Well, I did it, last Monday I made an extremely lengthy post on Facebook (and Instagram) in which I came out to the world at large. It’s been several months since Anne and I ended our marriage and I have been feeling pretty stable in this new way of life for a couple of months now, so it seemed like a good time to do it. Plus, pride month was right around the corner, and I liked the idea of kicking off pride month with a bang.
I tried to make it as brief as possible, but as you know, I’m a talker! 😜 Also, how does one summarize their personal sexual journey over 38 years into just a few paragraphs. Maybe some people can do it, but I ain’t one of them. I felt like this topic was worthy of a proper explanation, and that couldn’t be done as briefly as I wanted it to be. In the end, I decided that if people don’t wanna read the whole thing, they certainly don’t need to. When I posted it, I received almost nothing but positive feedback. Current friends and coworkers, old neighbors, people I haven’t really engaged with on social media at all were happy to jump in and congratulate me and affirm my journey. It was very nice. Who doesn’t love having people affirm them! 🥰
The process was not without a bit of pushback. I received one direct message from a former teacher at my Christian elementary school. He very kindly told me that he was concerned about my choices and their long-term repercussions and encouraged me to seek the Lord for, I hhhhhhhhhghcdon’t know… freedom from homosexuality, I guess? Ha ha. Been there, done that. Bought several T-shirts, hoping they would make a difference. I didn’t expect to have absolute silence from detractors. Actually, I’m surprised I didn’t get more pushback from the conservative evangelicals in my life. But this former teacher was the only person that reached out to me. I guess the others have decided I’m a lost cause? That’s OK. From their perspective, I am.
What I didn’t expect is that Anne immediately felt a lot of relief when I came out publicly. When I posted it, she happened to be out to lunch with her boyfriend. Once she saw the post she felt relief from a tension that she had been holding onto. Subconsciously, she was worried that she would bump into an old friend or acquaintance and they would see her out with another man and that would be awkward for her. Now that the whole story was out there for everybody to read, she felt like she could relax. I’m really happy for her.
One thing I was very surprised about was I received a text message from a relative of mine. She told me that what I said was really meaningful to her, and she wanted to talk. We talked the next day, and in our hour and a half conversation she told me that she has come to realize that she is bisexual. Her branch of the family is even more conservative than mine, so she is very concerned about coming out to her dad, although she has already come out to her mom and sisters, who are mostly accepting. She told me that reading my post (and watching my coming out video from December) was extremely meaningful to her, and gave her the strength to start to come out. That felt really good. I love how owning my truth has helped somebody else own their truth.
At the end of the day, coming out on social media really didn’t feel like that big a deal to me. Everybody important already knew, it just felt like a minor detail so that I could have complete synchrony with my public and private life. As I have found in this process many times: the fear of coming out tends to be much greater than the consequences for actually coming out. I’m so happy that I did!