The Fear of Coming Out

So there's this guy who blogs about being the single father of an adopted child. I read something by him once, probably a post titled "I'm Christian, Unless You're Gay," but I don't really follow him. Then I saw that he had come out as bisexual and I decided to read his coming-out post.

You see, I’ve never wanted to be anything other than straight. Since I was eleven years old, I’ve been desperate to only be attracted to those of the opposite sex. I’ve masked and obscured any feeling I’ve ever felt that threatened my place within the realm of what I’ve been coached is both normal and acceptable.

Much of what he says resonates with me. For example, he started his blog, which is fairly popular, after his second wife left him because she thought he was gay:

I started this blog as a way to save myself from myself. As a way to force myself to laugh again. As a way to maintain some sort of normalcy. And yes, even as a way to protect me from ever having to be anything other than straight.

I started my first blog shortly after coming out to myself as trans. At that time I had no intention of ever telling anyone else. I wasn't scared exactly, but looking back now I think it's significant that I started writing again around that time. It was a time for new beginnings. (I didn't start writing my trans blog until three years later.)

When Dan Pearce wrote his "I'm Christian, Unless You're Gay" post, he said in it that he was not gay.

I certainly wasn’t lying to you. To lie, a person has to both know and believe a truth and then present it contrarily. I didn’t know and believe the truth. Not yet. In 32 years, I hadn’t even once been able to allow myself a truly open and honest thought about it all.

Now he's afraid that people will treat him differently. That his sister will no longer let him be alone with her children. That his parents will reject him. He knows his life will never be the same. I want to tell him that after the first shock, he'll discover that he's the same person he always was. That anything is better than living a lie - and he knows that, otherwise he wouldn't have come out. I can't tell him that everything will be all right. But it will be better.