Harry Comes Out Part 2
harrynich
Posts: 34 Member
So at some point today, if I weren’t home sick, I would have probably come out just a little bit. People might have looked at me and thought about the kind of sex I have and been grossed out a little bit, although personally I think what we do in bed is where we’re most like straight people. I don’t buy the “we’re just like everyone else except in bed” argument. Most of my straight men friends, for instance, have no idea what colors mauve, taupe, and sienna are. I dare say none of them have ever put on a house dress and Aretha Franklyn singing “You Make Me Feel Like a Natural Woman” to clean house. Guys, you should try it at least once.
One thing we share with a lot of people is fear. We’re afraid of being attacked. We share that fear with women with people of color, Jews and Muslims. But that doesn’t even mean that those people will all like us or even think it matters. And, in fact, sometimes we are attacked. In high school a group of members of the football team knocked me down in the street and kicked my head repeatedly and I ended up in the hospital for a week. I'm still taking seizure meds. Years later, when I was the only gay person I knew to get married in a mainstream Protestant Church (Trinity Episcopal, San Francisco), it got into the newspapers all across the country, huge news. And my husband James, who was dying at the time, and I were targeted by the White Aryan Resistance (W.A.R.) who published our names, phone number, and address on their hotline and in their mailers. We were accosted outsite our apartment, had to disconnect our phone, and, yes, rocks came through the window. I still don't sleep easy.
Coming out to my family wasn't easy. My Dad had been dead for years. I think he would have been great about it. But my Mom? Not so much. At that time she was of the opinion that I would be better off dead. Let's leave it at that. She did come around years later, and she and my sisters and brother all became incredibly supportive. Mom died a long time ago, but it was swell to be surrounded by siblings when I married Wayne at our sweet, astounding little church in the middle of Michigan's mitten.
I did have a very fun four months of constant coming out a few years ago. I went to France, to an immersion school, and I learned to speak the language. Since I was a beginner, it was assumed that I would make huge mistakes. So when I’d say, in French, “My husband was a farmer,” they would correct me and say, in French, “not husband (mari), but wife (femme),” and I would correct them and then we’d laugh. It was lovely. At the end of my time there each student had to give a presentation on a subject that we were to choose. I talked about AIDS in San Francisco in the 80s, a pretty devastating topic. But I ended by showing everyone, the teachers, the students, how to do American Drag Queen Sign Language to Gloria Gaynor’s immortal classic, “I Will Survive.” It was heaven teaching a Standing Room Only audience of straight Europeans and Asians how to be just a little bit gay, and how they celebrated with me that I have, in fact, survived.
Yes, it gets better. It never gets like my straight friends' lives, and they would be very disappointed, I think, if I did show up one day with a pack of Bud Lite asking to watch "the game" with them. It gets better but there's always a little part of you looking over your shoulder and wondering when the next confrontation will happen. But, hey, wait for it: a whole lot of us came out for years and years (I first came out to in the 60s before the Stonewall Riots, which some say was the start of Gay Liberation), and now there's gay marriage in six states. But it also gets weirder, which is sometimes even better than its getting better. For instance, when I got married in the 80s almost all my gay friends said, "You're not copying the heterosexual ideal of marriage are you?" Most were totally against the idea! And now, of course, it's at the center of the "gay agenda." Of course, back then everyone would say to me, over and over, "But you're not a real Christian." A lot of people still do. I actually am a real Christian, just in the way I'm a real…guy…apart from understanding whether "the game" means baseball or hockey.
Well, it's National Coming Out Day. I'm just going to lie here, put on my headphones, and listen to Patti Lupone singing "Sweeny Todd." Sometimes I just have to come out to myself and luxuriate in it.
Happy Coming Out Day to you all.
Harry Kelley
Mt. Pleasant, Michigan October 11, 2012
One thing we share with a lot of people is fear. We’re afraid of being attacked. We share that fear with women with people of color, Jews and Muslims. But that doesn’t even mean that those people will all like us or even think it matters. And, in fact, sometimes we are attacked. In high school a group of members of the football team knocked me down in the street and kicked my head repeatedly and I ended up in the hospital for a week. I'm still taking seizure meds. Years later, when I was the only gay person I knew to get married in a mainstream Protestant Church (Trinity Episcopal, San Francisco), it got into the newspapers all across the country, huge news. And my husband James, who was dying at the time, and I were targeted by the White Aryan Resistance (W.A.R.) who published our names, phone number, and address on their hotline and in their mailers. We were accosted outsite our apartment, had to disconnect our phone, and, yes, rocks came through the window. I still don't sleep easy.
Coming out to my family wasn't easy. My Dad had been dead for years. I think he would have been great about it. But my Mom? Not so much. At that time she was of the opinion that I would be better off dead. Let's leave it at that. She did come around years later, and she and my sisters and brother all became incredibly supportive. Mom died a long time ago, but it was swell to be surrounded by siblings when I married Wayne at our sweet, astounding little church in the middle of Michigan's mitten.
I did have a very fun four months of constant coming out a few years ago. I went to France, to an immersion school, and I learned to speak the language. Since I was a beginner, it was assumed that I would make huge mistakes. So when I’d say, in French, “My husband was a farmer,” they would correct me and say, in French, “not husband (mari), but wife (femme),” and I would correct them and then we’d laugh. It was lovely. At the end of my time there each student had to give a presentation on a subject that we were to choose. I talked about AIDS in San Francisco in the 80s, a pretty devastating topic. But I ended by showing everyone, the teachers, the students, how to do American Drag Queen Sign Language to Gloria Gaynor’s immortal classic, “I Will Survive.” It was heaven teaching a Standing Room Only audience of straight Europeans and Asians how to be just a little bit gay, and how they celebrated with me that I have, in fact, survived.
Yes, it gets better. It never gets like my straight friends' lives, and they would be very disappointed, I think, if I did show up one day with a pack of Bud Lite asking to watch "the game" with them. It gets better but there's always a little part of you looking over your shoulder and wondering when the next confrontation will happen. But, hey, wait for it: a whole lot of us came out for years and years (I first came out to in the 60s before the Stonewall Riots, which some say was the start of Gay Liberation), and now there's gay marriage in six states. But it also gets weirder, which is sometimes even better than its getting better. For instance, when I got married in the 80s almost all my gay friends said, "You're not copying the heterosexual ideal of marriage are you?" Most were totally against the idea! And now, of course, it's at the center of the "gay agenda." Of course, back then everyone would say to me, over and over, "But you're not a real Christian." A lot of people still do. I actually am a real Christian, just in the way I'm a real…guy…apart from understanding whether "the game" means baseball or hockey.
Well, it's National Coming Out Day. I'm just going to lie here, put on my headphones, and listen to Patti Lupone singing "Sweeny Todd." Sometimes I just have to come out to myself and luxuriate in it.
Happy Coming Out Day to you all.
Harry Kelley
Mt. Pleasant, Michigan October 11, 2012
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