tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5043107720628785237.post151853347542673763..comments2023-11-29T16:14:57.804-06:00Comments on Both Saint and Cynic: Coming OutBrant Clementshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16593149504013469895noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5043107720628785237.post-43096237495430420752014-02-17T22:55:38.479-06:002014-02-17T22:55:38.479-06:00Hi. I'm one of Brant's friends and I am qu...Hi. I'm one of Brant's friends and I am queer, mostly closeted. <br /><br />So, here's my biggest struggle lately as someone who's somewhere in the process of coming out but who's a lot closer to the closet than the light of day. I'm nowhere near ready to come out to anybody whose positive reaction I cannot reasonably predict, which means I'll be avoiding the assholes for the foreseeable future.<br /><br />Which also means I'll be hanging out with non-assholes for the foreseeable future. Here some classification is in order. There are straight people whose positive reaction I can reasonably predict. That'd be a very small group of close friends with whom I am most comfortable conversing about my evolving understanding of my identity and how I will ultimately choose to express that identity. Then there are the people who identify as some variety of LGBTQIAAetc. So far the number of people in this classification to whom I have revealed my identity struggles is one. She is both an awesome person and a great friend.<br /><br />Still, I am close to petrified to be in her presence. I just feel like I'm not worthy. She has learned from the school of hard knocks. She came out to her fundamentalist parents after years of worrying about their reaction, just to cite one example. I know how worried I was for her, I can't even imagine how she must've felt, and I'm even less able to imagine that being but one of many trying times. <br /><br />I guess I don't feel worthy of equating my struggles with those of people like her who have taken those punches and learned to roll with them. They've taken them because they had to, because there are assholes in the world who insist on throwing them. They roll with them because the only other option is to hunker down and hide, which is no way to live, which is still exactly where I'm at. <br /><br />My problem, as I am able to understand it, is that exclusion and assholery have created the perception in my mind of a club of LGBT insiders who have taken the hits and kept their heads up. I don't feel like I belong in that club. I guess I don't have enough queer cred, at least in my own mind. At this point in my life this is what's most holding me back from figuring myself out and letting others know what I've discovered. I just can't get past the automatic assumption that I'll never fit in with the rest of the club. That, and I'm not very fond of punches, not even the metaphorical ones.<br /><br />Hence my hope for the yawning. My hope is that when the world yawns the need for the exclusivity, whether real or, more likely, imagined, of the group of folks who've taken the punches will have disappeared because no more, or at least very few, punches will be thrown. I hope that people who find themselves "figuring things out" won't feel awkward around those who would be most helpful to them because they perceive themselves as inadequate or lacking queer cred. What I hope for most is that soon the only cred that will matter will be human cred, i.e. if you're human you fit in with the rest of the humans. All of them. The queer ones and the straight ones. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com