Hieemeras’ Coming Out Story

The coming out story… there’s so many of them. One may ask why? Why so many, why do we have to come out, why is it called a “coming out”. It almost sounds like we are hiding… well, one would know that throughout history the precious was very often hidden. Us – precious – have the courage, anger, despair, freedom to come out to the world and tell our story. Today this coming out story will be told by Hieemeras (read Chimera) – a young Ukrainian, gay Drag Queen living in Poland.

Growing up in a small Ukrainian village with a population of 6,000 citizens you would imagine that it was clearly too small of a stage for a young queer boy – I didn’t know it back then. At the time I was not aware of my queerness but what I knew was that I didn’t fit it. For various reasons – too loud, too visible, too flamboyant, too fashionable (that I was proud of) or too brave to sing Rihanna – Please Don’t Stop the Music on a school karaoke night in 5th grade, too daring to wear a classic beige Burberry trench coat with black buttons and hard collar. Yes, I know you are asking yourself what’s wrong with it. Let me remind you we are talking about the 2000s in Ukraine, small-ass village. (Just so we are on the same page, long BEIGE trench coats were reserved only for women).

A boy doing anything that other boys didn’t do was automatically thrown into the gay box: playing with barbies, hanging out with the girls, wearing anything but black, painting and acting were some of my interests that many boys didn’t share with me. It’s funny looking back at it now and seeing how the adults were explaining it to fit their story: “oh he’s being creative”, “oh, he must be “macho”, he spends so much time with girls they clearly like him”.

Being a kid, I definitely believed that narrative since I understood that I’m growing up in a society that expects me to be strong, sporty and tough to fit the image of a masculine man. I, one may say, mixed business with pleasure – doing my thing but also being active in sports and manly interests in order to live up to what was expected of me and to not disrespect my parents.

My parents… they were doctors. No one dared to disrespect them, not even me. I knew the expectations that were passed on me by the generations of doctors. I knew how to behave, what to say and what not to say. I also knew I could do anything at school without any consequences because the reputation of my parents would cover for it. Consequently, no one dared to address me the wrong way directly, but behind my back, I knew they were always whispering how gay I am. That turned me into being more conscious about my actions, behaviour and hobbies. I had to live up to the expectations of “an ideal son of a family of doctors”.

“Doesn’t anyone just want to fit in?”

This would be the beginning of my acting career. I had to learn to hide my interest in boys, in female clothing, in the very beautiful 8-inch heels on a platform with tight-fitting that my mom had and in my artistic self. I was so invested into it that I’ve forgotten who I was. Puberty hit and the sexual desires started to develop. I knew that living in this village I would never be able to openly be gay. I knew I couldn’t talk about this to my conservative parents so what I did was tried to “convert myself back onto the right path”. Doesn’t anyone just want to fit in? That was, for example, trying to have a girlfriend or only watching straight porn (that was a tough one).

I felt pressured to fit the norm because I understood that being unfit equalled being denied by society. Of course, this all did not work – I ended up changing the strategy and realised that this will never be my home which is why my ultimate goal was to move out to finally be free. That happened at the age of 17 when I decided to move to Warsaw. The capital of Poland for me became the capital of adult life, sexual growth, personal development and allowed me to accept myself, understand myself and finally come out for myself first. It was scary to ADMIT to myself that I am gay, then admit it at uni and work. I realised how toxic normalisation grew deeply into me throughout my life in Ukraine. But I made it through for myself so the next step was to share this with my parents.

My mom was very involved in my life given the fact that I moved to a different country so early. Always asking “where”, “when”, “how”, “who with” – and for her, it was always “pic or didn’t happen”. It felt like I was in Big Brother or more like Big Mother. Again, a conservative dynasty of doctors who all their life believed their son was just “very artistic”. I was so artistic I even made up a girlfriend. My made-up girlfriend (in fact my flatmate) didn’t last too long. Afterall I felt bad lying to my mom which is why at the age of 20 I made a grown-up decision to formalise things with her.

