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Coming out is a difficult time for a lot of people. There's a reason Freedom Requires Wings writes a fair bit about coming out. Well, I'm here to talk to you about it. "But you've already done this post Romilly", I hear you cry. Technically yes, I have written a post on coming out before. This post is a little different.
I moved up to university three weeks ago. I'm now in Sheffield, Yorkshire - it's the fifth biggest city in the UK; it's about 180 miles from where I lived in London. It's a city that was completely new to me, and as any reader that has been or is currently at university will know, it's a very difficult thing to strike out on your own. That's just what I had to do.
Aside from the obvious points of there being a lot of high level stuff to learn and living in a flat with five other people I've never met, the part of moving I found most difficult was the fact that I was moving out of my college, where pretty much anyone knew that I wasn't straight (even if they didn't know the specific details) and even if I got a few less than stellar comments and a lot of dirty looks, nobody important was bothered. At university I was entirely prepared to stay in the closet for my time there, because it was just easier than having to go through coming out all over again. I was sharing a flat with five girls and a shared bathroom - I didn't want to accidentally make anyone uncomfortable.
As you can imagine, that plan lasted about a day.
It turns out that I'm not bad at coming out; I'm terrible at not coming out. Coming out to a group of complete strangers is difficult, as I'm sure most of you will agree, but living in the closet (especially when I had been out of it for a few years now) was really distressing.
It got a bit more complicated when I realised that two of my five flatmates were Catholic, and two more were from South Korea, where homosexuality isn't exactly stigmatised but it's just not talked about. If you look at the horror stories that are posted daily on plenty of news sites then you can understand why I was pretty concerned - there are endless news stories about Catholic schools teaching homophobic practices, and I wasn't entirely sure whether my orientation would be received well.
In the end my fears were just chasing ghosts and expecting the worst case scenario, as I found out.
I obviously forgot, somewhere along the line, that almost everyone in university is liberal, and that my generation (while far from perfect) is also the one growing up in what is nearly the time of greatest acceptance for homosexuality in human history. So, when I dropped a casual reference of me being gay into conversation, I was expecting the kind of thing you read about online - them weeping and them saying anything on a bingo card of homophobic statements (“we share a bathroom, ew” or “but have you thought about just not thinking about women like that”, etc.). What I got from them was "oh, you've got a girlfriend? Great - when is she coming to visit?"
It was relieving to hear, but in retrospect I don’t know why I thought it would be any different. Yes, the Pope and the upper levels of the Catholic Church may be very openly homophobic, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that everyone who is Catholic will be the same. Obviously don’t bank on them holding different views to the Pope – but at least don’t assume the worst of everyone.
Anyway, that was coming out to my flatmates. I then decided, because that went so well and because I am too lazy to hide my orientation (it takes effort to hide it, ok), that I should just be open about it to anyone I met. It’s not like I couldn’t avoid anyone if they took it badly – my smallest lecture size is 320 people.
Well, thus far it’s getting to be a lot like my situation at college where I kind of assume there is a general consensus that I am Not Straight (capitals optional).
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| This is a photograph of me coming out. Yeah. |
This is starting to sound more like a diary entry than a post, so I’m going to get to the point of what I was saying. If you’ve gone to university or college (don’t say I’m not inclusive, American readers!) this year, just remember that the vast majority of university students are more liberal than the general public, and that all of them are highly educated and, in the most part, they are able to think for themselves - and when someone has a reasoned thought process about their thoughts on people being Not Straight, the conclusion almost every time is against homophobia. I’m not saying nobody outside university has these traits, but there are just a higher percentage of people with them at universities.
Secondly, if you feel more comfortable with nobody knowing your orientation, that’s fine and nobody should push you to come out. If you feel more comfortable out of the closet, then don’t feel that you need to hide yourself! More and more people are finding good responses when they come out, and if the response is negative then that person is rubbish (and is also in the minority!). I would also say that in my personal experience coming out early is better than coming out late. Anyone who would treat you differently because of your orientation is obviously not a very good friend to have around, and if they know you're Not Straight beforehand then they'll act the same way to you. At least they'll be consistent!
Thirdly, and finally, I’ve seen devoutly religious people who are completely accepting of people who are Not Straight, and I’ve also seen very homophobic atheists. My point is that making sweeping generalisations about a group of people is a practice that should be left to the bigots. Are we not more open and accepting than them? Can we not show a little class and assume “everyone is different” rather than “everyone is the same”?
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