out.

It’s been kind of a big month for us, Kathryn and I.  No, wedding bells will not be chiming anytime soon.  But we did take our first trip together, to the sunny and bustling metropolis of St. Stephen, NB.  Okay, it’s sunny but not really bustling and really not a metropolis.  I had booked my flights early in the year with the intention of returning to my university to welcome some dear friends into the alumni community at graduation.  As I anticipated the trip I realized how great this opportunity would be if Kathryn could come along.  Not only would she get to experience the beauty of New Brunswick that I fell in love with, she would also meet some of the people closest to my heart – friends that stood beside me as I wrestled to understand the intersection of my faith and sexuality, and the community that became my home for four years.  Besides which, its impossible to grasp how tiny St. Stephen’s University really is unless one visits.

I was more than excited, as I always am, to visit St. Stephen (and this time with Kathryn!) but as the date got closer I began to get nervous.  Everyone who knows me well in St. Stephen knew by then that I am gay and most were aware that I am dating someone, but I had not actually seen any of those people face to face since my initial coming out in October.  How would they respond?  On top of this, the community is centered on a Christian worldview, granted a liberal worldview in many ways, but Christian none the less.  Would the nature of my relationship clash with anyone’s values or beliefs?  Will I offend anyone by bringing Kathryn?  Will I be judged?

Despite the overwhelming acceptance I have experienced as I’ve come out, these fears still nag in my heart.  Having been submersed as a child in a culture that viewed homosexuality as sinful, its hard for me to grasp that many of the people around me really don’t have an issue with my sexuality, and in fact celebrate it with me.  I assume everyone sees it as wrong and against God’s intended design for my life.  My natural instinct after years of being buried in self-hatred is to approach new situations where my sexuality may be exposed with armor, even weaponry.  Or worse, guilt and shame.

Still, the reassurance of my closest friends gave me peace that regardless of what others may think about me, this trip would be worth whatever risks I felt like we were taking.  And it was truly great.  We celebrated with friends, we explored New Brunswick’s beautiful nature, and we ate really good meals with really great people.  We even got to do a photo shoot with the lovely Shannon May on the shores of Fundy Bay.  Neither Kathryn or I feel particularly comfortable in front of a camera but I trusted that if anyone could take a good picture of us, it would be Shannon.

Once we returned from St. Stephen, the long wait to see our pictures began.  In reality it was only about two weeks but we were (somewhat obsessively) checking facebook on a regular basis to see if the pictures had been posted.  I was really excited to see how they turned out, whether Shannon was able to capture the very first thing that drew me to Kathryn – her smile and her eyes.  And yet, the moment I first saw them posted last night, my stomach dropped.

This is it.  We are really out.  Not only are we holding hands and grinning at each other in some of the pictures, there is actually a picture of us kissing!  Yes, we had given Shannon permission to post this on her company’s facebook page and her blog, but seeing it there and realizing that everyone else could see it too gave a whole new reality to being out as a gay couple.

I am learning to respond to this rise of fear and shame in new ways.  Rather than turning away from that which frightens me, I embrace it.  I choose to own my story, my identity.  And I remember that in this, I am not alone.  Kathryn’s love and the acceptance of my friends and family gives me courage to be authentic and vulnerable.

So in a rather silly way, we chose to embrace this new step in coming out by posting our relationship status on facebook.  Big deal, right?  Please believe me, I do not generally think facebook relationship statuses are all that important, but what was meaningful in this step was the owning of our story.  To take a situation that caused us both fear and shame and say instead that we are proud of our love for one another.  We are free to be who we are, regardless of the opinions of others.

The reality is that as a gay person, I will always be coming out.  I keep tricking myself into believing that I am finally completely out, but there really is no such thing.  In a hetero-dominated society, it will always be assumed that I am straight until I say (vocally or otherwise) that I am not.  Whether its a new coworker, or an old acquaintance, extended relatives or people I am meeting for the first time, I will always have to consider whether I should reveal the gender of the person I love.  When I am in public with Kathryn we must constantly weigh the choice to hold hands or behave in ways that “give us away”.  It can be as as simple as a look or a phrase.  We will always be coming out.

Of course, it will get easier with time.  We will learn that more and more people are gay-positive and really don’t care whether we hold hands or not.  We will learn to cope with those that do care and want to share their opinions with us in friendly or less than friendly ways.  We will increasingly discover that what matters most is that we follow our hearts and be true to ourselves.  That we own our story and free ourselves from shame and fear.

(Footnote: As a bonus, all of this happens to coincide with the launch of http://areyouqueer.ca, an initiative of the Hamilton LGBTQ Wellness Center, the City’s LGBTQ Advisory Committee and the Hamilton Positive Space Collaborative.  The website exists to increase visibility of Hamilton’s LGBTQ community leading up to International Day Against Homophobia on May 17th.)