Coming Out: A Personal Experience

Confessing that you feel attracted to people of the same sex is a difficult task, especially since it means you expose a really vulnerable part of yourself to those around you. In this article, I explain my experience of coming out.

Telling the world around you why you’re attracted to people of the same sex is a story that heterosexual people don’t have to construct. Indeed, as a rule, people don’t give explanations as to why they feel attracted to people of the opposite sex. It’s something that’s taken for granted.

If you’re a man, you’re usually attracted to women, and vice versa. It’s what happens most often in nature. However, in this article, I’m going to tell you my account of coming out.

Coming out of the closet

I hate the word closet. In closets, clothes, souvenirs, gifts, and other belongings are stored. They can be put in there to prevent them from deteriorating, but also to prevent them from being seen.

But, I’ve always wondered, how can we hide desire? Is it possible to hide something that’s completely beyond our control? In my opinion, the answer is a resounding no.

My friends

What caused me the most anguish in my life was the fact that, at some point, I knew I had to tell my parents. I’d already heard my father refer to homosexuals as faggots on more than one occasion. When I heard that word on his lips, my heart pounded. This was one of the barriers I knew I was going to face when broaching the topic at home.

For this reason, I decided to tell my friends first. I had a good social network that allowed me to feel both free and supported. Imagine that you have a backpack on your back with ten stones inside.

One day, you’re walking through a forest and decide to share its contents with the group around you. On the day I came out to my friends, they helped me. Each one of them took a stone from my backpack, reducing the weight of my load.

My friends made me feel human. In fact, I remember that moment with great affection because they showed me what I already knew: that it was perfectly valid to love another person, regardless of their sex. They showed me that, in essence, we’re all human beings. And, as human beings, we lack the ability to decide who to love. That, in itself, is extraordinary.

My parents

When I told my parents, I felt relieved. Extremely relieved. I felt like I was about to drop an eight-million-megaton nuclear bomb. But it was only words, I kept telling myself. However, to my complete surprise, they already knew!

Parents often know many things that we don’t realize they know. When I finally took the plunge and told mine, they even helped me come up with a plan for telling the rest of the family.

My family

I know I’ve been lucky. I know that there are people who have a really hard time when they decide to come out to their families. In my case, it was the opposite. When I told my aunts, uncles, and grandparents, their reception was tremendous.

I felt really supported, validated, and loved. That’s because, instead of seeing a different person, my family saw a human being. They saw someone worthy of loving and being loved, regardless of gender and sexual orientation. I think this was the most important thing. After all, loving someone is one of the most beautiful things that we can ever experience, feel, desire, and savor.