An Ode to Dad

On the heels of the four-year anniversary of me coming out to my parents, I wanted to reflect a little bit about someone that I don’t talk enough about or give enough credit to: my dad.

If you’re a regular reader of this blog, or at least of my posts, you’ve probably heard a lot about my mother and how amazingly, wonderfully affirming she is. She may have even made you cry—as she has made me many times—with her life-affirming and nurturing love that only a mother can give a queer son.

But I haven’t really taken adequate time to tell you all about my father. My father’s journey was much more challenging than my mother’s and he struggled much longer with my sexual orientation than my mother ever did. But my father came around; he learned to be proud of me for exactly who I was, albeit with some trepidation. But let’s start at the beginning shall we?

I’ll never forget how my father reacted on the night I came out. After watching a Goosebumps marathon on Nickelodeon and feeling nostalgic as all hell, I decided that, for whatever reason, that was the night I was going to come out. I was just going to do it. I was just going to march downstairs and tell them. First I called my best friend Paige to make sure that she was on call in case things went badly and I needed a pick-up, and I called my brother to let him know that I was finally going to do it. For whatever reason, I couldn’t seem to find my parents in the same room that night. So I spent a few minutes wandering around the house trying to see if they’d naturally settle in the same place; when it became abundantly clear that they wouldn’t, I just asked them both to come downstairs, “I just have something I want to talk to you about.”

“What’s wrong sweetie?” asked my mom.

“Nothing, I just want to talk, that’s all.”

So now my mother and my father are standing across the island in our kitchen, we’re all standing up, and I jump in.

“There’s not really a way to preface this, so I’m just going to say it…Mom, Dad, I’m gay.” The words dropped to the floor, and my father let them crash and shatter at his feet. My mother, thankfully swooped in to catch them before they could break, and she began to do what any mother would do. She started asking warm, loving questions.

It was strange, because while my mom and I were talking, my dad only stood there. After about twenty minutes of talking with my mom, she was out of questions, and my father’s silence hung thickly in the room.

“So, Abe, what do you think?” my mom asked my dad.

My dad paused a moment, and began to speak, “Well son, if you choose this lifestyle, I will not have any part in it. If you choose to have a partner, he will not be my son-in-law. If you choose to adopt children, they will not be my grandchildren. You are still my son but this will not be a part of my life.”

After he had finished, his silence no longer hung in the room; it was now suffocating, heavy, weighing down on our family.

“Well, I’m glad you’re being honest dad. At least we can work from there.”

The silence grew heavier and heavier.

“Could you at least give me a hug?” I asked.

The silence broke.

“I’m not sure if I can do that right now.” he stated coldly.

And as the silence broke, I broke along with it. Something inside of me snapped—a fundamental string that connected me with my family, with my father, with my home, had snapped. So I ran. I didn’t know where I was running to, all I knew was that I had to get away from him. I ran through the cold rain of December in a cotton hoodie. I ran to the playground in my neighborhood, where I sat and cried, crumpled on warped wood. I called my brother; he couldn’t understand me over my sobs. I called my friend Paige, who eventually came and picked me up.

For the next week, my father wouldn’t say a word to me. He avoided me in the house, shunned me in the most hurtful way possible. He said it was because he didn’t want to distract me during mid-terms; I knew that was a lie.

A week passed, midterms were over, and I made my dad a card from construction paper and magic marker. On the front it said, “Dear Dad,” and on the inside it said, “I love you and I’m gay. You don’t have to accept the second part, but you at least have to accept the first.”

I sat my dad down in our home office, and I started the conversation by turning the tables, “Dad, I don’t really care if you accept the fact that I’m gay, because you’re my dad and I will love you for the rest of your life, whether you accept me or not.”

For the next hour, my dad and I went back and forth yelling and cursing. He said it was a sin. He said I was going to hell. He said that I couldn’t tell his family, that I shouldn’t tell anyone else. At the end of his vitriolic rant, I shoved the card I had been keeping behind my back at him and stormed out of the room.

As I got in my car to drive away, my dad said, “Jacob, come here.”

I hesitated, unsure of what he was going to do. I walked back over to my father, prepared for the worst, but the worst never came. I walked over to my father and my father gave me a hug.

It was the beginning of a long journey that took two years, but eventually my father came around, but it was only because we both worked on it, because neither of us let the other one give up.

***

Two years later, my dad and I are sitting by the Christmas tree and he says, “Hey son, do you want to take a walk?”

As we wander the neighborhood, my dad starts to speak, his voice timid but firm.

