Coming Out Day

Personal coming out day-Facebook memories arent always helpful or relevant but sometimes they remind me of an exact date of something important today that was a memory post of coming out to my mother over coffee. I had just that week figured out my sexuality enough (with the help of a friend who pushed me a tad and then sitting with myself) to come out to myself and two close friends as lesbian (labels evolve that's for another post). We had plans to meet up for dinner not connected to this, I was living in Jerusalem at the time and we used to meet up for meals once and a while. I had been going over how I thought it would go in my head but had sat and decided with my friends to not come out to my mother at the time, rather wait for a “perfect” time. We met up and went to the restaurant I was, of course, nervous I had so much inside, and honestly, I’m so bad at keeping secrets and I hate keeping them. My mother asked what I wanted to talk about as I was looking stressed, I replied not sure just have a lot on my mind. Then my mom said the fateful words “the worst thing that we could talk about would be you coming out, but other than that all topics are good.” My stomach dropped of course but rejected the idea that I had any idea of coming out. I did ask her hypothetically if I would come out what would her response be and she painted this vision of sunshine and rainbows of acceptance, I didn't believe that her reaction would be as she claimed, and just decided to find some other intense topic but not this landmine.

Cue the coffee and tea at the end of the meal, and I came to the conclusion that my mom had brought up the topic at the beginning of the meal, and I guess I should just run with it and get it over with. So I took a sip of coffee and said remember the topic you brought up at the beginning of the meal? Uh, yea so I am gay. Her response was what I thought it was going to be, ranting about how it is against halacha, and it says so in the Torah and the kicker was just because women are beautiful doesn't mean you should marry them. I sat quietly through her tirade, mentally checking off all the topics I knew she was going to bring up. At the end I said, “just so you notice, do you see how different of a response you gave me about just loving me cuz I'm your kid when it was a hypothetical conversation vs. when I came out you brought up all the main issues you struggle with.” She acknowledged that and we closed up the conversation with her saying she needed time. It made sense, I honestly felt better just saying it, on our way to the car she then asked if any of my friends from the midrasha that I was at that I brought home for Shabbat was my girlfriend. I laughed, first of all, I had come out to myself like this week, and secondly, if I had a girlfriend there was no way I would have brought her home.

The process with my mom and accepting me being gay, and then non-binary is still going on four years later; but these past few months things have started moving. There is something about the memory of taking the leap that makes me proud of myself. It feels like my official coming out day, as it was coming out to a non-accepting environment which was harder than figuring it out with friends. This was also the start of the domino of telling others and coming out fully.