Coming out: why is it still so scary for us?
Pride week prompts musing about coming out in high school
What if you could take yourself back to high school and be a different person — the person you are and not the person the 1980s programmed you to be?
Absorbed by that question as I mulled over an idea for Pride Week, I thought I would contact some people from my 1982 graduating class at the former East Pictou Rural High School in Nova Scotia.
It took me weeks to work up the courage.
The day I finally wrote the first message on Facebook, I had to get up from my desk and take a walk down the hall before I hit send.
It was scary, like coming out all over again. And many people in the LGBTQ+ community know exactly how that feels, especially those from certain eras.
I can even feel my heart pounding as I write this. Why is it so scary for us? It’s the history of societal intolerance that’s hard to shake.
I remember listening to news of the gay rights movement in the 1970s, culminating with the assassination of famed San Francisco activist Harvey Milk, and thinking, please God, don’t let me be gay.
The thing is, my senior high years were idyllic — at least that’s the way they play out in my memory.
Hearing not-so-great stories from others, I’ve often referred to my high school years as Mayberry (a reference to the Andy Griffith Show of the 1950s and its portrayal of a nice fictional town).
Anyone who has driven through Nova Scotia might have noticed that high school — white and later blue — on the Trans-canada Highway between Antigonish and New Glasgow at Sutherland’s River, on the right as you head toward Halifax.
My graduating class consisted of about 60 students, the finest people you could find to graduate with.
But with the attached junior high, we had a student body of roughly 800, bused from communities in all directions.
There were no Pride parades in rural Atlantic Canada in the 1980s that we knew of, so our exposure to the LGBTQ+ community was pretty much nil.
I hadn’t come to terms with my sexuality by our 10th reunion, though a classmate was out. And I still hadn’t by the last one we had — our 20th.
The virtual conversations I have had since with those former classmates I managed to contact were moving and inspiring, and I am incredibly grateful to them all.
Musician George Wolf, who recently moved back to Nova Scotia from B.C., had known gay musicians who played with his songwriter mother. He thinks things would have worked out OK.
“Honestly, my opinion — if you had come out then — most people would have been accepting, OK with it,” he said. “And the people who weren’t probably wouldn’t have said it to your face. They might have gone home, grumbled about it and their parents might have grumbled about it.”
Riek Post Matheson thinks things might not have gone so well.
“It was so difficult, just being too thin, too large, too much acne, too poor,” she said.
“Any of those things were enough to keep you from being with the ‘in crowd,’ and when you are on the outside looking in, life can be tough. … Back then I think LGBT would definitely be on the outside looking in, feeling very lonely and probably afraid.”
Debbie Macdonald agrees. “I would think for someone to be an LGBT classmate when we were in school would have been difficult. It is difficult now in so many cases, but getting better,” she said.
“I would think it would be very difficult for a person to come out back then,” said one person who asked not to be named.
“People were not as accepting as they are today and still there are those that make life difficult for LGBT persons,” said another.
Another, who spoke of how proud she was of her beautiful, out stepdaughter, said an LGBTQ+ classmate would not have been tolerated in our day.
“I think back to when some of the guys would tease/be mean to other guys (and some girls) who were perceived as being different or not cool. … I think the world has come a long way. But we still have more work to do to accept and embrace people of all colours, shapes, sizes, ethnicities and beliefs.”
Angela Stewart offered this insight: “I feel it would have been OK with regards to friends’ reactions, at least with the people I remember knowing. I suspect that it would be hardest to come out to family, just because they are probably older with set ways and have a different experience and familiarity with the person coming out.
Society-wise, there would be very little support.”
From another: “If I was told in secret, I would have told no one. … I would have protected/supported you, hands down.”
Our valedictorian, Carla Rogers, instilled in me a hope that there would indeed have been some people willing to stand by me.
“Trying to ‘fit in’— modelling the behaviour of a ‘typical’ high school student — that’s what we all did. But what if we showed who we really were— our true identity, became vulnerable to the outside world?” she said.
“I honestly believe in the power of a valued high school friendship — you were admired by everyone. We would have supported, loved and made sure you felt a sense of belonging no matter what. Our circle would have embraced you, and any other classmate who came out.”
How it really would have gone, I’ll never know.
But the kids are still all right.
It’s a cliche, but maybe that old yearbook standard, “friends for life,” really means something.