I don’t tell my coming-out story(s) very often. Today seems like a good day to tell a few. (For the record, I think coming out is a continuous practice… I’m still coming out in new ways). So much of our history isn’t written down anywhere but people’s lives.
I came out as a lesbian around 1983. I was an undergrad, living in the dorms. My partner at the time and I moved into a sublet together the following summer. My family soon “disowned” me (not that they ever owned me). My partner and I were supposed to room together in the dorms the next year, but due to her own family stress, she had to temporarily drop out of school, making her ineligible to be my roommate. The housing department refused to hold the room for the both of us, even though she was doing everything to return to school the next term. We even went to request married housing, as other students who were partnered with non-students did. We were told that we couldn’t access it as a same-sex couple. Housing kept sending me potential roommates to see the room. Not that it was a stretch, but I always made sure to leave my dirty laundry, queer pornography, liquor bottles and drug paraphernalia out in order to discourage potential roommates. Curiously, I never found one. My partner moved in the following term.
Somewhere in there I came out as kinky and butch. I had poly relationships, but we (or at least I) didn’t have the terms to describe ourselves at the time.
I came to be more and more butch, I started to wonder what was beyond butch. I started to examine how my particular gender identity interacted with my particular sexual orientation.
I was butch enough to be called faggot on the street and get cruised by men at The Flame (how I miss the Flame!). I had more than one stalker (when I did try to involve police, they looked my queer self up and down, and asked “are you sure they meant you?”). I had my car graffitied. I was gay-bashed with a group of my queer friends: a group of frat boys followed us out of a “Club Fabulous” dance to our car, yelling epithets… eventually kicking the car window into my face when I shut the door on them. My gay male friend stayed with the car waiting for police, while the rest of us ran after the guys. We chased them down and held them until the police showed. We were told by police it was not considered any kind of hate crime. They got off by claiming one of us pulled a knife on them. I still have scars from where the glass cut me, but I love to think what we must have looked like: bleeding, chasing after them in our boots and leathers… and how surprised they were when we fought back.
I went through a period of being homeless, since I couldn’t afford rent and my landlord lived in the same house. Luckily, the place was such a dive, no other students would rent my room. I slept in parks, dumpster dove, and relied on friends to help feed me.
In 1987, I “married” my same sex partner although it wasn’t legal then. We had a “wedding party ritual” in the Michigan Union. We wore tuxedos and mohawks. There were two superheroes on top of the cake instead of the typical bride and groom figures. We made a giant Twister board for guests to enjoy. A friend DJ’d. Several passers-by asked if they could join our party because it looked so fun. We then “honeymooned” in Washington DC at the National lgbtq March.
By this time, I had cut back on school, and was working full time to support myself. I worked midnights in the Department of Psychiatry, and went to school during the day. I met queers who were hospitalized, and queers that were working but closeted. I particularly remember one African-American butch confiding in me that they secretly wanted to become a man, but didn’t think it was possible in the current medical system or culture. We were all in survival mode, but we found each other.
It was the 1980s and “Gay related immune deficiency” (GRID) then HIV/AIDS was in the news. I joined protests at the hospital about lack of medications and compassionate medical care. There were complaints that people with HIV weren’t getting proper exams, weren’t getting food trays delivered, weren’t getting their hospital rooms cleaned, etc because of their diagnosis. I volunteered for the local AIDS service organization, and was honored to be part of the”buddy” program to visit people at home or in the hospital whose families refused to visit them. I lost many friends.
I finally graduated in 1990, and then was diagnosed with non-Hodgkins lymphoma in 1991. I learned anew about all kinds of homophobia in the medical system. As a promiscuous hemophiliac, who had shared needles and done survival sex work, the doctors were convinced I was HIV positive (non-Hodgkins was an AIDS defining illness). My own family said they “wouldn’t be surprised” if I was poz since I was gay. (I’d later put all this “medical education” to good use in conducting lgbtq cultural competency trainings for the UM medical system with Jim Toy through the UMHS staff’s Pride Network). I went through surgery, chemo and radiation therapy. I lost my beloved mohawk, and most of my muscle mass: losing most of the visible ways I presented as butch. Thankfully, I still had leather and boots.
Around 1994 or so, I decided to go to grad school for my MSW. I had grown beyond butch, but wasn’t sure what exactly that meant. I was out as trans-something to friends, and using male pronouns here and there.* My friend Matt had just started transition, and I started to think what that might be like for me. I realized that I was attracted to some men, but that I didn’t want to be “female” by default if I shared my body with a male. I started identifying as bisexual, then pansexual. I got special permission from one of my grad school instructors to present a clinical case study on myself, because there just wasn’t much in the curriculum on gender identity or sexual orientation, much less the subtleties of how they interact. I started T around 1996, and had “top” surgery. I started a transgender support group called Gender Explorers for anyone who felt like they didn’t fit into society’s gender expectations. I facilitated the group for about 15 years.
After graduation, I spent about 14 years working as a therapist, test counselor, safer sex educator and advocate in the field of HIV. I was the first out queer hired into the clinic (it was all over my resume). Some of my favorite discussions with clients were about their level of being/coming out or not: as transgender, as queer, as kinky, as a sex worker, as HIV +/-, as poly, as an undocumented immigrant, as an ally,
as themselves.
So those are a few ways I’ve been out over the years. Still an ongoing process. Despite some of the things I’ve lived through I’m still here. I don’t intend for my story to be discouraging for anyone currently struggling…just the opposite. I just mean to emphasize that lgbtq people have endured a lot, and we are resilient. I wouldn’t have made any different choices. I’m happy being all of me.
Last night, I watched one of the first presidential candidate forums specifically on lgbtq+ issues. There was discussion with the candidates on access to housing, medical care, costs of HIV care and PreP, the damages of conversion therapy, young kids coming out to parents as queer and gender queer, school safety, violence against lgbtq+, lgbtq+ people seeking political asylum, etc. When the candidates were interrupted by trans poc protesting about the continued spate of murders of trans women of color, I was happy to see the candidates and moderators actually listened and did not remove the protesters. They commented, and had some discussion back and forth. Never thought I would see such a thing televised on a major news channel. Things do get better. Not in a straight line maybe, but they really do get better.
*Bonus content: My family and I had a second falling out around this time. I was sharing a house and dungeon with a pro Dom, and a tattoo artist, and a few others. Some crazy shit went down there.
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