It Gets Better (21 page)

But for me, and many others, the story doesn't end here. Five years ago, when I was divorced and came out, I found myself, like my uncle Ronnie, in Oklahoma, in my thirties, and terrified of losing my children because I was gay. I was regularly called a faggot, both by strangers and by my ex-wife, and, like my uncle before me, reached a point of despair. Suicide among gay men and women in Evangelical communities is still prevalent. Evangelicals may not be killing gays outright—the police report suggests my uncle killed himself. However, while the Evangelical community might not pull the trigger when one of their gay members commits suicide, they provide the ammunition.

When I came out, I started writing a letter to my uncle Ronnie, a letter meant for me, for my uncle, and for friends I have who are still closeted—terrified their family will reject them. Five years later, I'm still writing this letter—it's become a way for me to record this experience.

It all started for me one summer afternoon when I was twentyseven years old and I stood in my kitchen and said to myself, out loud, that I was gay. It was the most liberating feeling I've ever had, and for the next three days I was on top of the world. But then reality came crashing down on me—I was married, with children, and I didn't know what being gay would mean in terms of my family, my wife, my children. It was a horrible place to be. It took a few more years of being scared to death, and going to two different therapists, before I finally decided that the best thing for everyone involved was for me to get divorced and come out. I had been suicidal for years, and I eventually realized that my children needed a father who wanted to live, who looked forward to tomorrow, and the only way I could be that man was to get divorced and come out.

That's when I started writing my letter to my uncle because I felt like he was the only one who would understand. My parents didn't understand, most of my friends didn't understand—it was something I didn't know how to explain, so I started writing.

Coming out was TERRIFYING. I remember going to gay bars and standing against the wall like a thirteen-year-old kid at a middle school dance. I was awkward and shy and didn't have a clue how to talk to people. I drank a lot; it would take two or three drinks just to get the courage to step away from the wall and actually talk to people. And the feeling of talking to a guy who seemed to like me was great, and scary, and nerve-wracking, and amazing, all at the same time. I'd spent my whole life aching to find a nice guy who wanted to hold my hand so the first time I went on a date and held a guy's hand was AMAZING. I'd never felt happier.

But I was living in Oklahoma at the time, and someone driving by yelled “faggots!” at us. A couple weeks later I was in line at a bar with my boyfriend and two tough guys in front of us said they hoped “no fucking fags” came into their bar tonight. My boyfriend and I were both over six feet tall, so I tapped one of the guys on the shoulder and said, “Hey, you're looking at two fags right now. What do you want to do about it?”

I had never been in a fight in my whole life, but I was ready. I wanted a black eye. I wanted everybody to know I was out, that I was a fag, that I was ready to fight for the right to be who I was. The owner, Edna, leaned over the bar and said, “Nobody's gonna fight about something that stupid in my bar! Free round for the four of you as soon as you hug each other. Do it! Now!” And so we all awkwardly hugged each other and drank tequila together.

Even a year after coming out, I can't say things had really gotten better. My ex-wife was still calling me a fag in front of my children, and screaming all the time. So I eventually took her to court for that and other custody violations, spending $50,000 I didn't have. But it was worth it—she hasn't called me a faggot since, and my children haven't heard their mother or new stepfather talk disparagingly of gays in their presence either. My ex-wife and I share our children equally, and the kids are doing great. We get along just fine now.

And me, I'm doing great. Finally. I've had a lot of different boyfriends. I've fallen in love a couple times. I've felt that wonderful, giddy feeling you get when someone you like likes you back, and the gut-crushing feeling you get when that same someone lets you go. I'm finally not desperate anymore. I'm just me, happy and gay, but not defined by my sexuality. The best thing about coming out has been to watch myself go from someone terrified of being gay, to someone willing to fight for my right to be openly gay, to, finally, just another guy living his life who happens to be gay. That's the best thing of all. I had to fight hard for it, but it finally happened—the freedom to just be myself, no apologies, no fighting, no drama. The day I thought would never come finally snuck up on me and surprised me. My grandfather was famous for telling people, “Something good is going to happen to you!” And, it's strange to admit it, but he was right.

That's what I'd like to tell my uncle Ronnie today: It really does get better.

VANCOUVER, BC

 

 

 

 

N
ot only does it get better, it can get pretty fabulous. I have a husband named Leyton and a dog named Blakelee. My life is happy and full. I get to play the piano and build
Star Wars
LEGO with my nephew Cameron. I have another nephew, baby Benjamin. He's not big enough to build
Star Wars
LEGO yet. But he will be soon enough. There's our best friend, Shelley, a teacher and a lesbian (now you know, kids!), and the rest of our urban family. We all go for sushi every Friday night after school or work. So have I always been this happy?

