Coming Out

As you can probably assume from the title of this blog post, I'm going to be talking about coming out. More specifically, my coming out.

Say what?

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, family, friends, strangers, stalkers, I am coming out to you here, in my favorite place in the world: the internet.

Now for those of you that are still a bit lost, let me be very clear before I start this very long and important blog entry. By "coming out" I mean coming out of the closet. I'm gay.

Gay?!?!? But (insert protest here). Don't worry, I'll get to all of that.

I know this may be a surprise to some of you. Others may be laughing to themselves and thinking, "I saw that one coming!" But no matter your reaction, the fact is the same: I'm gay.

I will now answer the questions I feel I will eventually be asked or that I have heard people asking people that have recently come out.

1. How long have you known you were gay? I started developing crushes on girls in the 8th grade around the time I was 13. I also had crushes on boys, but only because my friends had crushes on boys and I thought it was a normal thing to do. However, all my crushes on boys felt more forced and artificial. It wasn't that I couldn't appreciate a fine male specimen when he came along (well, as fine as you get in 8th grade), it was just that I genuinely had no interest in dating previously mention specimen. I didn't have much interest in holding their hands. I didn't much care to kiss them. I just didn't care for them much at all, to be honest. I had guy friends who were fantastic people, but the thought of dating one didn't appeal to me. I thought at first I was a late bloomer and that I would start liking boys once I got to high school. But I was still developing crushes on girls, some on my closest friends and some on girls that were ALREADY IN RELATIONSHIPS. GASP. I know. Little homewrecker Hayley. Except not, because I shoved those thoughts I was having back in to the dark recesses of my brain only reserved for nightmares and embarrassing childhood memories. I figured if I just tried to forget about it, ignored the feelings, and kept moving on with my life, eventually I would find a boyfriend, date him, marry him, have his babies, and not have to worry about this odd attraction I had to my female classmates and friends. I didn't put the pieces together and acknowledge that I might be gay until sophomore year, and once I made the connection, I pushed the thoughts even deeper in to my mind, not out of shame, but out of fear. I finally acknowledged that I liked girls and was, in fact, gay, in November of 2012 when I "came out" for the first time (I'll explain later why that's in quotes) to my best friend Lynne.
2. But you can't be gay! You dated a boy for two years! Yeah, and people are married to the opposite sex for 20 years without acknowledging their gayness. Shit happens. I will never, ever, for even a second regret my relationship with Max. Max was my first love and will always be an important person in my life. I did love him like any person loves another person. I was in love with him. I figured that I had found this amazing guy that I had a fantastic connection with and that we would get married and have babies and I wouldn't ever have to worry about my feelings for girls ever again. However, that's not how things turned out. We did break up, and while we remain friends, we are (to quote T. Swizzle) never, ever getting back together. Sexuality isn't a black and white thing. Sometimes people fall for those that are not their preferred gender. It doesn't make them any less gay or any less straight, it makes them human. Just because they don't fit your definition of their label doesn't mean anything is wrong with them.
3. Did your relationship with Max, like, turn you gay? For fucks sake. Nothing "turned" me gay. Nothing "turns" anyone gay. I was born gay and I'll be gay until the day I die, laying in my cremation box with my little rainbow flag popped up in my hand.
4. Are you sure you're not bisexual? Yes. I thought for a while that I was, but I know now that's not the case. 
5. You've never slept with a girl, so how do you know you're gay? What, so everybody is unsure about their sexuality until they have sex? How did you know you were straight when you were still a virgin? How do you know you don't like horses if you haven't had sex with a horse? I mean COME ON. Nobody ever asks a straight person how they know they're straight if they haven't slept with the opposite gender. That's just ridiculous.
6. Did something happen with a boy that made you decide to be gay? No. I've had bad experiences with the opposite sex just as I've had bad experiences with the same sex. No experience has influenced my sexuality. My genetics did that.
7. But you don't look gay! How does one look "gay"? Am I supposed to chop off all my hair and get a lip piercing and stretch my ears and wear cargo shorts and converse to fit society's idea of a "lesbian"? Hell to the no. Of course I don't. Sure, there are lesbians that look like a typical teenage romantic comedy "lesbian", but there are also lesbians that look like every other person on the street that you would never, ever peg as gay.
