Sexuality is pretty interesting. It provides hours of discussion and debate, as well as people telling you what you really are. Who likes being told they’re straight when they aren’t? I don’t. I’ve always been pretty vague when talking about my sexuality, never directly answering questions about if I was a lesbian or bisexual. It’s not something that I bring up around Mom, Dad, and the Sisters. It makes my family extremely uncomfortable to even think about me being anything other than a straight girl.

But since when was coming out that easy? As far as I know, it hasn’t ever been easy. High school was awful for me because I was both incredibly ambiguous about my sexuality and fairly androgynous. I know for a fact I’ve made a few (meaning “at least seven”) teachers uncomfortable because they thought I was a boy and then read my name on the roster, asking me “You’re a girl?” I never said yes, I always just waved and waited for the subject to pass. That was a really uncomfortable four years of my life. But those four awkward years just happen to be the reason that I am coming forward. Um, I mean, coming out.

So, here it is. I’m a gender queer lesbian. Try explaining THAT to Mom and Dad. I just told them the lesbian part and they were actually pretty pissed off. My sisters were both uncomfortable with it. My father asked me some pretty awkward questions; am I seeing someone, have I ever had sex with a woman, why was I telling him? These are the kinds of questions one asks when they’re uncomfortable and trying to understand something, along with a few other things that made me figure it would be okay and they weren’t actually going to care. Well, I was wrong, considering I told my father before I told my mother. My mother’s reaction was pretty harsh. “You need to get over yourself, gay doesn’t exist.” Uh, so that’s why there’s so many gay people around, right? To be honest, I was upset. No, I was fucking pissed that she said that. I’m not exactly sure what she means by “gay doesn’t exist”, when obviously there are gay men and lesbians left and right in this town! That being said, I’m not sure what it is that I need to get over. Surely it’s not the fact that I’m confused, because I’m 23. I know that I’m totally gay. Fabulous!

I’m going to have many more closets to come out of in my life, and this is among the first of them. My first step was courage. I’ve still got a lot to figure out, and perhaps that view of my identity will change and it’ll become something more specific. The fact is, since I’ve started coming out to people, it’s been both the best move I could make and a very uncomfortable silence. First, I came out to (surprise!) myself. That worked by looking myself in the eye in the mirror and finally owning up to the fact that I was doing myself no good by lying about it. After that, I came out to my friend. She wasn’t surprised.  She sat with me as I came out to my ex-fiancée and we were both fairly surprised by his reaction, considering I’d told her he was probably going to be pissed. He wasn’t. After that, it was much easier to really start being more open about my sexuality. I’ve become more open in general, starting at first with my friends and then with people I may come across that ask me if I’m gay. I’m not exactly ready to approach my family with it yet. They know, but it will be a while before I could bring a girl home with me.

I’ve got a long road ahead of me, considering I’m going to have to come out to people again and again. But I’m okay with that. I’m really proud of myself thus far. I know I’ll also have to come out again once I get my gender fuck figured out. That’s going to be a fun conversation, but honestly, it won’t be that bad.