In honor of
National Coming Out Day
, Keshet will be sharing and celebrating coming out stories throughout the month of October. If you have a story you’d like to share,
let us know
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It was ingrained in me since birth by my Jewish mother that my purpose in life was to bear her grandchildren. I once read that 60% of gay siblings have similar DNA on chromosomes number 6, 7, and 8. These two were related issues for me.
When I was about to leave for college, my younger brother, Brett, told me he was gay. He did it via instant message from eleven feet away, in his bedroom, on the same floor, in the same house. He had asked me how I would feel if he told me he liked guys. I rolled my eyes because I thought he was just trying to get a rise out of me. Or maybe he had heard the rumors at our very small Christian high school about me having a girlfriend? I shut my computer and walked into his room. I looked at his trophy case, holding awards and medals from weightlifting state championships, baseball, football MVP plaques, confused. Then, I realized he wasn’t kidding.
“What is mom going to do when she finds out both of her kids are queer?” I asked with a twisted smile. He apparently hadn’t heard the rumors about me, after all, and he was just as floored.
I felt I should take this information with me to the grave. I already knew what my mother’s reaction would be, since I put the feelers out about the situation when I was Brett’s age. I had tried coming out, but returned to the closet and hid behind the winter coats because my mom practically guilted me back in with talk about how life would be terrible without grandchildren.
When I went away to college, Brett visited me and began to date one of my best friends: his first gay relationship. He wanted to be “out,” he wanted to have a boyfriend, and he wanted my mother to know—in that order. Furthermore, he asked me break the news for him when I came home for winter break that December.
“No way, Brett.”
“I need to be honest!” he squeaked. He was wearing a T-shirt with the sleeves cut off and basketball shorts with our high school’s mascot emblazoned on the lower left leg. “Just tell her when I leave for the gym.” I couldn’t believe this was happening.
“No, I can’t come out for you,” I finally said. “She’ll cry. She’ll scream at me about her lack of future grandchildren. I don’t want to deal with this. It’s not fair.”
“Sara, come on,” He just kept badgering. This went on for ten minutes. I had yearned for the days when we all argued about was who would get the front seat in the car or who got to be the Ninja Turtle with the bow-staff when we were playing. He didn’t get it. I finally agreed to spill the beans.
I bounded down the stairs and into our home gym, where my mom was on her steady 10 incline on the treadmill, whatever that meant, and watching “All My Children” or “The View” or maybe both, on different channels, and looked like she didn’t want to be bothered. She looked like she was busy trying to save the world, 500 calories at a time. I told her to come upstairs when she was finished because we needed to talk.
I walked up to my room, debating my delivery. She was upstairs within three minutes. I told her to sit down. She looked nervous and disheveled. Her straight blonde hair was pulled up out of her face in a high ponytail and she was still breathing hard from her work out. I wanted to tell her to not sit on my bed because she was going to sweat on it, but figured I’d let it slide.
“Mom,” I started. “I don’t know why I am telling you this. And I don’t know why he wanted me, of all people, to tell you, but…” I hesitated. The look on her face was killing me.
“But what?”
“Um. Brett’s gay?” It came out sounding more like a question than a statement.
“That’s funny, Sara. What did you really have to tell me?”
I blinked, unsure what to say. Why didn’t she believe me? Because he always had a girlfriend? Maybe it was because he was the captain of the football team and a wrestling and baseball star.
“No, Mom. That was it. Really.” As if on cue, it started to pour outside, the rain streaked down the glass like tears. Then she started to cry. She cried about him being on the football team, and his girlfriend Jessica, and how he had such big muscles, and how it couldn’t have been true, and then there it was: “And I’m never going to have grandchildren! Brett’s gay now and you’ll never have kids!”
I wanted to tell her then that my disinterest in children had more to do with the actual act of reproduction, but figured that would be a conversation saved for a better time. I also didn’t want to be too political by talking about how gay adoption was going to be up-and-coming—it was 2003 after all. Besides, we were still teenagers, what did it matter? I brought up PFLAG, and statistics on homosexuality, not mentioning the bit about siblings because I was still not out to her.
At that point, wasn’t sure if I ever would be. She bombarded me with questions. Was this because she and my father got divorced a few years prior? Did I know if Brett was ever molested? How could this happen to her? I didn’t have any of the answers, but I was sure most of them were, “No.” I didn’t understand what she meant by “happening to her.”
After fifteen minutes of me trying to be the good daughter, comforting her, and sitting there awkwardly, as she cried, she got up. Walked to the door. Opened it to leave. Stood in the door frame for a moment. There was a loaded pause.
Then she turned around and said, “I always thought it was going to be you.”
After I came out for my brother, it took me two more years for me to tell her I was gay too. She caught me in the middle of a crisis break-up and I spilled everything, confessing the (not so) secret relationships I’d had.
She calmed me down and said, “I love you no matter who you’re with, it’s okay.”
I asked her why she had freaked out about Brett so badly, but not me.
“He was a surprise,” she said. “You, not so much.” There is still talk about grandchildren every now and then, but I think she’s starting to get it.
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