Spoiler! :
A Beginner’s Guide To Coming Out In High School
Chewing on my lip was something I did when I didn't want to say something I might regret. Being in class and listening to the snickers of my peers while the announcements played on the screen was one of those times. A slide on the powerpoint showed a notice for a new club that was going to start. A GSA. A Gay-Straight Alliance was coming to Lowell High School.
“Why the hell do we need a GSA?” someone said. A whole new chorus of giggles started.
A flash of irritation coursed through me. I knew that people were prejudiced in Lowell. But when high school came, I thought people would grow up. Let their horizons broaden a teeny bit. Maybe people would be a little more accepting and break away from the thinking some of their parents were so desperate for them to cling to.
Guess not.
The slide changed and the laughter died down and people switched topics back to football or crackle nail-polish. I just sank lower into my seat, thinking that if I spoke out against them I would get ignored, my words would just run over them like water against rock. My passion towards LGBT rights and treatment hadn't changed since seventh grade, the year when I'd first started feeling out-of-place against the backdrop of slumber parties where girls gabbed the whole night away talking about boys and lipgloss. While I still loved talking about what color my lips would look best paired with, I'd started lying to my friends about crushing on so-and-so and being nervous about a guy that I thought would keep up my charade.
When the slide rolled around again, I thought the room would pick up where they'd left off. Instead our teacher switched the announcements to the lecture notes and all I could do was breathe a sigh of relief.
***
My best friends were very religious and thought that being gay was wrong. Every couple of months I would just drop a question or mention how I hated when people were derogatory in the halls. Becka, my best friend then, each time would reply, “Well, the Bible does say that it's wrong. I think that they can be nice people, but they're sinning. I worry a lot about them.” Her voice was syrupy sweet and almost seemed to be mocking me.
“Hmm,” I said, my eyes narrowing.
Brice didn't say much about it usually. She agreed with Becka. I hated lying to them, saying that I had a crush on random guys who were good-looking. There was only one problem with them: they were guys. It was agonizing to lie. They were my friends and I loved them to death, but if I told them, I knew I would lose them.
Then I would be alone.
***
I was excited to be going to my first Chamber Choir rehearsal. I loved to sing. It was my passion. Something about letting the notes ring out and giving my voice the opportunity to soar made me utterly happy. The fact that I was stuck in orchestra frustrated me and going into the choir room felt like drinking a hot cup of jo on a chilly day.
It was there that I found people who would love me for me.
The chairs were assembled so that we were in an arc around the piano. Our group mainly consisted of girls, but there were a few boys. I didn't know anybody particularly well in the group and felt intimidated just at the sight of them. We were separated into sections by Mrs. Sulisz. I sat in anticipation, excited to be put in the soprano section.
“Abbey, I want you to sing the tenor part, but you'll be singing it an octave higher,” she said, smiling brightly. Her smile could be considered megawatt. It was a little to perky for a cynic like me.
Grudgingly, I stood up from the seat I was sitting in and moved to the tenor section. What the hell? I thought angrily. I thought she was going to put me on the soprano part! I did my best to contain my emotions over the matter. In the seat next to me, a girl with dirty blonde hair and wide-framed glasses was sitting with her hands on top of her music folder. She smiled at me genuinely and I felt less fearful but still frustrated with my placement. Despite the girl's smile, I knew I was being a ridiculous drama queen inside.
“Hey,” I said, setting my bag on the ground underneath my chair. “Abbey.” I stuck out my hand to shake hers.
She shook hands. “I'm Halley,” she said.
For the rehearsals in the following weeks, I sat next to Halley and learned my parts in the music by following her example. I also began to spend time with her outside of the choir room. She introduced me to some of her friends, mainly Torrey. Torrey had a punk-rock sense of style, eyebrow and tongue piercings, and square-framed glasses that matched the streaks of color she had in her hair.
She was also the first person I came out to at school.
We were in the hallways, sitting on the cool tile floor before musical practice was supposed to start and I saw a button on her bag that made me pause for a second. A queasy feeling took over me. It was a circular button with Michigan colored in with rainbow. Off to the side was a heart. Torrey was scribbling away in her sketchbook drawing a picture of an anime character. I poked her shoulder when she stopped to erase a bit of pencil marking.
“Where'd you get your button?” I asked. I didn't know how I managed to speak louder than a whisper. There was a feeling in my gut that she was going to say Pride Festival. The button either meant that she was gay, bisexual, or questioning, or that she was a straight supporter of LGBT rights. “The one with the state and the rainbow, I mean. I really like it.”
She glanced down at the button. “Oh, this? I got it at Pride last year.”
Interest sparked in me. “Really?” I squeaked. There was no stopping my talking then. “Cuz, well, I'm gay. And I've only been to one Pride, and it was two years ago, and I couldn't buy anything cuz I was broke, and...” The feeling of telling someone outside the safe haven of my house felt surreal. It felt liberating. When I finished babbling incessantly and I bit my lip to keep from saying anymore, she laughed. Her laugh made me feel oddly comforted.
