Coming and Being out...for me.

I have been thinking about the phenomenon of coming out and being out for a while. I have been thinking about writing a post about it. I have a post started about my observations of my boys' experiences, but I thought first I would be honest about my own.

I am out as a heterosexual married woman. I flaunt it. I openly wear a wedding ring. I have a family photo in my office. I start stories with sentences like, "My husband and I..." all the time. I pay absolutely no attention at all to whether my lifestyle makes anybody uncomfortable. I don't bring up the details of my sex life in a committee meeting at work, but I don't first consider the feelings and attitudes of co-workers before saying, "Sorry I have to leave early. My husband is feeling ill and I have to take the kids to their lessons."

I hold his hand in public. I ask people I don't know on airplanes to trade seats with me so I can sit with him. I have even been known to rest my head on his shoulder around people I don't even know.

Yep. If anyone can be said to "flaunt" their sexuality, it would have to be me.

I never had to come out as a heterosexual. I have never had to announce it to anyone. Being out is also easy. I do not have to think about it.

I am also out as the mother of gay kids. I did not take out an ad in the newspaper*, but I was at one point quite deliberate about telling a few people. I told my mother, sister, and mother-in-law. At work I made a point of saying something like, "My son and his boyfriend..." Given that I am one of those people who twist words around all the time, many of my colleagues smiled and tried to correct me, "you said boyfriend."

Coming out was scary. There were a list of people to whom I was close and it turned out that most of them were cool. A few though were not. It also turned out that I was really bad at predicting who was going to be in which group. Still, I told the people, got my feelings hurt a few times, lost a couple of friends who were never really friends to begin with, and moved on with my life.

Being out as the mother of gay kids makes me think about things in a way that I do not think about anything else. I am sitting here in my office surrounded by pictures of my kids, all of them. I have a picture that I took of David and his prom date. It is my absolute favorite picture of him. He looks so good in his tux; he and his date are positively adorable in their co-ordinating tuxes. I had it as my computer wall-paper for awhile. It is the ONLY picture I have that I think about displaying. Any other picture of my kids that I like...I put it up. THIS picture though is different.

I don't want it to be different. I want it to be like all the other pictures: just another photo of one of my beautiful children. It isn't though. It is a political statement.

When I talk about Carl, David, and Evan I think in ways that I do not think when I talk about the rest of my life. I remember a couple of years ago going to lunch with colleagues. We are joined by a couple of new folks. Someone asks me how my kids are. "Fine. Brian has another girl friend." My colleagues laugh. The new people look confused and say, "How old is Brian?" "Six. This is his third girlfriend." They smile. Isn't that cute?

"So how is Carl?" someone asks. I start to say, "He is trying to get up the courage to ask a boy to a dance at the community center." I stumble though. I look at the new people. I wonder how they will react. Maybe I should say that he is just nervous about asking someone out on a date? How would I word that? If I say that my colleagues will know that I have decided not to "come out" to these new people. If I say what I wanted to say then I will have made a political statement. The new people may think that I am testing or challenging them. They will pause before they speak. They will consider what different responses say about them. They may be annoyed that I put them in this position. It's supposed just to be a friendly lunch and there I go, making it tense and political.

It has been 5 and a half years since I first started coming out as the parent of gay sons. I still find that when I talk about my straight kids the words just fall out of my face, and when I talk about my gay kids an internal editor pops up to assess the audience and review my words before I speak them. That internal editor is getting faster though, or lazier. I have become more relaxed. I don't put nearly as much energy into it.

But as relaxed as I am, I still know that some of the things I say and some of the pictures I display will be considered political statements, however I intend them.

How much more intense would all this be if I were the one who was gay?

*I have though submitted letters to the editor which have been published in which I identified myself as the mother of gay sons.

Another post on coming out: David