Coming Out

It’s funny, when I came out, I came out at the age of seventeen and I came out to one of my sisters first, and she went ‘oh I know’, and she was cool, she was fine, Eileen. And I decided that I was going to – oh one thing that happened, I went to the, because I’d been sexually assaulted when I was eleven, I’d been raped when I was eleven, and then I got to the age of sixteen and there was this gay disease, there was this gay, it was in the newspapers, you know?

Just like this new gay thing, blah blah blah blah blah. And then I came out at, I came out to some people at seventeen, found the gay scene, and blah blah blah blah blah and all that. And it was just emerging kind of when I was sixteen, seventeen, so I went to, I was frightened. I was like shit scared really, that because of what had happened to me, I thought can I have this thing? Am I going to die? But I couldn’t talk to anybody about it.

So the most sensible thing in my head back then was to go to the GP. So I went to the GP, and he was a born again Christian, so, which I kind of, I mean I knew he was, but I didn’t realise how born again Christian he was. So I kind of went to the GP and said ‘I’m really scared because this happened to me when I was eleven’. And he said to me ‘are you a homosexual?’ and I said ‘yes, I am’. And he went ‘you are evil. You need to get out of here’.

And I was like really like oh my god. I said ‘but what do I do? I’m terrified I might have this thing’. And he was like ‘I don’t care, you need to get out of here. Go to the GUM clinic’. And I was like ‘what’s the GUM clinic?’ I’d never heard of one, do you know what I mean? I didn’t understand. So I kind of went home and I spoke to Eileen, the sister that knew.

And I said ‘this has happened’, and she was like ‘we’ll go together’. So I had an HIV test and it was, thankfully it was clear at that age. So that was, and I had all sorts of other tests, which were vile and horrible.

And I had several boyfriends by that time, and I decided that I was going to come out to my parents. So I came out to, I’d been at college and I came home and my mum was in the kitchen cooking dinner, and I said ‘I need to talk to you. I’ve got something to tell you’. And she said ‘what is it? Have you got somebody pregnant?’ And I was like ‘no, no’, do you know what I mean? It was, I mean it was hysterically funny. I think I burst out laughing, and I was like ‘no, of course I’ve not got anybody pregnant. I’m gay’. And she was like ‘you’re what?’ And I was like ‘I’m gay’, and she was like ‘gay?’ And I was like ‘I fancy boys’, and she was like ‘oh, oh my god’. She was just like in shock, and she went ‘you never say that to anybody. You do not tell your father what you’ve just told me. Don’t tell anybody else this’.

Anyway, two weeks later I walked in from college, I’d had enough, and I just walked in from college and my dad was watching the news on ITN, 5.45 news I think it was back then. And that was like his ritual, do you know what I mean?

He’d get home from work, dadadadada, watch the news, because it’s really important that you watch the news at 5.45 every night. So he was watching the news, and I said ‘I need to talk to you’, and he went ‘I’m watching the news’, and I went and switched the TV off. That’s how like, you know? And he was like ‘what?’ And I said ‘I need to talk to you. There’s something really’, and he went ‘okay then. What is it? What is it?’

And I went ‘I’m gay’, and his face, I mean his face just changed, and he was like ‘there’s no son of mine is gay’, rararara, went off on this huge rant. And my mum came in, and he was like ‘did you know about this?’ And she was like ‘he only told me a couple of weeks ago and I didn’t want him to tell you’, raaaa. And so there was this huge thing. My sister, Linda, the goody goody, was like crying, and I was like ‘what the fuck are you crying for?’ Do you know what I mean?

I was like ‘what are you crying for? I don’t understand. It’s not, you know, this is not about you. Stop crying’. Just, you know? We have made up since then. So it was, oh my god it was just horrendous, it was awful. And everybody was in tears. I was in tears, I went up to my bedroom and I was crying my eyes out, and my mum came up. And that’s when she said to me ‘if you choose this lifestyle you are going to be really lonely, you’re going to be really sad. Nobody will want to be your friends’.

And I was like ‘but I’ve got friends’, and she’s like ‘they’re not real friends’, you know? ‘They’re not real friends to you, they’re just’, it was almost like ‘they’re converting you from’, and about an hour later I got called down, so, and my dad said to me ‘we are taking you to the doctor. We’re going to take you to the doctor’.

And I was like ‘what for?’ Do you know? I was like ‘what for? What do you want to take me to the doctors for?’ ‘We can get you cured. This is something that we can get you cured, and we’ve asked the priest to come round as well’. And I was like ‘fuck that’. So I said ‘I need some time to think. I need a bath’. And back then I used to spend like hours in the bath, just hours in the bath. I had music playing in the bathroom and everything, I just used to spend hours, so they were used to it. So I went up, and I thought, fuck this. So I went upstairs, I ran the bath so that it, put the music on and everything, packed a bag and walked out the front door.

So I, in college, knew I was bisexual, I knew that I fancied girls, I knew I was attracted to girls as well. But acting on that seemed even more rebellious than having sex with men. So having sex with men was already like a shock to everyone and rebellious, but to then show a sexual attraction or behave that way to women would’ve been like even more so.

