When I Came Out...

Coming out to my friends was easy, if nervewracking. When it slipped from the one friend I had told, the others barely batted an eyelid at the idea of me being queer.
No, it was everyone else that was hard to tell. The whole mess started years ago, as I realized I wasn’t quite straight. I was fourteen at the oldest and had always been told all the conservative Christian rot about gay people. How marriage was between a man and a woman. Hate the sin, not the sinner, they said, but they continued to persecute the sinner anyway. So I kept quiet.
I prowled the internet for knowledge, too afraid to seek it out in person. I knew my parents would disapprove. I already was friendless, as the friends I was to later tell came later that year. It was a fight once I discovered terms for what I was. I identified for years as pansexual, always realizing that the term fit like wearing hand-me-down shoes. Never quite right.
That summer I went to church camp, knowing the whole time I was hated, that I was a sinner. That I couldn’t tell a soul why I reacted so strongly in my heart when the speaker spoke out against being gay. I hid this behind my depression, which I hid behind smiles and a strongly introverted public persona.
After I was out to my friends already, I discovered asexuality. It fit me far better than pansexuality ever did, though I retain the panromantic identity. I told them again, starting with the first. Same reaction, though more questions than before. That I was fine with. The more people who truly know something about an identity rather than its reputation, the better chance we have of being accepted in some fashion outside the communities.
The cycle continued, though. Camp swung around again. I couldn’t skip out on it— my parents expected me to attend. This time the speaker didn’t set me off, though. My growing anxiety over crowds hit hard in the conference center filled with thousands of people, which compounded with my hatred of this facet of myself. I broke down sobbing one night towards the end of the week, and one of the adults worked me through it. She and another adult discovered just how bad my depression was as well as my asexuality, though I was still loathe to admit to a specific identity at this point.
The two women outed me to my parents on multiple levels. They revealed my queerness without a label, they told my parents of my near-suicide attempt the February before. I was too good at hiding for my own good. My parents came home from that meeting at the church without a word.
It was months before they confronted me. When they did, it was just Mom asking, “So are you still confused?” I told her myself about my asexuality, and she said nearly nothing. Just, “You know we love you and would never kick you out.” Or something along those lines- my memory gets a little sketchy when I remember stressful events. That was relieving, but that was all she said as well.
It’s been a year and a half since then. I got into therapy thanks to that, so it wasn’t entirely bad. They still haven’t said a word about my being ace.
Since coming to college, I’ve come out a lot more. Anyone I get to know learns of my asexuality as soon as we start talking about boys and girls and relationships and all that stuff.  My new sorority sisters all take it in stride, which makes life a million times easier. They just ask questions, which is no big deal in the slightest. It’s not perfect, but it’s life and a life worth living.

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