos and people of color are looked down on," says Wilson Cruz, who is Puerto Rican. "Then to be homosexual on top of that is one more thing people can look down on us for."
Cruz, who played a gay character on My So-Called Life, felt it especially because his Latino heritage strongly rejects homosexuality. "There are certain expectations of what a man is supposed to be, and when you don't fit into those molds, you're seen as less than worthy of your race.
"But I've learned there are certain expectations you will never live up to, and you have to get to the point where that's OK. What's helped me is remembering that I'm only here to be as honest and open as I can be in the life that's been given me. I also expect that anyone who is going to be in my life is going to have to love and understand that."
As an African-American lesbian, Linda Villarosa went through a similar learning experience. Confused and not sure about her sexual orientation, she did not explore her feelings because she was trying to fit into a white neighborhood and didn't want to do anything others could think of as wrong.
Finally, in college, "I came out because I couldn't stand not being myself any more." But then she went to work at Essence magazine and was again afraid to come out. "I think what happens when you're black is you feel your community is an oasis against some of the white racist people you know, and you become really afraid you're going to lose that."
But, once again, she found she couldn't stand hiding any more, and she took the chance: "My boss and I were in her car coming back from a weekend editorial retreat, and she was saying something about fixing me up with her brother-in-law. And I just blurted out, I'm a lesbian. She was embarrassed about the brother-in-law and very kind. And that Monday, I came out to just about everybody else at work, and everyone was fine."
A year later, she came out to seven million readers in a widely acclaimed Essence article she wrote with her mother and was later promoted to executive editor of the magazine.
Coming out was the best thing I ever did . . . . It took all the fears away. - k.d. lang, singer
The goal is not to tell for the sake of telling, but not to hide. The more people you can find and be honest with, the better you'll feel.
- Barney Frank, U.S. congressman
My imagination of how people were going to react was so much worse than the reality. - Linda Villarosa, executive editor of Essence magazine
Almost everyone I know has had a better experience coming out than they thought they would. - Barney Frank, U.S. congressman