“Son, I owe you an apology.”

I was a bit perplexed, because I couldn’t think of what he had done recently that was worth apologizing for.

“Two years ago, when you came out to me, when you told me that you were gay, I wasn’t there for you. In the moment when you needed me to love you the most, I didn’t love you, and I will go to my grave regretting that I didn’t. I just wanted you to know how sorry I am for how I reacted.”

This time his silence hung in the air, but it was warm, it was loving, it was gentle. Something that had been broken for a long time had been fixed. My father had finally picked the shattered fragments of my identity off of the floor and glued them together.

Now, my dad is fine with the fact that I want to go on to be an LGBTQ rights activist. He’s okay that I want to make a career fighting for my rights and the rights of others like me. But he just wants me to get a J.D. or Ph.D. from Harvard first; then I can go save the world.

Happy holidays y'all,

Jacob

The Exceedingly Enthralling Adventures of Jennifer: Part the First

This post is going to be a little bit different from previous Wednesday posts. I said in my very first post that I would be sharing some of my story with you in addition to putting up the WOMYN Wednesday polls. (You should totally take them and share them with your friends, by the way!)

I thought I would tell you one of my coming-out stories. As I’m sure you know, coming out can be a huge and drawn-out process, as well as an uncomfortable or frightening experience. This particular coming-out experience happened at the beginning of last Fall.

I live in the Wellness Community, in Crowell G. For those of you who aren’t familiar with it, we’re a substance-free community that focuses on mindful, healthy living. It’s a great mix of people of all faith traditions, backgrounds, majors, personality types, etc. As part of an effort to build a stronger sense of community, our RC, Laura Kirkland, had decided that we would all go on a mandatory, day-long retreat to Camp New Hope. I was very nervous about it for many reasons: I’m pretty shy, so large groups of people make me nervous, and I generally dislike team-building exercises; I was overloading in a big way that semester, so I already had a ton of work to do; and I had just begun coming to terms with my sexuality, but I wasn’t really out to many people.

Despite my fears, the retreat began well. Laura had some ice-breakers that were new to me, and very fun, and there was food, which is never a bad thing. The more time I spent with the other members of Wellness, the more I realized that we had a lot in common. Of course, it helped that everyone was very nice. The difficult part was soon to come, though.

One of the Wellness requirements is that you have a SMART Goal - that is, a Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Timely goal. For a lot of people, the SMART Goal had to do with one of the more obvious/traditional parts of “living well” – sleep, nutrition, or exercise. But mine was different – I wanted to be more out and visible on campus by the end of the year. Here’s the rub: we had to write our goals down and give them to Laura, and then we had to discuss them with the other Wellness members. “Oh, what a perfect opportunity to start achieving your goal, Jennifer!” you might exclaim. Well, yes and no. It definitely would have given me a jump start. But, you see, I wasn’t ready yet – I had only just met some of these people, and I didn’t know their views about LGBTQ people/issues. Furthermore, I didn’t really want to be “that queer girl” – I am so much more than my sexuality. So, I compromised – I wrote down my real goal, but I made up a fake one to tell the other Wellness members. However, at that moment I decided that I had to tell my roommate as soon as possible.

When we returned from the retreat, I asked my RA for a Roommate Agreement Form – the one that you can use to inform your roommate about your sleep and study habits, as well as to make some of the other compromises that come with sharing a room (such a cunning plan for setting the stage, I know). My roommate, K, and I went over that form together – we had pretty similar habits, so that wouldn’t be a source of conflict. We came to the last question, which was a prompt for either of us to voice any concerns or information not covered in the questionnaire. At that point, I came out to her and then said something like, “I hope this doesn’t make you uncomfortable, but if it does, there’s still time to make a roommate change.” I was so nervous, y’all; K was really nice and seemed like she would be a great roommate, but we didn’t really know each other. You know what her response was when I told her that I was queer? “Oh, I kind of figured.” And that was it! Well, not really – throughout the year, I realized that she was a) such a good Ally, and b) totally willing to discuss LGBTQ/feminist/civil rights issues with me. Awesome, right? I couldn’t ask for a better roommate, or a better friend! Her fabulous response and support encouraged me to work towards achieving my SMART Goal, and that coming-out experience was the first of many. They haven't really gotten easier, but I now know that there are so many people, from so many different groups on campus, who are supportive and wonderful.

(P.S. It would be awesome if you wanted to share some of your stories, either in the comments or as submissions to WOMYN. The womynatduke@gmail.com Inbox is achingly empty - last year's submissions are desperate for some young, hip company! You know, WOMYN is kind of like Google+ : magazines need submissions like social networks need people. Otherwise, neither of them is very fun.)

