My Coming-Out Q&A (Part 2)

In a recent post, I imitated the senior project of the high school student who interviewed the life stories of several gay people. I was inspired by the documentary, and decided to do a similar thing myself.

To recap, I previously answered these questions about myself: How old were you when you first came out? Did you always accept yourself [as a gay man]? What was the reaction of those around you? Have you ever been personally victimized or abused for being gay? What is hetero-normative society? What advice would you give to anyone who was debating about whether or not to come out as gay?

This time, I will be focusing more on the questions regarding my own perception or subjective understanding of my homosexuality. This post will be about my relation to my homosexuality itself, rather than about my relationships with others. I hope it will be just as insightful for you as before.

So without further ado, here it goes:

The Narnia Inside My Closet: Part 3

< Part 1  |  Part 2 >

In my first two posts, I wrote about my life growing up. I was a gay teenager who did not know how to process the fact that I was gay. The fact that I did not know anyone else around me who knew what I was going through put me even further into a rut.

The whole situation was actually quite simple: underlying my whole rejection of my own attraction to boys was my faith.

The Narnia Inside My Closet: Part 1

< Part 2  |  Part 3 >

When someone starts to openly tell other people that he or she is gay, it is typically said that they are “coming out of the closet”—or simply “coming out.” I have never liked this analogy. To me, it implies you were hiding something, as if you knew who you were all along.

But for me, it was not that simple. Telling other people I was gay was not a “coming out”; for me, it was a “coming-of-age.”