Coming Out
When I was twelve years old, I came out to my mother. I plopped down on the couch across from her and asked “is it okay for a girl to like other girls?” My mom and family were immediately supportive. I came out to my friends around the same time, texting them that I had a crush on someone, and bluntly correcting their “who’s he?” to a “she.” And as far as I was concerned, based on the movies I had seen, that was it: I had come out as a lesbian and had been accepted. What I didn’t realize, though, is that it wouldn’t be the last time in my life I would have to step out of that closet.
My school has a reputation for intolerance, so when I came out there, I did it subtly. A girl asked me to the school dance, and although neither of us “announced” it, word slowly got around. From then through now, I’m still not sure who knows and who doesn’t. When I came out, I pictured a definitive “I’m out now!” without having to keep tabs on which people knew and which people didn’t. But that’s not my reality, and I have to accept that I won’t always know if people are seeing me differently based on my identity. All I can do is be me and not worry about how others are perceiving me.
At summer camp, I was surprised when my newfound friends declared that that the LGBTQ+ community is too sensitive, so despite being comfortable in my identity, I decided to stay in the closet. But doubts nagged at me: Was I doing something wrong, or violating some LGBTQ+ moral code by choosing to stay closeted? I’ve had to find a way to balance feelings that I should be more out or more proud with the need to protect myself and set my own boundaries. I’m not required to tell everyone, and, when I don’t, it doesn’t mean I’m denying a part of myself. At anime conventions, I share the nerdy part of me. At pride parades, I show the full-blown gay part of me, rainbows and all. I get to decide how to present it and it doesn’t make me a lesser nerd, lesbian, or person.
I have even less control over people’s perceptions of my cultural identity. Once, at a Scholastic Scrimmage competition, a Chinese boy started talking to me in fluent Mandarin. Of course, I understood absolutely none of it. I was adopted from China to a family consisting of my white parents and my older adopted sister. I am involved in Adopteen, an organization of fellow adoptees, and we all bear similarly complex identities. Many of us refer to ourselves as “bananas” — Chinese on the outside, but white on the inside. It describes the feeling of strange isolation that we feel whenever we hear about Chinese culture, the rush of emotions when we can’t fill in “family history” sections of medical papers, and the countless subtle reminders of how we stand out.
I’ve been grappling with how to present my various identities for all of my self-aware years. Yes, I prefer to be in control, but I’ve accepted that people will form their own assumptions, and sometimes they will be wrong. Telling my family and close friends has taught me the value of meaningful relationships and the validating feeling of being loved and accepted. Having to decide when and where I want to expose my identity has taught me how to read the atmosphere and how to determine what a safe environment is. Finally, all of these experiences happened because I came out in the first place. That initial strength and confidence that I didn’t even realize I had allowed me to experience all of these ups and downs and become not only comfortable, but also confident in my complex, three-dimensional identity.