How Not to Come Out to Family

So I’m like really really horrible at coming out. My first verbal expression of “I have something to tell you” was over a year ago to my Dad. In order to muster the strength/energy to do so, I worked myself up into an emotional frenzy. You can read about it here but what’s pretty crazy is how rotten of a job I did to deal with the rest of my family.

Living a life of secrecy and hidden love is nothing new to me. In fact, nearly two and a half years of my time at Duke had been spent in this melodramatic heart-wrenching, heart-breaking relationship that caused so much pain to so many people that it is hard to think of myself as the same person. One thing that always stuck with me through all that was a complete loss of how to be transparent and truly honest. It is through these means that honor and pride manifest themselves.

So I vowed: No more secrets. No more bullshit. Let’s do this.

Except it’s really hard. I certainly don’t want to blame this on my recent history of secrecy since I was in a period of re-thinking my self image, my gender expression, and the true manifestations of love (I even shaved my head, damnit), but I didn’t have many clear examples of what to do.

To my own credit, I did come out to both of my grandmothers, but the talking stopped there. The thing about my extended family, is that they’re really a lot more like immediate family. We all live within a few minutes of each other, and my grandparents live next door. So it’s not a once-a-year kind of family, it’s a most-nights-during-the-week kind of family. I knew it was my responsibility to tell everyone myself, for my sake, and those who were holding and suffering from my news. But also for Hilary’s sake. The silence of a partnership—however it’s employed—is suffocating, infuriating, and never, ever okay.

I failed her. I failed Hilary and myself. I was crushed by the pressure and withdrew from taking action. Quite possibly the best example of proving love: to announce it, to celebrate it, to be honest.

So the night before Hilary and I flew out to San Diego together, my dad sat my family down, and told them the news for me because I hadn’t done it yet. It might work for some people to come out this way, it gets a lot of conversations done quickly. But my family refused to meet her.

Now, my family is the kind of family that will like all go out to one of our favorite restaurants to welcome a new friend, or my sister’s boyfriends (& her girlfriends since they didn’t know they were girlfriends). So it was a sinking, sick feeling. Dinners are like the ultimate expression of welcome and acceptance. Also a great opportunity to tease, and to test, and to talk about poop.

But Hilary didn’t get that. Not yet anyway. Because I fucked it up. I hope we can someday. It certainly isn’t a rejection of her as it is a rejection of a shocking truth told second hand and with less than 24 hours to react. I can only blame myself.

I know my grandpa cried when he found out. The only other time that’s happened is when he found out that I got into Duke, and he said, “I can’t believe a Puente is gonna go to Duke.” He’s a quiet hard-working man who I love dearly. I wish he could celebrate my love with me.

But my dad, who has sat with this news for over a year, COMPLETELY kicked ass. He had an awesome family dinner with my siblings and Hilary. Then after she left to return to Durham, he took my little brother, my sister and I to a GAY THEATRE. To see a GAY PLAY. Isn’t that the craziest shit you ever heard? He even knew the reputation of the theatre, and all this gay culture stuff in the city. It was clear that he had been doing his research, and the fact that he would plan a family outing with gay themes (sex included) for my 15-year-old brother to see, is a huge step for him. So back home, I felt more simultaneously accepted and furious at myself than I have in awhile.

Now—on to the step that, for me, is infinitely harder and oppressive than coming out: the follow up conversation. How the hell am I gonna conquer that one?

The least interesting coming-out story you will ever read

This is going to be a short post, for all the right reasons.

Over winter break, I came out to the rest of my family. A few knew before, but now everyone is in the loop. I did it at dinner one night- I saw an opening in the conversation and jumped in. Everyone was surprised, but within a few minutes they had accepted it. Despite the suburban and conservative nature of my family, nobody had a problem, nobody asked an insensitive or insulting question. Conversation marched along, nothing different. I literally have nothing else to say about it, which is kind of awesome.

At first I felt gratitude at being accepted by my family. Then I remembered that it's the job of a family to accept its offspring. I began to question why I was feeling gratitude- if I was born this way and didn’t choose it, why should I be grateful for acceptance? If someone with brown hair is born into a family of blondes, should they feel grateful for not being turned out of the house? As a fiery young idealist, this thinking eventually brought me around to anger at those who don’t accept LGBT individuals, regardless of their reasoning.

Queer happens, get with the times.

As my wise friend Jacob Tobia once shared, “We’re here, we’re queer, we’re fabulous- don’t fuck with us.”

