Bird’s Out of the Oven, and I’m Out of the Closet

by isabella castelo

Every year, when the holidays roll around, most people look forward to stuffing their faces, opening presents, and sniffing those ubiquitous scented candles. Gays, however, spend all year preparing for these few weeks. It is of utmost importance that we quiet that sissy voice in the back of our mind telling us to just spit it out: 

“Mom… I’m gay.”

Unless that is what you want to do, then I think you should. It takes a lot of time and consideration, but the feeling always seems to arise during the holidays. Usually it comes when you have to sit in a car alone with your mom for over 20 minutes and your twinky leg starts to shake. Or maybe it’s when you have your annual heart-to-heart with your dad and your heart starts racing, you breathe in deep, you avert your eyes, and then… you drop it.   

I’ve spent 20 years cooped up in this closet and I’m starting to cramp. I mean… as cooped up as you can be after shaving your head, going to NYC pride every year (dressed up), and only surrounding yourself with queers. So this year, I’m going all in. 

Granted, I have a reason to “come out” now. I have a girlfriend, and I always told myself that once I did, I would rip the bandaid off. I never wanted to come out; I didn’t feel like I had to. Most people make the assumption on their own, and I didn’t think it was fair that I had to explain my sexuality to people. My brother never had to declare he was straight. 

I knew my parents would accept and love me always, making this decision much easier for me than for a lot of other people. They’ve practically been begging me to tell them for years. Every time I’m alone with my mom, she asks if I have any boys or girls that I’m interested in, and she’s written me more than one letter asking me to be honest with her. I think her desperation to know strengthened my aversion to telling her.

It took me a while to realize that I didn’t want to come out—conventionally. My friends would tell me their coming-out stories, and when they realized I didn’t have one, they seemed surprised. They knew I had no reason not to come out. A lot of them can’t say the same, and yet they still faced their homophobic parents, while I hid behind the closed doors in my accepting parents’ home. I hid because I didn’t want to make a fuss for no reason; until I had a concrete example of my sexuality, I didn’t feel like anyone had to know. It was my business, after all.

I used to have a bit of a superiority complex, thinking that those who made coming out a big thing were succumbing to heterosexual norms and acting on the whim of straight people everywhere (*eye roll*). Now that I’m grown and much less annoying, I know that my judgment is completely misplaced. I was just as bad as their bigot families, judging them for being themselves. All of this to say that I finally learned coming out means a lot of different things. Took me long enough. Some are excited to share their identities with the people they love, some are shit at keeping a secret, some are like me and hide their fear of people knowing me deeply with fancy statements about how I live for myself and only myself. 

Whoever you are, and whatever your reasons are, they are all valid. This holiday season, I focused a lot on who I am and what my reasons were, and I did it. I spit it out and now they know what they’ve assumed for years. It was anticlimactic and just how I wanted it: no questions, no eye contact, and no hugs. That’s my perfect come-out, but if it’s not yours, that’s your business, not mine. So good luck to all the gays. May the odds be ever in your favor this holiday season because it can be brutal out there—or not. 

Love,

Isabella