8. How do your feelings differ when you look at a man versus when you look at a woman? When I look at a man, I can acknowledge if I find him physically attractive. There are men out there that literally anybody with eyeballs and brain would say are attractive. Ryan Gosling, for example. I mean, I'm sure if you gave any random straight man a chance to make out with Ryan Gosling, there's about an 88.52753% chance he'd take it. He's an attractive person! That doesn't mean I want to date him or sleep with him or start a family with him. I'm a human and I have eyes and I can acknowledge an attractive person regardless of their gender. Hot people are hot people. Sexiness is a universal, non-gender-specific quality. But when I look at a boy, I don't see myself in a relationship with them. When I look at a girl, however, I do. It's really that simple. The way you look at your preferred gender is exactly the same as how I look at girls.
9. When did you first come out? Back when I was still trying to convince myself that I liked boys, I came out to my best friend Lynne. I had made a post on tumblr and she asked about it and we had a quick little chat and that was it. Lynne is a very accepting, loving person who has twice accompanied me to pride and who I am proud to call my best friend and roommate. I then came out to a few online friends who helped me cope with the concept of being gay and then came out publicly on tumblr through various questions and posts. I've been "out" on tumblr since about late February.
10. Does your ex-boyfriend know you're gay? He knows I like girls, yes.
11. Does he care? No.
12. Do your parents know? My whole immediate family, including my mom, dad, step-dad, and siblings know. My dad's girlfriend also knows.
13. Do they care? No. They're all extremely supportive. They love me for who I am, not who I choose to date.
14. Why were you scared about coming out if you've always been so outspoken about gay rights and have so many family members and friends that are pro-gay-rights? Coming out is scary for anybody. It doesn't matter the situation, it's always a big deal. For me, the hardest part about coming out wasn't worrying about if my family and friends would accept me for who I was, it was the idea of being branded with a label for life. As a person with various mental illnesses, I've been labeled many times throughout my adolescent and early adult life. Anxious. Depressed. OCD. Self-harmer. Insomiac. Unmotivated. The list goes on and on. It was a scary concept to think that "lesbian" would be yet another label I had to put on myself in order for society to understand who I am. Why couldn't I just say, "I like girls" and date a girl and not have to worry about putting another invisible label on my forehead? Well unfortunately, that's not really how our society works. In order for people to understand my sexuality, they want a label. They always ask, "So what are you, exactly?" Well, I reply, I'm Hayley. What more do you really need? Coming to terms with a label after being closeted for so long is a difficult thing that I'm still dealing with and will probably be dealing with for a long time. Perhaps I just need to go in the bathroom, look in the mirror, and say, "I'm a lesbian, I'm a lesbian, I'm a lesbian" over and over until it isn't so scary anymore. Who knows? Maybe Sassy Gay Friend will pop out of my mirror and ask me, "What what what are you doing??"
15. I'm a girl, and you're a lesbian, does that mean you're attracted to me? Don't flatter yourself. Not all lesbians lust after every girl they meet. Do you lust after every person of the opposite sex? No. Of course not.
16. Do you have a crush on me? Probably not.
17. If you had a crush on me, would you tell me? Yes.
18. Are you going to hit on me? Not unless I'm on my 7th or 8th shot of vodka in which case I couldn't care less if you were a one eyed, one horned, flying purple people eater. If you talk to me, I'll probably flirt with you.
19. Are you going to cut off all your hair/get a piercing/get a tattoo of a rainbow flag on your chest? Again, not unless I'm on my 8th shot of vodka.
20. Are things going to be different now that you're gay? Well, I'm not all of a sudden gay. I've always been gay. So since I'm the same person now as I always have been, I can confidently say that no, things aren't going to be different. They'll only be different if you make them that way.

I hope this has cleared a few things up for you all. I appreciate you taking the time to read this! I know it was long and tedious but I figured that since the blessing of social media has been bestowed upon us mere mortals, I might as well use it to come out to everyone in my life all at once. Like killing 1,000 birds with one stone. Not that I consider any of you birds nor would I ever consider killing you with a stone, just to clarify. 

So to summarize: I, Hayley Gordon, am gay. I'm confident in who I am and proud of the person I've become. I'm not a different person than I have been. The only thing that has changed is your knowledge of my already-existent sexuality. 

Even if you don't support being gay, I hope that you can support me. I hope that you can still love me for the person I am and the things that I do and the good that I try to put out in the world. I hope you can realize that I'm no different today than I have been for the last 20 years of my life. If you can, that's amazing. If you can't, well, that's not really MY problem, now is it?

I love each and every one of you and wish you the absolute best.