Twenty-two days 'til Thirty...This post is so gay...

Ok.  Here's the obligatory gay post.  I wasn't going to write a post that was LGBT themed but rather have the topic intertwined throughout each entry (as it has been thus far), but with everything going on in the news and such landmark decisions being made soon, I just couldn't NOT write about it.  The only reason I wasn't going to write about it exclusively in one post is because, while my identity as a gay man is a huge part of my life, I don't like it when people use it to define me.  In fact, I would much rather you say "my musician-friend Cory" rather than "my gay-friend Cory."  It has nothing to do with being ashamed of who I am...I've long since passed that phase.  I just think there are much cooler things to define me with.  For example:  My super sarcastic friend Cory; My incredibly hilarious friend Cory; My strikingly handsome friend Cory; My friend Cory, he's super good at not speeding;  My friend Cory, he is sometimes pretty good at pool;  My friend Cory, he can walk really fast;  You get the picture.

Full disclosure:  I just stopped writing for about 45 minutes to take a milkshake break.  Now back to our regularly scheduled show...

I came out on November 3, 2002 during my sophomore year of college. At the time, I came out to one person and I said I was bi-sexual. That lasted about 24 hours before I was like "Nope, not attracted to girls at all." I then dated that person for almost two years.

I was extremely fortunate in my coming-out process as it was pretty uneventful. And by uneventful, I mean I really didn't get many negative reactions from friends or family.  I agonized over how to tell my parents.  I put it off for a while and many of my friends in college knew and I had been dating my then boyfriend for a few weeks and it felt wrong to not tell them.  Ultimately, I decided to write them a letter.  It was actually kind of a scaredy-cat move on my part because I didn't want an instant reaction from them.  I'll tell ya though...when I put that letter in the mailbox, I probably stood staring at the mailbox for a good 10 minutes having a panic attack.  That was it...they would know in a few days and I had no idea what to expect.  I was actually in my boyfriend's car, on the way to meet his family, when my mom called me.  Heart thumping in my throat, my boyfriend holding my hand, I answered the phone.  This is how the conversation went:

Me:  Hello?
Mom:  Hey Sweetie.
Me:  Hey Mom.
Mom:  How's it going?
Me:  Pretty good, just going to a friend's house for the weekend...
Mom:  That's fun!  So I got the mail today.
Me:  Oh Yeah?  Anything interesting?
Mom:  Oh honey, I've known since you were four, you have nothing to worry about.

I honestly don't remember much of the conversation after that except for that I asked how Dad was taking it and she said, "Give him a little time, he'll be fine."  And he was.  It was years later that my father thanked me for sending a letter and not forcing him to have an instant reaction, because he thinks he would have regretted his reaction.  He was glad he had time to process and wrap his mind around it. (Also a disclaimer...My mother now claims that she's known since I was two...but she totally said four in that conversation...it is not a conversation that I will forget...so I'm right mother)

From then on, I told people one by one, my parents sharing with family members one by one, and largely the reactions were either "so...what else did you do today?" or "good for him!" or "we still love him just the same."

I really only had two negative reactions in that first year.

1)  It was around room selection time, meaning we were about to pick where we lived on campus the following year, and one of my good friends and I had decided to room together already.  I hadn't told him yet and I figured since I was in a relationship and we were good friends, I should tell him before we room together.  I actually decided to tell him in person.  I went to his room and told him I was gay, I had a boyfriend, and I wanted to give him time to think about that.  He said a non-committal OK, I left his room and went back to mine.  A few hours later, I received an e-mail from him basically saying (very politely) that he just couldn't live with someone who had chosen this life-style and he wouldn't want to feel awkward or ask me not to have my boyfriend over.  It was a pretty big blow as we had been quite close and needless to say, it was the end of our friendship.  I also had no place to live next year.

