Kalyne’s Coming Out Story

I was so pleased when Unite UK reached out to ask about my coming out story, feel free to read along for the journey & the growth.

Where I come from: I was raised in Northern California into an extremely religious household, with firm boundaries, beliefs and shame surrounding sex, sensuality, and desire. My parents taught me that sex before marriage was a sin, the church taught me that having intercourse with more than one sexual partner, was wrong. All the while, homophobia ran deep at the core of my family’s beliefs. 

In having this background, with shame and judgement as major components of my upbringing, a major part of coming out, began with myself. At the time, well over a decade ago, in the small town I was raised in, being openly gay was not something that was commonly witnessed. From the few examples I had, being gay meant dressing masculine, having short hair, and most often… being white.

I didn’t have the language to understand what it was that I was feeling. And even more so, I didn’t know that my attraction was “different”. I assumed all straight women also found other women sexually attractive because “they have beautiful curves, soft skin and lips. And men are square, with scratchy facial hair. Who finds THAT attractive??” conversations I had with myself regularly.

As I began opening up to friends, these same conversations were surprisingly different.

“Kalyne… have you ever thought you might be a lesbian?”

“It sounds like you like women..”

“Are you sure you’re into men?”

“Are you sexually attracted to men?”

Questions I had never thought to ask myself. At the time, I didn’t know there was an option to connect any differently than I had been.

“I had a major crush and didn’t even know it”

One day, all of this changed. I was working in retail at the time, and one of my neighbours walked in through the front doors. She was a tall, muscular, masculine-presenting woman, tattooed neck to feet, with cornrows, and beautiful almond-shaped eyes. I’d caught many glimpses of her before, walking her two pit bulls, and grilling out on her deck. I had a major crush and didn’t even know it. 

I built the courage to ask her over one evening to chill & listen to some music. Telling her at one point in the night that “I’m straight, so don’t even think about trying to ‘flip’ me.” A few days later, I found myself at her place, sitting closely on the couch, avoiding direct eye contact with her all night until she finally asked, “Can I kiss you?” I said yes… and was immediately ruined lol.

I was 21 going on 22, she was a grown woman, nearly 10 years my senior, who’d been in serious relationships with women all her life. She had a secure career path and a life full of experiences I’d never had. It was a short-lived whirlwind of a dating experience, but it changed me and my life as I knew it. 

By this time my friends began falling away one by one. They no longer felt comfortable changing in front of me or sharing beds, hugs became awkward. My guy friends eventually lost interest. In many ways, this was a period of my life where I began questioning if coming out was for me… my interest in the same-sex seemed to be ripping everything that I loved away from me, and I hadn’t even glanced towards the conversation I knew I would have to have with my family. As I knew that being gay, risked the very strong possibility of being completely disowned by them. 

As I ventured deeper into this very new world, I began getting honest about the ways I was attempting to show or “prove” that I was gay, in hopes of being seen & accepted. All I knew was that I was attracted to women who my friends said, “looked like dudes” and what I saw in hetero relationships, was that I was supposed to be feminine. 

“My way of existing was not wrong”

As I grew more confident in my sexuality and spent more time in the Bay Area of California and also around more queer & BIPOC, I began to relearn that my way of existing was not “wrong”. I began to see how I didn’t have to be masculine, or have a buzzed cut, to be gay. I sighed in relief when I began to see that there were many ways of showing up in this identity that didn’t have to include wearing rainbow clothing.

Most importantly, I began learning that I didn’t have to be attracted to one kind of person, that I also didn’t have to look and dress in only one way, that having sex didn’t have to look one particular way, and how love, took many shapes and forms within my beautiful new community.

In many ways, coming out to myself, was like coming home for the very first time in my life. But this home was a place where I was fully, and unconditionally accepted. I was fully seen and celebrated, I was understood, I had room and freedom to show up completely and authentically in ways I had never experienced in the first 21 years of my life.

I was deep in my joy during this part of life in this new freedom of expression. The beautiful partnerships, the love and acceptance all helped me muster the strength to begin coming out to my closest friends, who all responded that they “already knew” … the most anticlimactic let-down. I’m still waiting for my coming-out party they never threw because apparently, it was no surprise to them at all lol.

While living deeply in my joy, there was still this lingering fear of coming out to my family. While I had long since left the church, I still couldn’t quite swallow the possibility of no longer having them in my life.

It took two long term relationships to finally sit down with my brother, who was my best friend growing up. He sat there quietly and attentively as I began to unfold my truth, with my head hanging low. I’ll never forget how gentle and attentive he was as he told me that nothing could ever change our bond. “You’re my sister, and you always will be, no matter what. I’ll always love you.” To this day, he has continued to show me that he truly meant that.

I tackled coming out to my dad next, who was no longer a part of the church at the time. I’d planned a trip to visit him in Texas with my “best friend”, who of course was actually my partner of one year. She and I came home from a Michelle Ndegeocello concert our first night there, and my Dad pulled me aside to have a beer with him out on the back porch. Not even 30 seconds went by before he said, “Suga, you’re gay! that’s your girlfriend!”

We spent the rest of the night talking until 2 o’clock in the morning about why I was a lesbian. Everything. From my background with having sex with men to orgasms and affection. It was the most awkward, and also the most healing conversation I’ve ever had with him to this day.

Coming out to my mom looked quite a bit different. She was and still is to this day, an extremely devout Jehovah’s Witness, who lives her life in full dedication to the religion. A woman who waited until marriage to have sex and has to this day only had sex with one man. A commonality she shares with many within my family.

I remember crying so hard I could barely speak, yet somehow, she made out what I was saying. She told me in her soft-spoken and soothing way, “Honey… oh, sweetie.. I still love you..” between each sob. It was the most ‘don’t ask don’t tell’ kind of coming out I’ve ever experienced, but it was more than I could have ever expected.

I live my life in a way that is in complete defiance of everything she is taught in her religion, and she lives and practices a religion that shames me and those within my community. We are polar opposites in so many ways yet, we somehow still have love for one another. 

“where I come from, is so far from who I am today”

Both her and my father and many of my family members still hope that I will “come back to the true religion someday” and “find a handsome man to marry”. It’s safe to say that where I come from, is so far from who I am today, but if there is anything that I could hope someone will take away from the sharing of my story, it would be that it is worth the loss of any friend, it is worth the loss of tears and fear of coming out.

Because in the end everything you will be left with, is any and everyone who is meant to be in your life who will hold you, and encourage you to be exactly who you are, fully and authentically. You may lose people along the way, but you will meet those who will love you in a capacity you could never imagine.

Our community is expansive, it is authentic, loving and accepting in all the ways we desire family to be and we are just that- family, to each other in ways of this unbreakable bond of unique love, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

Coming out has allowed me to live, show up and continue to express myself in the most true and authentic expression of who I am. Fear is no longer the driver controlling my self-expression. And I can honestly say that coming out, is the reason for it.

A journey I will never take for granted.

Thank you, Unite UK for inspiring the sharing of this unfolding of my story

Coming out stories