Earlier, I’ve posted two sections on how I first came out to myself and to my closest friends. Now, I’m going to move forward a bit in time and discuss how I ended up first coming out to my parents.
When I first was out, I was living in Chicago. I was newly divorced and dating Katy, as I’ve said before. We dated for about a year; she moved in with me fairly early on. We were quite close; she’s still, I’d say, my closest friend whom I’m not related to. We’d gone to Europe together on vacation, backpacked across Poland, sat up a hundred nights together …
But we woke up one day and had the conversation; we weren’t head over heels in love anymore and we both had reason for going our separate ways. Katy was going to go back to school in another state and I wasn’t sure that I wanted to spend my life just yet following someone around. I had gone straight from my father’s house to my husband’s and as fast as I was divorced, I’d fallen into Katy’s arms. And never had I had the experience of really being on my own, figuring out who I was, where I was in life and what I wanted.
Long story short, we broke up. I sold my condo and found a job in Atlanta (doing translations and paperwork for an international, sharia compliant financial group), moved back to Georgia …. And briefly stayed in my parents’ house while finding a place of my own. I reconnected myself to my family and my community; at first, I thought maybe I would go back into the closet but …
Well, I did date though I did keep things quiet. Atlanta, I discovered, was a great place to be young (ish) and queer. I met quite a few women and went on quite a few first dates and even some second ones and thirds. But nothing was ever serious enough to really have dating life intersect with either work or family or religion. I kept things in separate spheres as much as I could.
But I also got rather fed up with the office politics at work; I was essentially helping people who were rich get richer. There needed to be more to life than that. I thought about going back to school. Seminary? Graduate work in history? Or, perhaps, something else.
One day, I found myself in conversation with a woman I’d met who must have presumed I was 100% Anglo. She started complaining about how ‘those people’ up on Buford Highway came here and never, ever even tried to learn English. Why did they expect that ‘we’ should learn Spanish (though I think she called it Mexican) instead of them learning English?
I nodded. Well, I pointed out, thinking myself absurdly clever, most of ‘them’ work really hard and have little time or money to spare but I bet if you feel so strongly, they’d probably be happy to have you teach them.
I did succeed in shutting her up (and cutting short any flicker of attraction, needless to say) but I also started thinking … maybe I should do that myself. So, I looked up some ESL (English as a Second Language) programs and tried to get a job.
I didn’t right off but I did get a small part time thing as a sort of glorified volunteer at an ESL school … and one day, the guy who usually sat at the front desk had to leave for the dentist and I was asked to cover for him. And that’s when She walked in.
Gorgeous, knockout, my heart raced when she did. I offered her my hand in greeting; we shook hands for what seemed like forever and electricity went up my arm. Anna, as she introduced herself, had seen the sign outside offering accent reduction classes; she had a bit of a remnant of her Bulgarian accent and wanted to lose that … I told her I could find out more about getting her a tutor and so on and so forth and so it went … and in conversation somehow we’d agreed to meet up later to discuss things at a coffee place in Cabbagetown …
And needless to say, we ended up dating very very quickly. I moved in with her (she owned a house where she painted) and we were very much head over heels. Life was good. She met my parents though we pretended we were roommates and that the guest room was my room. They liked her well enough it seemed; she would usually come out with me to the suburbs for family dinners and holidays and such.
And we talked about having a life together … maybe a civil union or whatnot, a formal thing.
I said, you know, though, if you want that, you’ll have to ask for my hand.
Not because she legally had to; I was divorced so in theory I could make my own choices; but because that was what I’d like, even if it seemed deeply unrealistic.
And first I’d need to tell my parents that I was queer.
That was, I thought, the hardest part of the whole business. They’d be shocked, angry, disappointed. My dad would scream and yell, my mother would cry. They’d disown me. Right?
At least that was what I expected. But I also knew I couldn’t lead a double life forever. I’d come out earlier to my cousin Rania (I’ve blogged about that) without any change in our friendship and I’d also come out to my brother (I haven’t; I’d lived with him just before moving in with Anna and, when we’d agreed, I’d come out to him. He was quite cool and quite unshocked with the whole thing. I guess living with your lesbian big sister seemed a lot cooler than living with your hopelessly geeky sister).
