Coming Out in College
Most humans have, at one time or another, kept a secret, avoiding a conversation in order to maintain some false level of comfort and control over their lives. What compels each person to reveal their secret, to force themselves out of their comfort zone despite the issues that may come along with the truth, fully depends on the situation.
Sophomore Kate Steven held one of those secrets from her parents since she was 13 years old: the fact that she is queer. She uses the term queer to “encompass my whole identity, because my sexuality can be fluid, and my gender can be fluid.”
Having been raised in a very conservative community, Kate didn’t fully come out in high school, choosing to tell only a few of her friends from home. Even in college, Kate didn’t immediately come out to those around her.
Over the course of her first quarter at Ohio University she began to realize that she wanted to become more connected to the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community and help people deal with the same issues that she had faced. She began to attend LGBT events and meetings, became more publicly active, and officially outed herself.
Through organizations like Open Doors, the LGBT community has formed its own support system for someone who is experiencing the trials of the coming out process. Logan Waldie, the co-chair of Open Doors, said that when he first joined the organization, he would frequently solicit the advice of other members when faced with challenges.
Michelle Pride, a counselor at Hudson Health Center, spoke of the importance of community. She said she believes it is crucial to be able to connect with other people who have been through similar experiences because they can act as a mentor or guide.
“[It is important] to reinforce the good part of LGBT identity development, because we hear so much about the negative things,” Pride said. “Finding a place in the gay community can reinforce some of the positive aspects of your identity.”
Coming out is particularly prevalent around and during college because, according to Mickey Hart, director of the LGBT Center, “It’s a natural time for people to explore who they are. You’re away from home, often you’re away from people that you’ve known all of your life and it’s really just a time for people to explore what is of interest to them.”
Coming out, however, is undeniably a process.
“It is a constant thing,” Logan said. “[But] it’s not like the first thing you say is ‘Hi, I’m Logan, I’m gay.’”
Members of the LGBT community are, however, careful about the people that know about their sexuality.
“People risk a lot. They risk relationships with the people who are close to them,” Hart said. “Once they share that information, they can no longer kind of protect that and control who knows.”
Upon being elected co-chair of Open Doors last year, Kate decided to tell her parents about her success, but not about her sexuality. “I really wanted to share the fact with my parents that I was in a leadership position. I thought it was so cool, and I was so excited about it,” she said.
Kate told her parents in a phone call, explaining to her mom that she had been elected president of an organization that supports LGBT rights, an intentional mistruth that allowed Kate to begin to open the proverbial closet door without completely bursting out.
Apprehension began to creep into her mother’s voice, and Kate’s father began asking about the group. Kate proceeded to tell her dad exactly what she had already told her mom — she had been elected into a leadership role of a group that supports LGBT rights.
“I think I could hear my mom either rolling her eyes or just being shocked. And that’s kind of where the conversation ended,” Kate said.
A few days later, her dad called and asked her to explain more about the group, expressing worry that she was becoming involved in something bad. At the end of the phone call, her father said that he was okay with her involvement but her mom wasn’t, and they would discuss it more when she came home for the summer.
When Spring Quarter ended, Kate’s mom drove to Athens to pick her up. The first 20 minutes of the car ride were spent typically, making small talk. Then Kate mentioned that she was planning to go to the LGBT convention Pride in Columbus.
“That’s where the floodgates broke, and my mom and I had a yelling argument the rest of the two and a half hours home,” Kate said. “She started relating my support of the LGBT community to supporting abortion. And that’s probably where I yelled, ‘How dare you compare my loving somebody to killing babies?’”
The final words spoken between the two women that day were Kate’s mother telling Kate that she didn’t want to see her around the house over the summer. The rest of the car ride was spent in seething silence.
Halfway through the summer, her mother pulled her aside to say that, if she continued her behavior, she would no longer support Kate financially. To pay for Fall Quarter, Kate used money she earned while working during the summer, but she had to borrow money from family members to pay for Winter Quarter. She said that she has trouble paying for her schooling, all because of what she sees as a small factor in her personality.
Coming out may have its difficulties, but it can be a very liberating and very freeing experience for individuals as well.
“It really starts to open up, figuratively, the closet door, but it starts to open a lot of other doors to people, and they go in different directions to what they may have thought they would do,” Hart said. “It’s a very transformative kind of thing.”
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