An Ode to Mom

So this week, I had a very significant anniversary. It was my three-year anniversary of coming out to my parents, which in my life—and in many of my LGBT friends’ lives—marks one of the single most significant moments in my life. It was the moment when I committed to never hiding who I was again. It was the moment when I began to start the process of becoming a whole person.

I call it my “Gayday.” It’s like my birthday, but for me it’s so much more significant. After all, on my birthday, most of the work was left to my mom; on my Gayday, I did all of the work.

Actually, that’s not entirely true. For me, my Gayday was the culmination of years of work, of self-discovery, and of building courage, but for my parents, it was only the beginning of all of the work that they had to do. My parents had to begin to do the work of understanding what it would be like to live with a gay son, which is no small task.

So at any rate, yesterday, December 15^th, was my Gayday.

That makes me three-years-old, and with all of the profound insight of a three-year-old, I’d like to take some time to reflect on the one person who is most important to every three-year-old: my mom.

I’ll never forget how my mom reacted on the night I came out. After watching a Goosebumps marathon on Nickelodeon and feeling nostalgic as all hell, I decided that, for whatever reason, that was the night I was going to come out. I was just going to do it. I was just going to march downstairs and tell them. First I called my best friend Paige to make sure that she was on call in case things went badly and I needed a pick-up, and I called my brother to let him know that I was finally going to do it. For whatever reason, I couldn’t seem to find my parents in the same room that night. So I spent a few minutes wandering around the house trying to see if they’d naturally settle in the same place; when it became abundantly clear that they wouldn’t, I just asked them both to come downstairs, “I just have something I want to talk to you about.”

“What’s wrong sweetie?” asked my mom.

“Nothing, I just want to talk, that’s all.”

So now my mother and my father are standing across the island in our kitchen, we’re all standing up, and I jump in.

“There’s not really a way to preface this, so I’m just going to say it…Mom, Dad, I’m gay.” The words dropped to the floor, and my father let them crash and shatter at his feet, but my mom swooped down, caught them, and cradled them gently in her arms.

My mother’s reaction was remarkable. All she did was ask questions, as if it was a new hobby that I was picking up and she was curious. She asked things like “how long have you known?” and “who else knows?”—you know—basic sorts of things.

My father didn’t react quite as positively, but that is a post for another day, and rest assured, it’s a story that ends well. But for the moment, fast-forward a few minutes and I’m out the door. I wasn’t running away for good: I just needed some space. So I went to Paige’s house, drank hot cocoa, and cried for all that I thought I had lost.

My mom called at around 9:00 and only wanted to know if I was safe, and if she could pick me up. I said that she could and that I had never planned to run away forever. She said that she knew and that she understood.

When we got home, we sat down on our favorite couch, she held my hand, I leaned on her shoulder, and we talked until 2 am in front of our fireplace. I have never felt more loved by my mother than at that moment, when she sat there holding me, and telling me all the things that I needed to hear. She told me that my father would come around, that he just needed some time. She told me that she loved me no matter what, and that I was her son and nothing could take that away. She told me that she was amazed by my bravery, by my courage to be myself. She told me that she had had a sneaking suspicion that I was gay since I was 4, and that she had even talked to a therapist about what to do if her son was gay. She told me that her only worry, her only concern, was that I wouldn’t be able to live the life that she had always wanted for me—a life free of discrimination, free of hurt, and free of the prejudice of others. In the midst of everything that she could have focused on, she only focused on me. All she wanted was for me to be happy regardless of my sexual orientation. On a sillier note, she also made me pinky-promise that I wouldn’t get HIV, which I assured her wasn’t even a concern given my current lack of a dating life at the time.

And I told her a few things. I told her that she should still expect a beautiful marriage, that she should expect to meet my boyfriends as they came, and that she should still expect grandchildren—beautiful, adopted, wonderful grandchildren.

From that point on my mother has been my pillar. It was her who supported me when I began to get involved with my high school’s GSA, and it was her who claimed me as her son when I came out to 2,000 Methodist church leaders at the NC Methodist Annual Conference. It was her who lent me a shoulder to cry on when I faced the pain of religious marginalization, and it was her who was the first to congratulate me on a successful youth march at the NC Pride Parade or a great meeting of the Triangle GSA Council.

So to all mothers out there who support their gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender children, know that you are our rock, know that you are loved, and know that you make more of a difference in our lives than you could ever understand. And thank you. Thank you so much for being everything that you are.

