So I told my grandparents, they were unfazed, and I thought the matter was concluded. A few weeks later, my grandmother invited me over to give me some old dishes to take to my first apartment in Boston. On the top was a letter addressed to me. I asked what was inside, and she told me that it was an article she had found for me, but to open it later. I forgot about it and went home. Later that night, I opened it, and found that it was about gay men who start families. I was really touched by my grandmother’s thoughtfulness, until I looked at the date. This episode took place in summer 2009, but the article was dated 2005. Yes, that’s right. Since before I went to college, for the past four years, my grandmother had been saving an article for me (how she held onto it for so long is amazing in and of itself) on the off chance that I’d come out to her one day. Talk about a planner.
from Summer Fling Zack’s blog on National Coming Out Day.
Coming out is such a profound aspect of the LGBT experience for many of us that it’s taken on a special place within queer culture. When I was growing up, coming out stories dominated gay fiction and cinema. Swapping our own stories of coming out is a frequent characteristic of gay dating. But there are two questions that come up in these contexts that always aggravate me: “How old were you when you came out?” and, “Don’t you wish we lived in a time when no one had to come out?”Read the rest of my new National Coming Out Day essay at Keshet’s blog on MyJewishLearning.com.
Because it reminds me that some day I’m going to have to tell my Christian, old-fashioned family that I’m gay…
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Does anyone have a coming-out story he or she would like to share?
Most of us who have come out in the past have more than one coming-out story, since it’s an ongoing process. Here’s one of my favorites, about how I came out to my Jewish community in college.