October 11 is National Coming Out Day.

The process is uneven and the conditions and response are as individual to the person and their circumstance.

Although one day a year is designated as a day to celebrate having come out, letting others know there is a definite moment to do it if they need a designated day upon which they will, and show those yet to that there is support for them when they decide to tell the world they accept themselves for who they are and so should the world, in reality every day is Coming Out Day for someone, and more often than not there will be a number of Coming Out Days.

Although the most positive reaction to coming out to family, friends, and coworkers is acceptance, too often there is rejection that includes children being thrown out of the homes to survive on the street to often in the name of religion, physical and verbal abuse, and loss of employment, something that is faced each time you choose not to hide.

Coming out is not a onetime thing, but is often a repeated action, each subject to the gamut of reactions. Where in one place the fact that a person is Gay is no big thing, for that person being in another place it could be met with the worst.

From the mid 80s into the early 90s I was living in Long Beach California and teaching in the Los Angeles Unified School District.

During that time I had met a fellow teacher and a member of the Union’s Executive Board who was an Out Gay man in a long term committed relationship, and our paths had crossed through our union involvement. He was the person on the Board who asked if I would chair the Union’s Gay and Lesbian Education Caucus that needed to be upgraded to a full standing committee, but only if it met on a regular basis and had a chair that would push for that. I was happy to take that on.

And I was happy to be one of the few Union members who marched for the first time in L.A.’s Pride Parade with the blessing of and under the banner of the United Teachers of Los Angeles, our presence taking the parade announcer and media somewhat by surprise.

This man decided to run for an open seat on the state’s education board, and he won.

Not long after his victory he held a press conference at school headquarters in Los Angeles, and many of us Gay and Lesbian teachers rushed there after school to stand with him when he gave his first speech as a board member and outlined the issues most dear to him.

Just before he began his speech and Q&A with the press, he told us he intended to come out officially, although his sexual orientation had not been a secret, and asked if we would follow his lead. It was to be totally voluntary, but it would make an impression.

And, so it was that when he ended his remarks he formally stated his full name, announced what school he had been teaching at, and followed this with the words “I am Gay”.

One by one each of us stepped forward and did the same. We stated our full names, announced what school we taught at, and said the words “I am Gay”.

It might have been in a very liberal California, but it was only around 1990, and in spite of any progress when it came to Gay equality, although much progress had been made, there was so much more that was needed.

The next day when I began my classes a student mentioned that he had seen me on the news, and a few more joined in saying they too had seen the news coverage. It had been on every local station.

I steeled myself for the anticipated barrage of questions and possible negative comments, but all I was asked was if I had known I was surrounded by Gay people.

It turned out that they were thrilled to see their teacher on the television and got a shot of pride when I mentioned the school name, but apparently, to a student, had turned at that point to tell their families, “That’s my teacher” and in so doing missed the “I am Gay” part.

So the big coming out was a little smaller than I had anticipated.

Years later:

The third meeting of the Oklahoma City school district’s first attempt at a Diversity Committee, where the Inclusion of Gay kids in policies was to be discussed, was where the committee imploded, an event that I felt was not entirely un-orchestrated. Being the only committee member who had consistently attended the two previous meetings, it was no surprise to me having new faces at the third meeting. A woman I had not seen before was sitting at the end of the conference table, and as I took a seat she asked me what had been done so far. Obligingly, assuming she was one of the names listed as a committee member, but who had not shown up previously, I handed her the agenda for the meeting along with some of my papers, and filled her in on what had been covered previously.

Because of the possible awkwardness, the meetings, although not being secret, were not advertised to the general public. It was a kind of rational courtesy. I had no problem with the initial meetings being closed as there had been a very good possibility that people might have said things that after a little education they would regret having said, and, so, might have wished for the opportunity to take these statements back. For many committee members these initial meetings may have been the first time they said the words “Gay” and “Lesbian” out loud, or even talked with someone they knew was Gay. As it was, even if it had only been a lack of taking a proper breath before beginning the sentence, the chair had choked slightly when he said “lesbian” for the first time at the initial meeting.

Once the initial stages were accomplished and actual work on the wording of a policy began, meetings could be more open. They certainly were not kept secret for any sinister reasons.

As the meeting was about to begin the chair entered the room as it slowly filled, and to my surprise did not recognize the woman I had just spoken with. He asked her to identify herself, whereupon she introduced herself as a reporter for the Daily Oklahoman, the local, highly conservative, anti-union, anti-teacher, anti-Gay, pro-Republican, Christian-fundamentalist oriented daily newspaper.

The chair emphatically and angrily cancelled the meeting on the spot. He was upset that the closed meeting was now public, and was angry someone had called the newspaper. He announced that he was only the chair because he had been told to be so by someone over him, and that he really did not want any part of the committee. He claimed meetings were only being held because of a concern one person had presented to his superior.

Not only was the meeting cancelled, but the committee immediately disbanded as well.

