When I came out, it was really spur-of-the-moment. Some people I know put a lot of thinking into how they should come out and how people are going to react, but I didn’t think about any of that.

My coming-out process began a few weeks before eighth grade started. Every summer my mother and I go to Mexico to visit my relatives. One morning I was home alone with my half brother, who was then 22, and he was in his underwear. I remember him talking to me, but I was just staring at him. I hadn’t really thought about it before other than That guy is cute or That guy is hot, but I never really thought that I might be gay. The last night we were there, my brother and I were up all night talking, and he told me that he was gay. Right when he told me it hit me—That’s what it is! It makes sense now: I’m gay! I’m always so busy with school stuff that I never watched TV or anything to be clued in to the whole gay thing. I didn’t even know who Ellen DeGeneres was.

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I hear a lot of people who came out late in life speak about how they wish they had done it sooner. How they feel they lost so many years. I also know there are those who came out young who feel the gay community doesn’t give them the space they need during “het-curious” (for lack of a better term) times. There are those who are jealous of the time spent tasting the other side by people who come out at an older age.

When is the right time to come out? I’m not so sure there is one. I don’t regret my time. I think most of the every day issues I have to face stem from my sex and gender, and even from my choice of romantic partners (and their gender expression), not from my sexual orientation. Everyone seems to have a say as to what I am or am not. To what I really want and what I should.

It’s pretty sad, but at this point I believe that if you’re going to put on heels someone out there is going to think they have the right to control you. Sometimes I wonder if there are more femmes out there than there appear to be. If they just got tired of the opinions of the world and toned it down. If they wanted a more accepting community enough to change. If they got tired of dealing with men who have the answer to their problem.

What about you? What do you wonder about?

What else ya got for me? This:

*Inmates denied marriage
*Gay anti-Hillary consultant
*Orthodox rabbi stresses compassion towards gay people
*Standing up for gays when you’re not
*Female athletes assumed to be lesbians
*Gay teens and seniors
*On being queer