i began writing this piece the week after coming out day (october 11) 2003. i put it aside and finished it november 23, 2003.

since coming out day, i've thought a lot about coming out and being out. i'm going to share some of my thoughts here. part of the reason i don't often write stuff like this is that my brain injury makes it almost impossible for me to focus in a way that lets me organize my thoughts, and i feel like it comes across as disorganized rambling. but i'm really making an effort to share anyway.

a lot of people say, "why do you need to come out anyway? i don't walk up to people and say, 'hi, i'm joe, and i'm a het.'" true, most hets don't. and most queers don't either.

but if you're straight, you can be fairly assured that everyone will assume you are straight. certainly there are exceptions. women who work in traditionally "masculine" or "lesbian" professions, especially if they don't embrace the traditionally "feminine" in other areas either, may be assumed to be lesbians. and if they declare themselves to be straight, people may insist that they are in denial. the same will be true for the man who chooses a traditionally "feminine" or "gay" profession or who doesn't embrace traditionally "masculine" dress, habits, mannerisms, etc. aside from these people, most straight folks don't ever have to wonder if people see them for who they are.

coming out of the closet...what is the closet? the closet is hiding. it's fear. it's overcompensating by doing things that don't feel natural to you in order to make yourself seem like "everybody else". sometimes we might date or even marry members of the opposite sex. sometimes we might dress differently than we want to, wear makeup (or not!), adopt gestures and mannerisms that we think make us seem more "normal", etc. the closet is a bad place to be. but after you stay in there for awhile, it becomes comfortable in a weird sort of way. it might be small and dark and cramped and lonely, but you've found a position that you can assume in there that you can live with, and after you maintain that position for awhile, when you try to move around and stretch a little bit, it hurts! it's scary! never mind, just get back in that twisted-up position and stay there. it's much safer.

and anyway, whose business is it? i mean, so what if you're gay? why do you have to tell anybody? if you take off all your closet-y mannerisms and gestures and whatever other compensations you've adopted and just be yourself, and if you openly tell people you're gay...well, aren't you just flaunting it? folks don't care who you sleep with, just be "normal" and don't talk about it, you limp-wristed queen, you big ol' bulldyke! yeah, right. like it's not important who you sleep with. tell that to any "normal redblooded american male", who may very well punch you in the face if you dare suggest he might sleep with another fella. it's important. nothing we say or do will get rid of that fact.

but being gay, or lesbian, or any other variety of queerness, isn't just about who you fuck. it encircles and informs everything you say and do. you can't get away from it.

there is so much fluidity to sexual identity and gender identity (which really are connected, but not as much as some folks would like to think). for example, i consider myself a bisexual dyke. i truly feel more like a lesbian than a bisexual, but i can't really deny the fact that i am occasionally attracted to men...and sometimes even have sex with them. i can't deny the fact that for 13 years i was in love with, and enjoying frequent and regular sex with, a man. bisexual for me describes my sexual behavior and attraction. dyke for me describes a genderish thing, i guess...it's neither masculine nor feminine to me, but somewhere down the middle, i guess. i'm not one of those people who consider myself genderless or third gender or any of those things. i think that those identities are completely valid. i just see myself as me. i don't really think about whether i'm butch or femme or somewhere in between.

sometimes i get really frustrated by my occasional apparent need (fueled, i guess, by society's apparent need) to categorize myself and others. i'm just me, and most of the time that's all i need to think about, but i go through phases where i feel a need to define myself and label myself. ugh. i don't want to do that. i don't want others to have to do that, either.

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