26 Fantastic Excerpts From Your Coming Out Stories
National Coming Out Day is this weekend, and in the past, we’ve often celebrated with Coming Out Day Open Threads or similar posts where we encourage you to share your coming out stories (if you have them — it’s obviously not possible or simple for a lot of us to come out to various people in our lives). In 2011, we put together a listling containing excerpts from the stories you told us in 2010, but since then there has been no new listling despite you sharing so many new stories with so many special tidbits on newer Coming Out Day Posts. So, here we have a listling containing excerpts ripped mercilessly out of context from coming out stories you shared with us on other Coming Out Day posts including the 2012 coming out open thread. We’re just trying to get you all geared up for a holiday that either means “a lot,” a “little bit” or “nothing at all” to you! You do you!
1. I helped my mother come out to strangers at the grocery store when I was five: “This is my cereal and these are my bagels and these are my moms they’re lesbians.”
2. True story: I came out to my parents on my way to an Ani DiFranco concert. Yep.
3. We started yelling at each other and he finally bursts out, “Why do I care if gay people can get married?! That doesn’t pertain to me!” and I immediately yelled back, “BECAUSE YOU HAVE A GAY DAUGHTER!”
4. Then my mom told me she had slept with a girl before. And that she thought Halle Berry was hot.
5. I was sobbing continuously and finally blurted “I’m gay!” and then Skype, wonderful technology that it is, DROPPED THE CALL. Bam! “I’m Gay!” HANG UP!
6. Then I told them that I’m a vegetarian. They took that much harder.
7. I came out to my Dad on the driveway of my student house while waiting for the Landlady to show up with the keys thinking that this would get it out of the way and moving my stuff in would be a distraction. She was an hour late.
8. Me: Dad, I’m dating a girl.
Dad: That’s fine. We just want you to be happy. What’s she like?
Me: Oh, she’s great.
Dad: Where does she live?
Me: On the South Side, by Midway.
Dad: So she’s a Sox fan?
Me: Yep, she’s a Sox fan.
Dad: [sighs, shakes head]
9. Hi facebook friends! How are you all so far today? I just wanted to take the time to tell you that I’m a lesbian. I’ve been trying to tell everyone for a while now but I am a social recluse who refuses to wear anything but pajamas 24/7, so that has hindered my progress.
10. I don’t know if you know this, but, um…roller girls have really nice butts. That they like to show off in shiny spandex booty shorts.
11. I assumed that since I didn’t like boys AT ALL I’d just grow old alone and own a lot of cats.
12. My brother advised me to tell him I support gun control first, then slip in “haha also I’m a lesbian” to ease the shock a little. But I just wanted to come out, not give the man a heart attack.
13. I finally admitted it to myself when I was 19, sitting in my car in a Trader Joes’ parking lot. I will always think fondly of Trader Joe’s because of this. And because of those chocolate cat cookies.
14. My mum tried to say it was just a phase. So I emblazoned CUNT on a denim jacket, shaved half my head and ended every conversation about any girl ‘fuck but she’s so hot’ till she got the message.
15. I told my best friend I had something to tell her and promptly started giggling because I laugh A LOT when I’m uncomfortable. One of my friends, knowing where this was going, decided to make it easier for me so he screamed “HEY KELLY. WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON JENNIFER LOVE HEWITT?”
16. I cut all my hair off and told everybody to shut up if they asked about it for like three years, then I went to A-Camp and wouldn’t shut up at all ever anymore
17. The week after my coming out, my mum brought over a cupboard that used to belong to my grandma. As we were installing it in my living room, halfway done, I said that it was big enough to fit me. Upon which my mum said dryly: I thought you just came out of the closet.
18. A week later my Mom called me to ask who my first official girlfriend has been. I told her, then heard her yell over her shoulder “You owe me $5!” Apparently she had a bet running with my step-dad over which of my “best friends” had been my first love interest.
19. She was BBQing and I had poured both of us huge glasses of wine knowing what I was about to do. I just kinda came right out with it. She almost burned the steak!
20. Me: “Fraser, I have something to tell you. I’m gay.”
Him: *awkward silence* “right. How d’you mean?”
Me: “…uum, I’m a lesbian, Fraser. I like girls.”
Him: “O-okay. Like Roxie Richter?”
Me: ” *sigh* Yes, Fraser. Like Roxie Richter.”
21. My Dad finished his cigarette and said “Ok I still love you. Now go into mass, do your confirmation and for Christ’s sake don’t tell your Granny.”
22. Mom: does this mean you are going to cut off all your hair and start dressing like a boy?
Me: no mom
Mom: ok good because I just dont get that
Me: I get it and I think its hot
Mom: (awkward silence)
23. I laugh when I’m really nervous so when I came out to one of my friends she told me something like “get the fuck off my bed.” She wasn’t mad that I’m gay, she just thought I was going to wet my pants on her bed.
24. My Mum’s opinion on a particular set of frames that I was trying on while eyeglass shopping was, “Well, you don’t want people to think that you’re a lesbian.” I just replied (surprising myself, I hadn’t intended to come out) was “but I am.”
25. See my entire life, my dad was a southern pentecostal fire-and-brimstone preacher. I just didn’t think it was worth losing them over… then [I came out] and the unthinkable happened, they chose me! My dad stopped preaching and started a new career. You guys, sometimes this happens too! You really never can tell. Seriously.
26. “In conclusion, thank you Canadian Queer Recording Artists.”