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As angry as he had seemed to be, and after leaving the meeting room in a huff, the chair did take the time to chase down the reporter before she had left the building. He wanted her to know that he could not continue as committee chair because of personal, political and religious beliefs, and that, in spite of my never having had the chance to address the committee or answer their questions, and as he had dominated the meetings so no discussion had yet been had, I was forcing the committee in a particular direction, determined to turn the committee’s work into a “Gay Issue”. Most of his anger appeared the next day in the morning paper.

I was totally unaware of the story in the newspaper when I entered the school the next morning and was immediately summoned to the principal’s office.

She was concerned that with the news story in the paper there could be a parental backlash with requests not only for students to be removed from my classes, but that I be dismissed, and then slid a copy of the paper across her desk for me to see.

According to the article I had “described” myself as Gay and this statement was what worried the principal who was concerned about the possible back lash, although during a previous discussion she had come to understand the need to be inclusive when it came to GLBT Students.

Basically in her mind I had gone from a concerned teacher without the public’s knowledge of my sexual orientation to a Gay teacher who could be the target of people’s belief that their negative actions could be justified, although wrong. I might now be considered a Gay man pushing the Gay Agenda.

And, thus, I came out, or was “outed” to the state of Oklahoma.

This event happened twenty years ago this month, and as October is GLBT History Month and October 11 is National Coming out day, this is the anniversary of my third coming out, the first having been to my family and friends

And, although I am not seeking praise, when I looked at that article that I have kept, the word “Transgender” is mentioned by the reporter a number of times, and this was in the Buckle of the Bible Belt when Transgender was still on the horizon in places like that. One might say that the local, highly conservative, anti-union, anti-teacher, anti-Gay, pro-Republican, Christian-fundamentalist oriented daily newspaper was ahead of its time without knowing it.

Later, as related in the first blog of GLBT History Month of 2019, I was again outed, but even though I was seen on a local news station, although I was the “openly Gay teacher”, most people knew my name and had their opinions of me, I was generally a name with no face.

The teacher whose classroom had been just a few doors down the hall from mine was an extremely religious and conservative person who decided she would run for a seat in the state legislature because Jesus wanted her to get Him back into the state’s public schools.    

Attracting some very disturbingly conservative people, this legislator went to a Metro Library Commission meeting demanding any book with a “Homosexual Theme”, or which might have spoken of Homosexuality as anything other than an abomination, be removed from the system.    

A group of people including legal people from the ACLU, local Gay organizations, library workers and concerned citizens, myself included, went to the same meeting to argue that parents, after instilling in their children their own family values, should view what their children intend to read before they check out a book at any library, rather than demand that if they found something objectionable no one should be allowed to read it.

At the meeting in attempting to prove her action was not based on bigotry, but a concern for children, the legislator claimed she only objected to certain things of a homosexual nature, but she herself loved Gay people and knew many, and even worked with some very fine teachers who happened to be Gay, she swept her left arm in an all inclusive arcing motion declaring as she did so that I was a wonderful teacher with whom she had no problem until she was pointing right at me. Although she knew I was open at school, she took the liberty, or acted on the assumption that there would be no harm in using me in so public a manner.

At other meetings on other actions at which she spoke negatively about Gay people, the legislator had on more than one occasion spoken of me as less than human and by my very nature vile and repulsive, describing me as a pedophile, a lower form of creature, a sexual predator, a recruiter of youth into a condemned “life-style, pornographic by my very nature, a danger to the welfare of youth and a cancer on society,  although she would throw in that I was a good teacher and nice person.

And there was backlash in the form of anonymous letters, messages left on my home answering machine, and the occasional person yelling at me in public.

Recently I testified in the Massachusetts State House before the Joint Committee on the Judiciary in favor of two bills that would reduce, if not eliminate using state or local funds for federal immigration activities carried out under 287(g) agreements with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Those wanting to continue doing the work of ICE too often justify the need to do so by presenting stereotypes and generalities but not any facts, figures, or studies.

Seeing a similarity to past experience, I included a statement in my testimony that

“As a Gay man who has lived in the Buckle of the Bible Belt, I am all too familiar with the use of a group of people to promote personal and political agendas by pushing an image of them based on misinformation while ignoring facts and reality to promote fear of them to justify actions against them.”

Although not a big deal for some, this was another example of “coming out” with no idea of how that would ne accepted, and doing so in a very public setting, the State House. But, this being Massachusetts, it was greeted as merely a person’s knowledge gained through experience.

I am of an age where each coming out moment is preceded by a deep breath.

For younger GLBT people the process may not be difficult for all, as the attitude of the majority population toward GLBT people has matured, but for some in some locales, it is still not easy an cold be dangerous.

It is up to those of us who are out to support those coming out, and letting them know we are part of a huge support system they can rely on.

It is also important for us not to judge or force the process, but to understand where they are and why they might need more time.

So Happy Coming Out Day to those who have come out, and Happy Coming Out Day to those who will when their time is right.

We are here, waiting to welcome.