The View From Inside the Closet

*false name used to protect identity

“Who’s the girl? Is she cute? Are you dating her?” Senior Nick Grossenkemper’s just returned from a phone call, and his friend Cade Wright wants to know who with. Nick tries to get Cade to back off, to get back to the video game they’re in the middle of, but Cade keeps pushing. Nick realizes there’s no way he can get out of this.

He’ll have to tell Cade that there’s no girl, that there’s never going to be a girl. He’ll have to tell Cade he’s gay.

Trouble with class. Exams. Grades. The Human Rights Campaign has research that shows that non-LGBT+ teenagers list these things as their biggest problems. But when the HRC asked LGBT+ students the same question, the answers are dramatically different. Not feeling accepted by family. Bullying at school. A fear of coming out.

Coming out: revealing one’s sexuality or gender identity to family, friends or even total strangers. For many LGBT+ young people coming out for the first time is a crucial moment in their lives. Although many are supported by those who love them for who they are, some are met with disbelief, judgement or abuse.

Research from the CDC shows that six out of 10 LGBT+ young people have felt unsafe at school. LGBT+  young people are more than twice as likely to commit suicide than their straight peers. On the other hand, LGBT+ students whose homes and schools are safe and supportive environments report the lowest rates of depression and suicidal thoughts of any student group, including straight students.

Nick was one of these students affected by the worry of what people at school would think. He was 12 when he knew, when he realized why he couldn’t join in with his friends when they talked about girls. But it wasn’t until his junior year that Nick finally mustered up the courage to come out.

For a while he refused to acknowledge his sexuality, as though not thinking about it would make it not true. Throughout middle school he felt distant from everyone else, constantly in fear that someone would find out.

“I knew there was one person in our school who was out and nobody liked him,” Nick said. “So I was just afraid that would happen to me.”

In high school, Nick discovered a forum for LGBT+ teenagers on Reddit, a social-network website. It was full of personal stories, advice and encouragement. Seeing positive stories of coming out gave Nick the resolve to do the same.

Even after he’d made the decision to come out, it took him three weeks to build up the nerve to tell his mother, and even longer to face the prospect of coming out to his friends. Thinking back, it seems silly now. Cade never judged Nick, never questioned him.

“I was so worried,” Nick said. “I had no idea how they would react. But they were all so supportive.”

The fact that his family and friends were there for him helped Nick come to terms with being gay, but he can’t help but think that maybe if he’d grown up knowing that his sexuality was OK, finding acceptance wouldn’t have taken him so long. He wouldn’t have spent five long years afraid to tell anyone who he really was.

“Hi, I’m Maria. Bisexual.” Senior Maria Lawson* introduces herself at East’s Gay Straight Alliance club at the beginning of junior year. Her voice is full of false confidence, trying to cover up her nerves. It’s the first time she’s said her sexuality out loud. For Maria, this was a huge step in affirming her identity.

It hadn’t been until Maria was 15 that it began to dawn on her that when her friends talked about their ‘girl crushes,’ they didn’t mean it in the same way she did.

It took her some time, and a lot of Google searches, to decide that bisexual was definitely what she was, and towards the end of sophomore year she began to identify as such. She was never ashamed of her sexuality, but she was very aware that being bisexual could have a big impact on her life, and the way people saw her.

“I didn’t really realize until the day I introduced myself at GSA how much it killed me keeping such a huge part of myself secret,” Maria said. “I know it’s ridiculously cliche, but I felt really free. It was like a weight off my shoulders.”

She left school that day and considered the possibility of coming out to her parents. Although Maria knew they would be supportive, she worried they wouldn’t take her seriously. She was worried they would consider it a “phase,” and wanted to wait until she had a girlfriend to tell them.

“Thinking back, it was such a screwed up concept,” Maria said. “This idea that my words and feelings weren’t enough, that I had to somehow prove my sexuality.”

She had resolved not to tell them, but then that evening her dad made an offhand statement that changed her mind.

“He said something along the lines of ‘…someday when you have a husband,’” Maria said. “It just made me feel so weird. I hated the idea that only hours before I had felt so comfortable, and now I felt like I had to deny a part of myself to my family. So that night I just pulled myself together and told them.”

Maria hasn’t yet come out to her school friends, and a part of her really wishes that everyone knew, because she doesn’t like the idea of having to hide parts of herself.

Some days she really considers coming out to her school friends, and she’ll feel really ready to do it. But then something will  happen and her resolve will be right back to square one. It’s little things, offhand statements about how bisexual girls are just going through a phase or can’t be trusted not to cheat on their partners.

“People don’t realize the effect of the things they say,” Maria said. “They don’t realize that I’m standing there feeling sick to my stom
ach.”

And for Maria that’s the real struggle, her fear of all the preconceptions and prejudices that come along with her sexuality. She says she wants to be seen as a person, with hobbies and opinions and ambitions, she’s terrified that she’ll be reduced to the bisexual label and nothing more. For the time being she’s just not ready to give up just being a normal kid. She’s not ready to live her life as somebody else’s stereotype.

Freshman Aidan Allison can’t assign himself restrictive labels. In eighth grade Aidan realized that, despite being born a girl, he was not either male or female but both, at different times – an identity known as genderfluid.

Aidan asks people to call him by either male pronouns, he/him/his, or the gender neutral “they” pronoun. He leans more towards male than female, and can often go weeks as a guy only for something to shift. He then spends a few days in what he describes as a “random girly moment.”

Aidan says it’s really hard on days when he is male, because he feels as though this body doesn’t fit who he is. Aidan will wear baggy pants and sweatshirt, binds his chest and contour his face with make up to look more masculine, but it’s not enough.

“ I feel really self conscious,” Aidan said. “Like everyone’s going to look at me and say ‘aren’t you a girl?’ My body isn’t masculine at all, so I just feel like everything is wrong.”

Aidan has also known since seventh grade that he is pansexual, gender doesn’t affect who he is attracted to. For him, pansexuality is about freedom, it’s about not limiting himself.

“I don’t care if you identify as male, female, agender, anything,” Aidan said. “If you like me and I like you, I’ll date you.”

Aidan has told his mom about being pansexual and genderfluid, but is unable to open up to her because he feels she doesn’t understand. When asked, Aidan’s mother is hesitant to comment.

“She is my child, and whatever decision she makes, those are her decisions,” Aidan’s mother said.

On days where Aidan is a male, he stays in his bedroom, he can’t face constantly being referred to as “she.”

“It’s disheartening, and it really  knocks my self confidence,” Aidan said. “It makes me feel like my mom doesn’t know me.”

Aidan gets his support from close friends at school, who are very accepting of Aidan’s gender and sexuality. Many of them are also LGBT+, so understand what it’s like. At school Aidan is open about his gender identity, but other students struggle to understand.

“People will ignore it and call me a “she” when they know I want to be a he,” Aidan said. “I always explain to them, and tell them what pronouns I like. They just don’t get it. But my fingers are crossed for the future.”

Coming out can be a relief, can bring the sense of freedom that comes with not having to hide. But experts stress that there is no shame in staying in the closet. Lily Knepper is a volunteer at LikeMe Lighthouse, an LGBT+ organization and community center in KC, MO.

“Don’t ever be ashamed of who you are, but consider your own safety,” Knepper said. “Don’t feel like you have to come out into an environment that could threaten your physical or emotional safety. You can always just be out to yourself.”

For Nick, Maria and Aidan, and for the hundreds of thousands of LGBT+ high school students across the country, coming out is about more than just telling your family or friends. It’s about self acceptance, about realizing that your sexuality and gender identity doesn’t define who you are, or limit who you can be.