So, I sat down with them to ask how to approach it. Should I just blurt things out, should I have Anna present, should I try to walk things through? We thought of different scenarios: dad too angry to speak, wanting to ship me to Damascus forthwith, mom asking what she’d done wrong … and they came up with ideas to soften the landing. “Point out how much easier it will be for them when they’re old to have a queer daughter,” Amr said and Rania added, “Ask them if they’d rather have you sleeping with a lot of men than a few women …”
And on and on.
So the day came when I’d tell them. Anna came with me; she’s super handy and she offered to plant a tree in their yard for them. While she was busy, I sat at the table with both my parents and, biting my lips, said, there’s something I think we need to talk about.
Yes? Says my father. MY mother looks expectant.
Well the thing is, I begin, you see, it’s like this, well …
I sometimes stutter when I’m nervous and I feel it coming on as bad as ever … and they’re both watching me, waiting for me to say my piece …
I grit down my teeth, swallow hard, try not to hyperventilate.
“I’m gay!” I blurt out.
And they are still looking at me expectantly. Like they are waiting on an announcement, not like I’ve just said something I’ve waited half a lifetime (at least) to say.
“And?” my mother says at last.
“That was it,” I say in a small voice. “You aren’t upset or shocked?”
My dad laughs. My mom shakes her head.
“We’ve known a long time,” she says.
“Really?” I wonder. “Who told you?”
“We’re not stupid,” mom explains. “Anna’s your girlfriend, right?”
“Yes,” I nod. “How did you know?”
“Let’s see,” she says, “do roommates come to family dinners and holidays? Remember, you brought her for Eid … “
“And how many roommates just drive a pickup truck with those stickers?” my dad gestures towards Anna’s truck outside. Yeah, I realize, it is the dyke-mobile and Anna is so obviously the butchier of the two of us … and only a fool wouldn’t have picked up that we were a couple and only a bigger fool would have thought we were fooling anyone.
“How long have you known?” I ask.
They look at each other. “1990?” my mom offers.
“Before that, I think,” my dad says.
“But I didn’t know!” I say. And they both laugh. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
And my mom explains that they tried but I always changed the subject. “And then when you got married, I thought maybe we were wrong. And I did overhear you and Hisham when you came to visit and was sure I was wrong.”
I’m blushing bright red at that … but the whole thing was so much bigger in my mind, I realize, than it was for anyone else. They assumed I was … so the reveal meant nothing other than for me. I was prepared for broken dishes, shouting, curses, anything … that’s why I’d brought Anna with me, in case things went crazy …
And I also realized that, even though I knew my own family and knew that my parents loved me, I’d internalized a lot of the hatred that passes for discourse in the US, all those tales of how the wicked evil Arab father is going to kill his children, how Muslims hate and nothing else …. And even though I’d known it was as much lies as anything ever printed in the pages of der Sturmer, one can’t help but take it in.
Parents are parents and people are people and I’m lucky to have a great family. That’s all there is to it.
3 comments:
Your folks are amazing. When my daughter was late teens-early 20's I took in a number of her friends whose parents could not deal with them being gay or even just questioning. I was always happy when things calmed down and they could go home, and saddened when it was obvious they could never go home. Those who were sorting things out I listened to, and tried to never judge. I became an ordained minister to be able to marry a couple of my gay children. I have been blessed to have them in my life; I am so pleased your folks feel the same way about you. Blessed Be
It just goes to show that sometimes religion does not have to get in the way with how parents love their children and what they will accept.
You know, when I came out to my Syrian parents, there was a lot of drama. They thought it was some kind of disease, there were lots of hysterics and even pressure to get "therapy". My Muslim parents even attended meetings of some crazy anti-gay Catholic group which, near as I can figure, would get together every week for an hour and complain about their gay friends and relatives. My relations with my parents were really strained for about a year -- I just stayed away.
Then my Mom had to have heart surgery (successful, al-hamdillah), and I think everything came into perspective after that. I was the dutiful son at her bedside. Afterward, my parents made a surprise visit, to meet my partner (who is the sweetest guy).
I won't say that my parents are thrilled about having a gay son (and my sister is still completely hostile -- but she has all sorts of "issues", so I don't really take it personally). Last fall, when my partner and I got married (in Washington DC, where we live), my parents came to the wedding. I am their son and they were going to be there. My friends were very proud of them, and I guess it was proof that their love is unconditional.
After you are done bringing democracy to Syria, I hope you get married too!
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