This month, VOICES Radio Hour spoke to LGBTQ+ members of our community about their coming-out stories — the moments when they took the leap and stepped into their authentic selves. From stories of personal moments, to parent reactions, to societal challenges, each storyteller’s journey is unique… just like all of us. Tune into KDNK on Friday, Nov. 14 at 6pm for an interview with Myki Jones and Todd Chamberlin.
I finally dared to have a conversation with my mother about my queerness in the throes of the 2020 pandemic. I had softly come out sometime before that. I don’t know precisely when this was, but somehow I managed to avoid those early conversations with my family. I never knew how I could tell them that I didn’t just like boys. I had fallen madly in love with a handful of women and had quietly carried heartbreaks on my own, while outwardly glossing over any sign of emotion from the internal gutting I endured.
Although the phrase “your emotions are embarrassing” was never uttered verbatim to me, the actions of those I grew up with translated that message to me at a very young age. Unlike all of the caffeine I started drinking at that age, this messaging served to stunt my growth. “Too much”;’ “too different”;’ “trying too hard”; “too this”; “too that” — I can’t even begin to put into words the number of times I had already felt like I was a burden.
The only person who never delivered that message to me then was my mother. Anyone who knows her knows what it feels like to be unconditionally loved. Yet, by the time of one of the most grueling tests of my life so far, I had absorbed too much of the “too much” griping and felt that I was undeserving of the greatest gift she still offered me. The walls around me were built to keep her out, against my will. I internalized so much in order to maintain peace, because I was taught that was more noble, for the sake of upholding the family image. I always imagined this family portrait in the same way I had been accused of thinking and seeing things all my life, in black and white. There was a lot I was seeing in black and white. That is until COVID hit, when I began to see the world in color again.
Why could I not share my heartbreaks? Why couldn’t I tell my mother that I had fallen in love with girls before venturing into the world on my own? It wasn’t until after we had a “coming to Jesus” moment, about Jesus. Well not Jesus, so much as vengeful men who claim to speak for him.
What proved harmful was the throughline of their sermons and speeches. While talking about the unconditional love of God, they sprinkled in just enough guilt and shame to remind you that you were undeserving of that unconditional bounty. Though I always questioned the fallacies and expressed the need for clarity, I couldn’t shake the color back in. Until my mother and I finally had a chance to speak heart to heart when I was 21. My walls finally came down.
News reports breaking out every day of new COVID deaths left my body in a muted state, but had the inverse effect on my mind, racing at 100 miles an hour. I had no breaks this time. My mouth was finally catching up to all the thoughts I was keeping buried. I started being more unapologetically who I was, when a part of me thought the world might end. I think all of us had that thought come up. Thinking back now, I realize that I only truly started living authentically because there was not a promise of a tomorrow for the first time in my life.
“I want to talk to you about the Pride flags I keep seeing you paint,” my mother said to me one day.
“What do you want to know?” I asked, unsure whether I should be on guard.
I still couldn’t bring myself to say, “I’m not straight.” The black and white filters in my life were slowly fading away, but it wasn’t until what my mother said next that the floodgates of color gave way.
“Do you like girls, Myki? Are you gay?” she asked me, not with disgust like I had heard from others before, not with fear, but with genuine curiosity. Her face was relaxed and inquisitive.
“I’m actually bi, Mom,” I said to her, holding back tears and trying to use the power of will to shrink the lump that was growing in my throat. “I’ve known since I was a kid. I wanted to tell you, but I was scared. I didn’t know how to tell you, and you still love me.”
“Why would you think I wouldn’t love you?” she asked as she rested her hand behind my head, our eyes locking — both now on the verge of tears.
I couldn’t find the right words for her for the first time in my life. But for the first time, I didn’t need words to tell her what I needed at that moment. The moment I saw in color.