And to those of you whose mothers have not been supportive, know that they love you. They truly, truly do. Your mothers love you more than you could know, no matter how terrible they are showing it. I promise.

I started this post by talking about how yesterday was my 3^rd Gayday and yesterday my mother, because she is hip and wonderful and the best mother that I could ever, ever ask for, sent me a text message that I will never delete:

“I just realized that it’s the third anniversary of your coming out to us. It was the night before our cantata at church, which is tomorrow…I know, a very strange association. I just want to say thank you for helping me to see the world in a better way. You are still the bravest man I’ve ever known and I love you very much! Mom”

I love you Mom. Merry Christmas.

You have nothing to worry about. I just want to be a part of your life.

Today, many, many great things happened. I was sitting in the Trinity Café at the Chocolate Fountain Social, thinking, reflecting, soaking in the great energy, and laughing at the chocolate that was all over everyone’s faces and noses.

I think in a few short hours, several things came full circle for me. The chocolate fountain social was my first LGBT event when I was a freshman, latched on to Chris Purcell. Now, there are so many new faces! It was wonderful to see. And of course, the oldies (but goodies) who I love to see: Janie Long, Jack Grote, Chris Perry, Justin Harris, Megan Weinand, Olly Wilson, AJ Biggers, Michelle, Aliza…and so many others (I’m not excluding your names for malicious intent, I am just unsure of your level of outness).

I also got news today that I have the opportunity to be in next semester’s show of The Laramie Project. (So psyched!) So while sitting there, just chatting and taking a few photos, I just got the most incredible feeling of how fortunate I am to have all of you in my life. The LGBT Center and Blue Devils United have single handedly provided the best kind of community I could have hoped for. Perhaps this is the sentimental senior in me talking, but I know I am truly lucky to be a part of your lives. So amidst this reflection, I made the decision to start putting some really important conversations in motion.

I left the Chocolate Fountain Social and I called my Nana, to come out to her.

Now, if you know my family’s religious affiliation, you can imagine why I’ve put this off for so long. And to be honest, I have always been terrified of losing my birth family, and my access to their lives. Nana was definitely shocked, because she said, “Well, this is a HUGE shock.”

But you know what? I just told her I feel like I’ve had so much good news to share and I am so happy, that nothing should keep me from communicating with my family. I told her about my house and living with my partner, and how I just want to be sure and respect her boundaries and be open to her questions and opinions.

And she told me, “You have nothing to worry about. I just want to be a part of your life.”

This is so, so, so much better of a conversation than I anticipated. She made sure to remind me what her religious beliefs were, but she did so in the most respectful, beautiful, understanding way. It’ll still be a process, and I’m sure once she recovers from the shock, we can have more conversations.

“Life is too short, it’s not my job to judge anyone.” –My Nana

Thank you all so much for providing the best support and the best community I could have ever hoped for. It is through seeing your smiling faces, as well as hearing any turmoil/struggle/doubt that makes me feel so free to be me.

When I think back to this time freshman year, I would have never believed that things would have turned out this way, but I know I will always look back and think of all of you and be so proud to know you.


Much love, and hope for bright futures,

Summer Puente

Coming Out Story #3

[Ed. Note: Every Wednesday, we collect a coming out story and post it here, anonymously. They can be long or short, devastating or hilarious or boring or somewhere in between. The stories can be gathered in person or digitally - even using our "submit anonymously" link on the sidebar! If you'd like to send one in, email us at bluedevilsunited@gmail.com. If you don't feel like writing, we can meet in person, too, (ignore this PSA) and I'll transcribe your story here. Just let us know.]

It was finals week in tenth grade, so we got to leave school right after our test. I went to my friend's house down the street with a bunch of people to hang out for the rest of the day. Everything was going great until my mother called the house I was at (this was before we all had cellphones) and just said "I'm coming to pick you up."

Oh?

From her tone of voice and withholding of any reason why I had to leave early, I suspected that someone had died. I have old grandparents, and thought the worst. But I was assured that everyone was "okay" and everything was "fine" (though we all know what that means). I hung up, and almost immediately realized what was up. I ran to my friend's computer and confirmed the worst: that I was not idle on Instant Messenger.

I had stayed logged into my Windows account on our family computer and furthermore had left up all of my AIM conversations. Including the one I had with [Shannon] the night before where, uh, I said some pretty explicit things about one of our straight friends, [John]. I basically outlined some pretty violent sex that I wanted to have with him and frequently used the words "fuck" and "brains out." This has happened to the best of us, right? ...Right?

Okay, so I was a horny kid. Sue me.