Absolutely not. Let's go back to grade seven, junior high, in a place called Calgary, Alberta—redneck central. There were these people—kind of like boogeymen—they were called homosexuals, gays, fags . . . and they did nasty things to nice people. The problem was that deep down inside I had this feeling that I might be one of them. But I was a nice person. None of this made any sense. Jump forward to high school: 2,499 straight people, apparently, and me. Alone. Isolated. Obsessed with the captain of the volleyball team. But to hit on him, that was a death sentence. Slice and dice.

My solution was to study, study, study, so that I could be a medical doctor. I just wanted to be able to say, when someone called me a fag, “F-you, I'm a doctor.”

Jump forward to 2010. I am a medical doctor. For many more reasons than—well—that! I went to university for thirteen years learning biology, medical sciences, epidemiology, primary care, and finally, public health. Sure I wobbled in and out of the closet along the way. But I didn't fall down. I now have five degrees hanging on my office wall. Every once in a while, a colleague or patient will ask why I bother showing them off. If only my “F-you” wall could speak!

Now I spend my time finding, supporting, and creating access to health care for marginalized populations, including lesbian, gay, and transgender persons. I'm proud of who I am. I'm proud of what I do. Sometimes I look back and I'm shocked that I got here. But I did. I worked hard. I built self-esteem. I built an identity. How? A huge desire to survive, and the right people around to support me. Leyton is one of the people I was lucky to find along the way.

But most important, I just hung in there. If there's one thing I ask you to do, it's to hang in there. It will get better.

LOS ANGELES, CA

 

I
grew up Catholic in the Midwest, in St. Louis. And when I was a boy, I did not like to do things that boys did. I didn't like to play sports; I didn't care about sports. I didn't like to play with guns. I didn't like to wrestle. I didn't like to get dirty. And I felt strange about it. I felt like I had somehow chosen to be different. I had somehow chosen my self, and I had chosen wrong. Because even the people who loved me said, “Do this, because this is what boys do. Here's a football. Go play with it, because that's what boys do. Here, let me take the
People
magazine, here's a football. Go outside and play with it, because that's what boys do.”

I felt defective growing up. In my teenage years, when puberty happened and sexual feelings started to pop up, I had them. I just had them about men. I had them about Huey Lewis. The first few seconds of that “I Want a New Drug” video still get me to this day.

I got picked on a lot growing up because I was different. Kids are terrible. Kids are cruel. I was at my cruelest when I was a kid. And kids are cruel because they're terrified. Everybody feels a little bit different, and because of that, they lash out at people with more obvious differences. I had them, so I got picked on. You might have them, so you might get picked on.

To me, much worse than getting picked on was when people I looked up to—my brothers, the cool kids at school, or whoever—would talk about someone who they perceived as gay, that's all that person was to them. If there was a boy who was a little girly and their name came up, they would do the limp wrist or call them a fag or whatever, and then that person was just dismissed. There was nothing else important about that person. Why even bother talking that person anymore? They're a fag. That's that. Those who conformed to gender norms got to be multidimensional people with traits and flaws and the whole bit, but gay people were just gay, end of story. No need for further discussion.

That scared me to death. Because I felt like a real person and I wanted to be perceived as a real person. I wanted to grow up to be someone who was proud and who made the people he loved proud. Yet I didn't think that I could because inside I felt different, and that is a terrible burden for a kid to carry. I should not have had to carry it, and you shouldn't have to carry it either. But you don't have to carry it forever, because I am here to tell you that it gets better.

Once you get out into the real world, you will notice that there are not only a lot of people, there're a lot of different ways to live. I moved to New York, which is a huge, dense city, with an enormous breadth of people. There are so many different kinds of people and so many different ways to live and so many different interests, and so much going on, that the fact that I was gay was like, “Who cares? You're gay and what else?” The fact that I was interested in things that weren't stereotypically male was not even a consideration anymore. In fact, it wasn't until I embraced those things; it wasn't until I started to look at the things I was passionate about as assets—rather than liabilities—that my life really changed. And the life that I wanted when I was a thirteen-year-old with a crush on Huey Lewis became my life because I got truer to myself.

Now, growing up, I never dreamed that I would be gay and proud. And I am. It never occurred to me that I would have a family who knew the real me and loved the real me. And I do. It never,
never
occurred to me that I would be able to bring a boyfriend home and have my parents like him. And I have. In fact, they love him. I never dreamed that I would have the kind of friends that I have, friends who are so smart and so confident and so funny. And some are gay, some are straight, and nobody cares. And if there's a football game on, some people want to watch it and some people don't. And nobody cares which of those groups you fall into. It just doesn't matter.