2) The second negative reaction was surrounded by a whole bunch of positive...like a swiss cake roll.  That cream is just fat and sugar.  Metaphor.  Nailed it.  Anyway, I had another really good friend at the time who still hadn't decided who he was going to room with.  I didn't say anything about the whole gay thing in light of the first situation, but we had also decided much earlier on that year that he and I should have roomed together and his roommate and mine should have roomed together.  In any case, we decided that we were going to live together the following year.  Then I started feeling guilty about not telling him.  My current roommate already knew and was good friends with the potential roommate and was actually really excited to tell him..."Let me tell him! Let me tell him!"  So I said OK and he ran upstairs and told him whilst I sit at my computer anxiously....what did we do on the computer back then?...it wasn't facebook...watched Homestar Runner.  About 10 minutes later, the potential roommate came bursting in my room with a big ol' smile and his arms spread wide for a hug.  He didn't care and all was well.  Well, many weeks later, he had mentioned to his mother that his roommate for the following year was a gay.  She did not like this and told him that if he still chose to room with me, she would not pay for his housing costs.  A huge fight ensued.  But then, he did something that was probably one of the biggest and bravest ways anyone has ever stood up for me in my life...he told his mother that that was OK, and then went out and got a loan to cover the cost of housing himself.  I can't tell you how much that meant to me.  It would have been so easy for him to just tell me that he couldn't room with me.  It wouldn't have been his fault...but he took a stand and paid for his own housing.  Keep in mind, his mother had never met me.  We later had an interaction during the move-in period that was incredibly awkward and uncomfortable, for which they got into another fight.  Many years later, my roommate married his long-term girlfriend and I was in the grooms party.  His mother pulled me aside with tears running down her face apologizing over and over again at how she acted those years before and thanked me for being a friend to her son.  So over all, it ended up really well.

So those were my two main negative reactions and they really weren't all that bad.  I'm not saying it wasn't one of the hardest things I've done in my life, but for so many young people out there, the situation is so much worse.  Children have been disowned, kicked-out, cut-off, and physically abused because of who they are.  Many people are so scared or ashamed that they would rather die than come out and they end their lives.  And guess what?  That's on you, society.

 The LGBT community has made GIGANTIC strides in the past few years.  Being out and open is much easier than it was even 10 years ago and we, as a community, are in a better place than we have ever been.  But there is still so much further to go.  I'm not even talking about marriage equality.

The simple fact of the matter is that the straight majority in this country has no idea what it's like to be gay. Sure, there are a lot of straight allies and people who can sympathize, and I appreciate everything you do, but you still don't know what it's like. The simplest thing, like me walking down the street holding the hand of the person I love, is enough to make people want to jump me and beat the shit out of me. The threat of physical violence is very much a reality. A straight couple kissing goodbye at an airport doesn't think twice about it. Why should they? They don't have to worry about sideways glances, the vile things people say, or again, the threat of violence.

I'm not saying that I walk around everyday worrying I'm going to get beat up, but my actions, especially with a boyfriend or around other gay friends, require awareness, some extra thought, and caution, depending on where we may be.  And that's not something that most of you have to think about at all.

Lately, there have been more and more celebrities, athletes, and musicians coming out.  And that is wonderful!  But also sad that it's still news.  I can't wait for the day that it's really no big deal.

One of the questions I am asked most often is "When did you know?"  It is a harmless question and really comes from a place of curiosity and trying to understand, but it is also kind of a ridiculous question.  I probably knew around the same time you started being attracted to whichever gender you're attracted to.  The real question should be, "When did you realize that people were going to treat you differently?"  I think one thing that a lot of people get confused about is coming-out.  Coming-out isn't when you realize you're gay.  Coming-out is when you make the decision to live your life honestly and let other people in on that.  The fact of the matter is, you are born gay.  It's not nature vs. nurture and it's not a decision.  I don't need science to tell me that because I live it.  I couldn't change myself to be straight anymore than a straight person could change themselves to be gay.

I didn't mean to soapbox so much as explain reflect on my own experiences, but alas, the blog is controlling me now.

To finish up, I acknowledge the great strides we've made in our country around these issues and I can only hope that with the HUGE proposition 8 and DOMA decisions coming out of the Supreme Court soon, that momentum continues.  For those of you whom may not know exactly what those outcomes could mean, here is a pretty great graphic I saw on the interwebs:

Click here to see a larger version.

So yeah, this is a huge friggin' deal.  It has the potential to be another Roe v. Wade or Brown v. Board of Education landmark case that truly makes our country the "Land of the Free." 

That's all for now.  I'll leave you with this Macklemore song:

BYEEEEEE!