I didn’t come out again this weekend. I defended people who do. I’m not really in the closet. Everyone who matters and most of the people online know I’m not straight. I wonder if they believe me sometimes, since I don’t date anyone. I sometimes even question myself if coming out really mattered at all.
But he just wants people to stay quiet.
“What does it matter if you’re gay or straight or trans or asexual? People only come out for attention.”
That burned. I know why people come out. Because you can’t stay hidden. What if you couldn’t tell people you were religious or a doctor or American or blonde. What if those not insignificant but still rather everyday things had to be silenced.
But I didn’t come out. I just said most people I know didn’t come out for attention. They didn’t even want attention. They just wanted to be seen. And let others know they aren’t alone.
How I could I say I was alone.
Who knows how to deal with a progressive, quiet, stubborn, celibate, single, horny, bisexual, mostly Mormon, definitely good girl? Not him. He’s just my brother’s roommate. My sister’s friend. A conservative LDS boy who still lives in BYU housing. So I pretended I’m not talking about me. I pretend my friends trust me, which I guess the few of them do. I pretend they’re how I know why people come out. But mostly it’s because I know. Because I’m alone.
I’m alone in the closet because I feel like the closet is the only space that exists for people who don’t know. People who just want to figure out where they belong, but still cling to the bits of faith they cherished as youth. People looking for a place to fit, but not have to give up the elements that made them. People like me. A woman, lost but finding.
