‘No one told you that the road you’re headed down will be easy, and yet you decided to set off anyway. You obviously knew you will face many obstacles, and that it may not even end well. So you didn’t just jump in head first, willy-nilly, as if into an empty pool, you calculated the risks.’ It sounds like the magazine ‘Diva’ is telling all the Pisces about their own coming out in the horoscope section. But your own coming out story will always remain a topic no horoscope can prepare you for. Should I tell, should I not? How will my friends and family react, will everything change after this? Will they look at me the same way as before?
You are not a warehouse, you weren’t made to keep all your fears neatly boxed up and shelved, sooner or later your own coming out story will also happen - unless you’re already over it. If you’re facing coming out, you need to remember that you are no more alone than you are while waiting for the subway or in the morning rush.
There are thousands of videos uploaded by thousands of youtubers to help you make this important leap. Here I collected a few of them. All stories are special in their own right, as an outsider you can feel the wringing of hands, the anticipation, the solemnity or, on the other hand, the funny, light-hearted coming out stories. Let’s begin with one of the latter kind:
Virgo Martinez and Cristina Moreno
Virgo and Christina are the duo that would undoubtedly win the ‘how to troll the living daylight outta our own coming out video’ competition by a landslide. Both of them come from devout Catholic families, where things are always black and white. Despite this, after hearing about their positive, funny experiences, you won’t be able to wipe the grin off of your face.
Loren Baldwin
Most of us would agree that it’s not easy to tell our grandmas that we aren’t exactly dying for the opposite gender. They grew up with completely different norms, customs and lifestyles, so no matter how close we are to them, telling them could be the task that makes our palms sweaty and our stomachs churn. Loren Baldwin pulled off coming out to her grandma in a very creative way.
P.S.: if you follow her example, it doesn’t hurt if your granny speaks English.
Willow MacDonald
Willow first appeared in the Canadian run of the reality series ‘Big Brother’, and by now, with her prolific Youtube account, she’s a well known face of social media. Just like many other youtubers, Willow shared her coming out story on her channel to help those in the same boat. Her video is the polar opposite of that of Chris and Virgo - she is someone who had to go through a lot of trials and tribulations until she discovered herself and accepted being a lesbian.
Ever since early childhood she’s witnessed society’s attitude - that being gay was something abominable, something to be condemned. No matter how much she loved her highschool girlfriend, she felt being forcibly separated from her was justified.
No one wants to get to the point where they feel that since the world will never change, they themselves must. That they bury their feelings inside themselves as deep as possible. That they start dating boys, but never understand those who talk about all-consuming love or butterflies in their stomachs.
At last even in Willow’s life came a moment when she had to realise that things were not the way she thought them to be. No matter how hard she tried to suppress her feelings, during the runtime of the Canadian Big Brother she fell in love with fellow contestant Sarah. You can find an excerpt from the show - and a proof of how good a kisser Willow is - HERE.
Finally Willow overcame her fears, moved out of her hometown, and today she lives happily with her girlfriend in Vancouver. She has just one advice to share: give yourself time!
Melshary Love-Arias
The happy mum of 39 years uploaded her coming out video to her channel five years ago. She was 16 when she first told a friend that she liked girls. And there came the sentence nobody wants to hear from their best friend: ‘That’s fine, but let’s not talk about this again.’ The only thing worse than hearing that is if you actually take it to heart. Melshary did so and started to date boys, despite feeling like it was all an enormous joke. Finally love found her at the age of 20, and by then she knew what to do, despite society’s negative attitude.
Bobbi Jo Stalnaker
Bobbi, the young graphic artist and youtuber also comes from a deeply religious family. At first she had no idea she liked girls, but in high school she fell in love with a lesbian and her whole world turned upside down. When her family got wind of this they took her out of school, forbade her to see the girl and took her phone away.
What Bobbi shared with us was her fiends’ positive reaction and the eventual coming around of her mother rather than the harder years after leaving school. Nowadays she lives in California with her girlfriend.
There are countless people and situations, everyone reacts differently, after all, we all live in different cultures and were brought up by different principles. You’ll never get the same answer, there’s no clear-cut way to predict how your loved ones will react. They could be deeply religious, old or young, you don’t know in advance what will happen. But the important thing is: you aren’t doing this for them. You are doing this for yourself, so when you come home from school, from college, from work or anywhere else you don’t have to be anyone but yourself.
Translated by Zsófia Ziaja