And so I remember I was like, oh well how do I tell people? How do I come out as bi, or how do I say something about it? And I knew I couldn’t tell my parents because already I’m like a horrible person for having sex with boys. So I did a, they weren’t on social media, shock horror, and so I changed my Facebook  ‘interested in’ to ‘interested in men and women’. I thought, ooh subtle. This is it, I’m coming out subtle.

I remember being in like the little common room area on the computer, Facebook had not long been out, and I put ‘interested in men and women’ and click. I thought, ooh look at me, living on the edge.

And I got a message from a boy I went to school with being like ‘oh my god this is so hot. This is so sexy. Who have you fingered? Who have you done this with?’ And I remember being like ‘ah’, like panic, like oh my god. And I just remember me clicking it back to ‘interested in men’, because it just felt so much more acceptable, it felt so much more easier. I wasn’t being sexualised in a different way that actually I hadn’t really like navigated myself.

Although I’d, like I’d snogged women or I was attracted to women I hadn’t sort of had a sexual, I hadn’t had a partner who was a woman, so I hadn’t like publicly been out with women I suppose. And so all of a sudden these questions and this sort of different element of being sexualised was really, really uncomfortable. And I just was like ‘argh, no, it’s so much easier if I say I’m straight’, just like so many gay people will say. Like it’s so much easier if I just say I’m straight, just pretend I’m straight, and we’ll work it out as we go along. So my parents have completely ignored it. We don’t, they don’t talk about it. Like if it’s ever been mentioned before they’re ignored it and we’ve not gone on any more about it.

My friends, who are the same age and have been through similar sex education like processes and everything else, they just cannot understand why, one if I’m bisexual why I’m married to a man. They can’t understand, like they think, often it’s they think it’s for clout because of my job, like ‘oh my god this will get you attention for your job’. I’m like ‘no, no, like why would I?’ What is the point otherwise? They think it’s an excuse to like cheat on my husband, is another one I’ve had, which was really like, oh gosh.

But this just shows a lack of education and, you know, diversity in their lives of people perhaps in their circles. I’ve had, like also like ‘yeah, are you and your husband in like an open relationship then? Like you’re allowed to go off with girls?’ I’m like ‘no, like we’re married and we’re still in a monogamous relationship, but I’m attracted to men and women’. And they just cannot, you know, and then it’s like ‘well how many women have you had sex with?’ or ‘how many women have you been in partners with?’ or ‘how many…’

It’s like ‘well no, no, no, like that’s not, that’s irrelevant really. It’s who we’re sexually attracted to’. And they just could not get their head round it. And then you get the, it’s like ‘well which one of us do you fancy?’ And you’re like ‘none of you’, like ‘but like why not?’ And then it’s like ‘oh my god’, it’s like, and it’s that real invasive ins and outs that we’d never ask straight people, or we’d never query straight people about.

But then you’ve also got the other end of the spectrum where I, as a bisexual woman married to a man in a heterosexual-presenting relationship, feel a bit like an imposter, like a bit like ‘oh my god’ or like ‘am I queer enough? Am I showing up enough as an ally, as a, you know, person of sort of, am I showing up as a bisexual person? Do I present as bisexual? Am I queer enough?’ Like these like ‘oh my god, like, you know, I need to get Pride and make sure I’m there so they know, and I need to wear rainbows, and everybody needs to know. Because looking at it I’m just like that nuclear, you know, mum of two married to a man. Everyone’s going to presume I’m straight. Like oh my god’.

But how do I show people that? But why do I need to? Because no one else would need to. Actually just be yourself and be who you are. So that’s a really weird thing to navigate. And it’s something, because bisexuality as well is something we never talked about it’s like ‘well what is, like how do I identify, how do I identify as that person?’ And actually knowing that whatever sexuality you are, identify as you and who you are in your own way.

You don’t have to like wear a sticker or a shiny flag saying like ‘I am gay’ or ‘I am bisexual’, ‘you must know this before you enter this conversation’. Yeah, and it really, like so I don’t go into situations, with friendships or anything else, and say ‘oh by the way I’m bisexual’, because it’s irrelevant to our relationship or our friendship, but when people find out it’s always like I’ve kept this secret from them, because I’m married to a man so they’ve assumed that I’m straight.

And so it’s like ‘what?’ Like it’s like ‘no, it’s not a secret. Like you’ve just never asked because you’ve assumed that I’m heterosexual’. So yeah, that navigation and that pathway to finding that, you know, it wasn’t, I wouldn’t say it was painful or, you know, like problematic in a way that we would assume, but I think if I’d had a better education and had better conversations with my parents it’s something I could’ve discovered a lot more about myself, explored, and not sort of had to like click ‘interested in men’, or not had to like hide it or be worried about what people thought of it. I could have just been happier I think, and just explored that, and been, found myself in a different way to finding myself. Because I think I’ve only really acknowledged that process really in my thirties.