Tonight I just felt like I was accused of being fraudulent. I was having an online conversation with a man who felt like guys who weren't completely out were fraudulent. Meaning--they lived and perpetrated a lie. He had really strong perspectives, and I felt challenged at every turn. I think thats what he likes to do. I just didn't know what to say. I look at this mormon to moho to gay experience as just part of the path--and I guess I've made excuses for myself regularly because of it.
But when you were out to friends by 8th grade, and completely out by 17, I can see how you would have a different perspective. He told me that one thing he couldn't tolerate was someone taking him out on a date, and not introducing him accurately--like you tell people he's your friend, when in reality (theoretically) he could be your date, your boyfriend, your lover, your husband. Fascinating, and making me think right now..
Your thoughts, fellow moho's?
I am very out and proud. But I absolutely reject that way of thinking. It takes time for people to be comfortable with themselves, and everybody's experience is different. That being said, I think it does take courage and effort to be more open and not introduce your significant other as a "friend," and you should always be working towards being more honest and open with others. But if someone is not completely there yet, just give them time.
ReplyDeleteThis life experience is a path, a journey, a progression, or whatever you want to call it... but each of those terms implies the concept that it is a process. To think that we must be "out there" completely in unison or else we are a "fraud" does not accept the notion that we are on different parts of the journey and our experiences are unique.
ReplyDeleteTo be out in your young teen years verses when you're 45 does not mean one is better or correct over the other, but instead, reflects the variety of our experience. We should celebrate the journey along the way and "progress" being made wherever we are on that journey instead of demanding that we are all the same or else we are fraudulent.
I agree with him to a point. I feel that it would be much easier for gay rights to progress if everyone who was in the closet would simply come out. If I had one wish, it would definitely be to destroy the closet and let everyone live openly.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I do know that it takes time to come out. I'm still not completely out, though I'm becoming more and more so all the time. If I had been forced out of the closet back when I first started to realize I was attracted to guys, my life would be completely different now. It is a process, and I think it does give us character to go through it. We can't rush anyone else's coming out experience, even if it would be beneficial to the gay community to have them out.
Thanks guys. He and I chatted a lot about different lifetime experience. Coming out when you aren't even sure what you are is pretty hard. I also tried to describe how different being gay was now vs in the 80's and early 90's when I was growing up.
ReplyDeleteThose are the kinds of friends I want to have...the ones who demand that I agree with them and if I do not I must suffer their abuse until I submit (unlikely) or I want to punch you in the mouth (end the conversation.) I wonder how this guy feels about the Mormon Church preaching certain values to him. How is he any different when he preaches his values to you?
ReplyDeleteI think that as a society we have so exaggerated the importance of labels that it has made coming out into a big ordeal.
ReplyDeleteMaybe the best response to that guy is to explain that we're all just people, people who are struggling to live, love, and be happy. Maybe we should all spend a little less time trying to categorize people and more time getting to know them better.
If coming out to my fundamentalist Baptist family means being alienated from them, does it make me a fraud for choosing not being alienated from them instead of coming out to them? If coming out to my homophobic boss (who of course has no need to know my personal business) means stunting my career advancement opportunities, does it make me a fraud for choosing my career goals over coming out to someone who has no need to know? Those are easy calls. So if I, for whatever frickin' reason, am not comfortable coming out to anybody I choose, why does that makes me a fraud? Am I a fraud if I keep other secrets about myself? Must everything about me be an open book, lest I be a fraud? What does "fraud" even mean here? It's devoid of any useful meaning and is just a semantic stiletto intended to make the labeled one feel bad. The world might be a much better place if all of us came out. Might. The world WOULD be a better place if we could all come out without fear of reprisal, ridicule, estrangement or rebuke. But the world isn't that Utopia. Each of us who is still closeted, in some degree or another, has our own personal reasons for that choice, and no one else has a right to judge us for those decisions. The LGBT movement is about an individual's right to be herself or himself. Anyone who thinks they have the right to usurp my right to decide how out I will be has taken a position at odds with that right. Derogatorily calling you a fraud for exercising that right is, in my view, no different than a straight person derogatorily calling you that other F-word, faggot. IMHO both are narrow minded B-word ... bigots.
ReplyDeleteYou are not a fraud. I agree with Cambo that it would help gay rights if people were able to see us all for who we are, but we are all on a path, and it takes time to get comfortable. Especially from deep in the Mormon closet.
ReplyDeleteI think it's dangerous to take such a black-and-white approach to anything. You've got to be happy/comfortable with yourself more than you're happy/comfortable to a given label like "out" or "good" or "sane." The implication is one of superiority. I think one has a right to not be totally out because we do not live in a perfect world whether that be in a work situation or a family situation (resulting in everything from workplace discrimination to homelessness).
ReplyDeleteThat said, as far as the situation of introducing someone as a friend, I think that's more of an issue of compatibility. He might be more comfortable and you more "closeted" but both have their place even if one is ideal. They both have a place in your individual processes.