Many individuals don’t or aren’t able to come out for grand reasons like their safety and survival. So, before I get into my own story, I want to acknowledge my privilege in having a coming out story and being able to tell it. 

I went to a Catholic K-8 private school where self-exploration, outside of the church, wasn’t supported or really an option. I had mass every Wednesday morning as part of the regular school day and was taught my role as God’s child. I remember hearing many, very homophobic sermons given by the priest. “Homosexuals are sinners and will end up in Hell” and “Marriage was to be between a man and a woman like Adam and Eve” …not Eve and Stacy.

I honestly didn’t think too much of it as a young kid, I just went along with it like everyone around me. However, by the time I reached middle school I felt very confused and upset. I remember developing a crush on Britney Spears in the early 2000s and couldn’t quite understand what was happening to me or know how to express it. My friends started talking about their boy crushes and I just couldn’t relate and that’s when I began to feel different.

“Internalized homophobia was ingrained into my mind”

Kids would mutter and make jokes about homosexuality and I would constantly fight against them in disapproval. Internalized homophobia was ingrained into my mind as I was in denial and lying to myself through my whole upbringing.

Whenever we met with the priest to confess our sins I remember biting my tongue like I was keeping a big secret that I didn’t want to tell. I had this warped thought that God wouldn’t follow me into the bathroom, because why would he? I began going to the bathroom and thinking about girls in my grade through a romantic lens and then crying and not wanting to leave because I couldn’t hide my thoughts any longer.

I was worried that God would find out, my school priest and then eventually everybody, and then I would just wind up in Hell. I ended up repressing and bottling up all of these feelings and burying them from everybody, even myself. I kept thinking that these feelings would just go away but they never did.

“I was finally coming out to myself”

I grew up in a conservative town and didn’t have much exposure to other cultures outside of white, cis heteronormativity. I left my hometown pretty soon after High School and that’s when things changed pretty quickly for me. I started to see queer couples and, especially women, being affectionate towards one another in public and it was eye-opening to me. Like my mind was finally yelling at me saying, “Hello?! Wake up!” and that’s when I felt like I was finally coming out to myself.

All of the repressed thoughts and feelings quickly resurfaced but I was in a much more supportive environment now. My actual coming out story is just a huge inward battle with myself and the church I grew up in. My young adult life is when I finally felt like I was able to love freely and without guilt.

Coming out stories