It was a nice day after a long walk on the beach, the sun was setting, we sat on a warm blanket and talked about love. Me and my mom were close which is why talking about love, sexual experiences, and all the taboo topics one may think was a problem to talk about to their parents, was not the case here. She was listing her romantic experiences, talking about both good and bad and she finished with a sentence “You know son, love is blind”.

I felt the opportunity, the momentum, the bridge to say “if love is blind – what do you think about same-sex love”? She went ahead to say “well, I don’t know nothing about it, never met a homosexual before, but I know it exists”. This was met with a solid 40 seconds of silence. What broke that silence was her question “Why do you ask – are you gay?”. She asked, laughing about it and without any idea to hear the answer “Yes”.

“a gay son was not connected with anything she expected of my life”

She was shocked, she couldn’t believe it that her son she loves so much is gay. Because gay in Ukraine is connected with everything bad but more so because “a gay son” was NOT connected with anything she expected of my life. That is wife, children, household, family, all the goodie goods a true man needs to achieve in his life. She said, “stop joking”. I said, “I’m not joking bitch” – jk, I said, “when one asks, one shall receive the answer”. She couldn’t believe it although she confessed, she read the letters (yes letters, some people do write them) from my first boyfriend (these were explicit). I was shocked she didn’t believe me after reading it but she dismissed it as “silly jokes of a youthful friendship”. The delusion, the disbelief – can you imagine such a thing 😀

We spent another 2h talking about how she will not be able to meet my girlfriend, invite half of the village to my wedding, hold my son or daughter, clean my villa in the south of Italy once she gets old where I will live with my dearly beloved family (this is still the plan). How she will look like in the eyes of her friends and co-workers, how the whole village will be gossiping about how ideal dynasty of doctors fucked up with a gay son. It seemed like everything revolved around her.

Her first questions were “What about your wife”, “what are we going to tell your father”, “what will people think”, “maybe it’s a phase”,”how long do you know it”,”maybe you haven’t had a good enough girl”, “why didn’t you tell me as a kid”, “can we fix you”? She started blaming herself, because when I was in the womb she wanted a daughter, because she allowed me to play with barbies, because she didn’t spend enough time home.

“I realised how important it is to come out once one is ready, comfortable with themself and accepting of their true self”

Funny how in that moment she never thought about how I felt growing up in a homophobic village hiding my true self and questioning my beliefs every step of the way. That is exactly why I didn’t come out as a teenager – I knew they wouldn’t understand which is why in that moment I realised how important it is to come out once one is ready, comfortable with themself and accepting of their true self.

I knew she was a loving mother and would never deny me and I was prepared for everything but the questions I heard, the comments she said… I mean she wanted to exorcise me. Having a well-defined world view and being fed up with ignorance and close-mindedness of my mother I knew I had to be tough with her which is why I made an ultimatum “You either stop the bullshit and accept me as I am or you don’t have a son”. I knew that was the only way to stop the nonsense as she wouldn’t listen to my words but she would listen to her heart.

It took a while… with many conversations, with much support and materials from local organisations, with anonymous meetings with “moms of gays” and obviously with prayers (she needed it) she made the right choice. We are now shopping together like we used to. When I bring two dresses for her to look at, her first question is “which one is for you and which one is for me?”. Oh, she asks that because that same day I came out as a drag queen as well – her reaction was shocking: “oh you’ve painted that yourself? Uuuuh, is that you? I love it. You got the looks from your momma”. She always knew I was creative…even when she caught me wearing the very beautiful 8-inch heels on a platform with tight fitting.

I guess what I’m trying to say with this story is – be true to yourself, be fearless, be faithful and be out of the closet only when you are ready for it yourself. Hopefully you’ll never have to be in the closet to begin with but if a Burberry trench coat or very beautiful 8-inch heels tempted you to jump in there for your teen years – get out of it only fully dragged 😉

Coming out stories