“Haha! Cool,” she said. She didn't seem phased at what I said. She was very easy and relaxed. Warmth spread through my chest and I felt less and less nauseous. Cool, she had said.
Cool.
***
“What would Mom have thought?” I asked my dad. We were sitting in his den listening to Rush on his Sonos sound system. The humidifier from his closet where he kept his cigars was humming softly and the smell of his newest purchase was in the air. I looked up at him in his worn leather armchair from the floor while playing with the dogs. He was reading a copy of the Economist and smoking a cigar. The smoke waved in the air in the wind that was coming through the cracked window.
He glanced up from the magazine a pondering expression on his face. It also grew sad and sunken, the way it did always when I brought up my mother. His hair even seemed to gray just by watching him. “I honestly don't know,” he replied. “I don't know.” He took another puff on his cigar and returned to reading. His expression of grief faded away slowly as he read about the global economy.
Before my mother had died, she'd been a strong woman. She'd been someone who every woman could look up to. She was brave and she inspired me to be me. But what would she think of who I was now? What would she think of my new-found identity? There were so many questions that I wanted answered. Over time though I knew that they would never get answered. My mother would never know that I was gay. She would never be able to tell me what she thought.
Thinking about my mother was making me depressed now. I changed the subject abruptly.
“You know smoking will kill you, right?” I said, returning to petting the dogs.
***
Room A109 was brightly lit and friendly. It was also semi-crowded to my pleasant shock. People were sitting at desks, on the floor, leaning against the counters. I knew several people from both Chamber Choir and random run-ins in the halls and classes. Bottles of pop were arranged next to a tray of rainbow colored cupcakes. Torrey and I made our way to the table to pour glasses of Mountain Dew. We sat cross-legged on the floor; there was no room at desks to sit at. A group of my new friends and I waited and chatted. I fished around in my pocket for a pack of gum and rested my head on my knees, watching the room intently.
There was a group of students I knew from seeing them in the halls. The head of the group made my gaydar start screaming like a banshee. In fact, most of them seemed like they could be gay when I put them in context. Most of them I wouldn't have turned my head twice about if I saw them normally. It comforted me.
Our supervising councilor, Mrs. Deckrow, sat in the corner at the desk and she was opening a DVD from its packaging. It was intriguing to watch the beginnings of the first GSA meeting. The gestures that people made talking, the smiles on their faces as they talked as if being a room possibly full of gay people was fine with them boosted my mood a little more with each laugh or grin.
The clearing of a throat at the front of the room quieted the room. The boy who had cried gay to me had stepped to the front of the room so that the whole room could see him. His hands were folded in front of him and he had a composed look on his face.
“Welcome everyone,” he said, gesturing his hands to the whole room. “Thank you for coming to our gathering.” He sounded too formal for my taste. It almost sounded like a church service. “I'm Sean, President of this club. These are the rest of my fellow cabinet members who will be helping me run things and will be willing to help you with anything you have to contribute to the club.”
The rest of the people who were gathered with Sean took turns introducing themselves. “So, we're all here for the same thing. We want some change in Lowell High School. We're not in the most...tolerant community. What we really want to do is be able to be here for you all, whether you identify as gay or straight. We want to be able to help and answer and questions you might have. We really just want to be helpful in anyway possible.”
“Now, is this going to be a support group,” Brianne Warren, a senior I knew from Chamber Choir asked, “or are we going to be working on building tolerance?” She leaned forward in her desk awaiting the answer. Truthfully, I was eager to hear it to. I didn't need a support group, as I had one in Eastown already. I needed a way to help build awareness in my school.
Sean nodded. “A little bit of both,” he answered. “We want to make it better environment and be able to offer support to those who need it.”
His answer reassured me. This was going to be the start of change in my high school. And it wasn't just going to be me fighting the battle. I looked over at Torrey and I grinned excitedly. He smiled broadly back. I held out my hand and we did a quick high five. Things were going to be looking up.
I expected change a little too quickly.
There were still slurs in the halls and classes, like “That's so gay” or “Stop being so gay.” Each one was a gun shot of a reminder there was always going to be hate going on. There had only been one meeting so far. What was I expecting? They all stung and once again I was back to desperately trying to hide from people. If someone asked me if I was gay, I wouldn't lie now. I was too terrible at lying that it would never work. Paranoia was getting the better of me. When I walked through the halls and was not with my friends, I became wary of every random glance that happened to cross over me.
“Halley, do I look gay?” I asked. “Like, when do you look at me, do you think 'oh, she might just be queer'?”
She snorted. “Hardly.”
***
A small voice in the back of my head was constantly trying to remind me that it was going to get better. A bigger voice told me it would be a long time before things got better. It's how things go though. Changes would have to start somewhere. Challenges would come up. Hurdles would get jumped over. Someone had to step up. I planned on being one of them.
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