2. I Come Out to My Parents
August 19, 1999
Age: 25

I actually had to come out to my parents twice. The first time was when I was 19, two days before returning to school for my third year of college. It was an impulsive action; I realized that I wanted to tell them in person, and that if I didn’t do it now, I’d have to wait until Thanksgiving. So around midnight, I knocked on their bedroom door, sat down on their bed, and told them. They were stunned and not happy. The following evening my mom asked me to go for a walk with her, and she told me that she couldn’t accept this.

It wasn’t that I was unprepared for my parents’ negative reaction, but I was unprepared for the intensity of it, and more than that, I was unprepared for the discomfort I myself felt at upsetting them. I wanted them to love me. I wanted them to be happy. Would they hate me now? I wished I hadn’t told them. So I resolved not to be gay. On that evening walk, I told my mom that I was probably mistaken, that I’d go back to school and see how things went. This was easy; when I returned to school, I was already going to be moving into a dorm on the other side of campus. Not too many people knew about me anyway, and after making new friends I rarely saw those people again. From then on, I was alternately asexual or confused, and I hid this from everyone I knew.

Almost five years later, during the summer after my second year of law school, my confusion finally disappeared and I realized I was gay. I came out to everyone I knew at school — I spent my entire last year of law school out of the closet — but I still didn’t tell my parents.

I ended law school with no job lined up, because I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I remained at UVa through the summer to study for the New York Bar Exam; my plan was to take the exam in August, then temporarily move back into my parents’ house in New Jersey and look for a job in New York.

That summer I decided I was ready to come out to my parents again. I’d resolved my confusion, I’d been living an active and open gay life for a year, and I didn’t want to deal with the hassle of hiding it from them anymore. I’d already told my brother several months earlier, and he was totally fine with it. I thought about writing my parents a letter that summer — I even drafted it — but then I decided they deserved to find out in person.

When I moved back home in August, however, I kept putting it off. I felt guilty enough about living at home without a job, and I knew it irritated my parents, too; coming out to them might just make things worse. And I wasn’t yet financially independent; what if they reacted badly?

While beginning the job-hunting process at home, though, I made a new friend. I met him in a chat room. I fell for him, and I was spending lots of time with him and some of his friends. My parents must have thought there was something funny going on, because everyone I knew back home had moved away, and I didn’t have any friends left, and yet now I was going out all the time. They must have wondered who this guy was and how I’d met him.

One Thursday afternoon, while getting ready to go out to meet my friend, my mom came up to me in the dining room. We talked about my evening plans, and then, almost casually, she asked how I’d met this guy. “He’s just a friend of mine,” I said. She asked me a few more questions and I continued being evasive. “Okay,” she said, and walked into the kitchen. I could feel so much tension between us.

I went into the den and sat there. She knew. She had to know. Fine, we may as well talk about it. So I walked back into the kitchen.

My mom was pouring herself a glass of soda. I stood there and looked at her.

Suddenly she turned to me and spoke, angrily. “What? You’re gay. That’s what you want to tell me, right?”

“Yes,” I said.

We went into the den and talked. She didn’t like this. Her eyes got wet. But this time, unlike six years earlier, I was ready. I knew who I was now. I wasn’t turning back this time. I told her I’d tried to change, that it hadn’t worked, and that I was happy now. I’m your son, I said. Don’t you want me to be happy?

She told me that she was happy for me, that she was glad I was happy, but that she wasn’t happy for herself.

Soon after that, I went out to meet my friend. I knew my mom would tell my dad that night. I dreaded the next time I’d have to see him. I was scared of him. It was bad enough that I was living at home without a job, but on top of that, I was gay?

I managed to avoid my parents for three days. I’d leave the house early in the day and come back late at night. Finally, on Sunday night, I decided it was time to stop avoiding it. I’d been at a bookstore. I came home, walked in the door. My parents were in the den. “Hi,” my dad said, before I could run again. So I went in and sat down with them. I asked him how he felt about all of this. “I’m crushed,” I remember him saying.

The three of us talked for a long time. My dad said I was just confused. He mentioned something about the “homosexual lobby.” I didn’t know how to keep arguing with them — I knew I was right. Eventually my brother came home, and he saw us there. He knew what was going on. My mom said he could come in, but he said he didn’t want to. He said he didn’t see what the big deal was or why they had such a problem with me being gay. Bless him.

Things remained tense after that night. Two weeks later, on a Friday night, my mom confronted me again. Earlier that day, she’d had to listen to one of her unknowing friends refer to someone as a “flaming queen,” and she decided to take it out on me again. She couldn’t deal with this. She told me she was sick of looking at me. Well, fine. I took some clothes, went to my car, and drove to my best friend’s apartment nearby. I was near suicidal. I had no job, no future, and my parents hated me. I slept on my friend’s couch overnight.

The next day I decided to drive down to Princeton, where my best friend’s parents lived. They’d known me since I was three years old, and I was practically their own son. When I found them that afternoon, it turned out they already knew I was gay — my friend had apparently told them months earlier. And they didn’t care at all. They said I was welcome to stay at their house for a couple of nights if I wanted. So I did. I slept in their guest room, I watched movies from their movie collection. A couple of nights later I went back to my parents’ house.

Things with my parents slowly got better. Apparently my friend’s mom talked to them, which must have helped. My dad made a point of telling me that he still loved me. A couple of months later I finally moved out, having gotten a job. The night before I moved, my mom made us some sandwiches for dinner. She said she’d miss having me around.

My parents have made so much progress. A couple of years ago my mom told me she wants me to find someone and be happy, and that if I were dating someone he’d be welcome at family events. She went back to school for a master’s degree in art and one of her best friends in the program was gay. A couple of weeks ago my parents came to my Gay Gotham Chorus concert. I’m sure deep down my parents still wish I were straight, but they’ve accepted that this is who I am, and they want me to be happy. My relationship with them today is the best it’s ever been.

I can’t imagine what it’s like to bring a new human life into the world, to raise a son, to teach him things, and then to see him turn around and teach you right back.

Coming out to my parents was something I’d dreaded for years, as far back as adolescence. Even when I wasn’t thinking about it, it was always there. I always knew I’d have to deal with it someday; it loomed over my life like this big mountain.

And then I finally told them, and the mountain disappeared. I’d lived with it for so long — and then it was gone. It was one of the most momentous events of my life.

I’m so glad it’s behind me.