LETTERS TO MYSELF

Sunday, October 11, 2020

It was a pretty normal day for many. For a select few of us it was a big day for reflection. For one, it was Canadian Thanksgiving. Canadians don't make it as much of a big deal as Americans do, but even for us this year it was a special one - the year of the pandemic and all. However, for many of us we also had to reflect more deeply for National Coming Out Day. I spent all day thinking about this. Inspired by a few people I saw on Instagram I was prompted to reflect on my own journey

From the outside looking in coming out, to anyone who hasn't experienced it, is the public proclamation of our sexual attraction of the same sex - or just in general a non-heteronormative sexual orientation. But for anyone who has to go through it, it means a whole lot more. The internal battle that we have to go through in order to get to the gates of the closet is long and arduous. What's worse is that many of us just turn away the minute we get there. What has the coming out process meant for us? Well, I can't speak for everyone, but for me it has meant understanding family - and by extension community. While half the battle of coming out is with ourselves, a lot of the fear is if people will receive us once we do.

No story is identical to another. Each story is unique, and each story is just as valid as the one that came before, or the one that comes after.

And this is mine.

Where do we start? Certainly not at the beginning - that's too obvious.

I’m Filipino. My family emigrated from the Philippines. For the Filipinxs reading this - you already know what that should mean. For anyone who is still curious, it means that I grew up with deep adoration for the Catholic Church and deeply rooted in traditional Filipino culture (also remember that were colonized by Mexico, Spain, and the United States).

What does it mean to have a deep adoration for the Church? For me, the way the church was interpreted to me taught me: self-hatred, self -exclusion, and worst of all that my self-worth was below everyone's. The humility paired with the demoralizing stance on homosexuals taught me I was nothing. These lessons weren't explicit- I iterate that this was the interpretation - they were puzzles pieces we had to put together on our own. The interpretation also manifested itself silently in my actions. This meant that at the young age of 10 my initial self-discovery of my truer self was met with dismay with compared to my interpretation of the Church. At the young age of 10 I would utter words to myself at night to make myself feel better. I would utter "you'll grow out of it," or "it's just a phase" each night for years. For years I had hoped these words would allow me to wake up one morning feeling attracted to women. That day never came - and I've yet to forgive myself for trying to gaslight my inner child.

How does Filipino culture play into this? Well, parts of it are from the adaptation of our colonizers: Mexico and Spain. Strong parts of that culture will refer to the Machsimo and how to be Macho and be a man that provides for his wife and family. This meant I either had to accept myself to never fit into culture, or deny my sexual truth. Tell that to a child. Tell that to a child who had to decide on his own because having his parents find out would immediately mean abandonment.

Tell that to a child who just wanted to be happy.

Journeying on this alone was self-induced imprisonment. I had to fight 5 years with the struggle of self-acceptance. I had to fight 5️ more years for peer acceptance. I had to fight 10 more years battling whether to tell my parents or risk being labeled as a pariah.

Age 10: The initial 5 years was the steepest battle. Being at peace with myself meant having to denounce my faith because the two could never coexist. It meant having to strip away all that I had so I could rebuild around my true self. It meant having to carry shame as a Filipino. It meant having to learn how to not pray at night. It meant learning how to tell your parents that "I'll go to church next week." It meant allowing my parents to begin to believe that I'll be sent to a Hell that personally didn't exist. It meant learning that there was nothing after death.

Age 15: The next 5 years weren't any easier. Still virgin to my own new personal resolve, I had to begin engaging in conversations about emotions, about sex, about relationships. Even a year or two before I came out to social groups, I had to falsify relationships with girls in order to fit the status quo. Coming out to my peer groups wasn't even my choice.

I was outed. I was outed by a (at the time) dear friend. She told the most popular group in school that could make the word spread like wildfire. The morning after it happened, there was something in the air. It was thick with the breath of my peers whispering my name down the halls. And, my friends who I thought were friends then never once came to rally around me or tell me they were OK with it. Not once was it acknowledged. This affirmed for me that as a homosexual, my life could cease to exist.

In the coming years, I was bullied. My life was threatened. My very existence was only ever acknowledged when I had to be the centre of a mockery. High school change rooms were now an awkward social interaction. More awkward than realizing the person you waved to in public was in fact a stranger and not someone you thought you knew. More awkward walking in to the washroom of the wrong gender. Beyond cringe.

During these high school years, I spent 5 years floating between social circles. But the worst part was that in those five years I spent a decade in my mind contemplating whether or not life was worth it anymore. It was. As soon as I got out of there, it was.

By the resolve in the values instilled in me by my parents that it would be a shame for me to end life before giving back to my family. For fear of completely failing I held on to that one thought alone. That alone kept me alive.

Age 17 onward: While still fighting the social front, I began to search inside again. This time I was searching for meaning and not answers. I had the answers already. I would never grow out of my sexual orientation -- and my life still meant something. All of this did not include my parents in the equation. To me, my father was a lost cause - not something I would ever tell him. But my mother? I hated the thought of breaking her heart. But as I leaned into the idea that my social worth was tied to my peer circles, I began to toy with the idea of telling her. My friends said to me "she deserves to know, she's your parent." Maybe, maybe not.

My response to that now is: take that ethnocentric view out of here. Who deserves to know about you and your sexual orientation is completely your own business and your own decision.

Back to mother. These 10 years were by far the easiest of the 20 year journey , but still meant there were parts of my life I could not share with her. Rightly so, though, I was a bit too promiscuous for her liking. However, the struggle really came to the forefront in recent years. I had finished my degree. I had started a career that brought me (and my parents) some financial stability. The next step in my journey just might be my romantic relationships. I knew I wanted to share that with her, and would hate to hide that from her.

While the story of coming out to her (and the rest of my family) is reserved for another time, let's just say we're at a point to where we know it is there, but it's not the preferred topic of conversation. And quite honestly, I'm happy with that.

Age 28 (now): Now I'm at a time where not only do I have resolve in my nature, but I wield it with conviction. What I assume took 7 years of socialization took countless tears and over two decades to undo. Now free of the shackles of my mind, I now must turn the fight to making sure equality and justice is received by all. We shouldn’t have to fight ourselves only to fit into a society that doesn’t accept us. Better yet, we shouldn't come out damaged in our impressionable years at all. Period.

I wish this was a case for convincing you to raise your children with only love and no heteronormative structures, that's a big ask. How is someone to know what is heteronormative if heteronormative is the only lens you see the world out of? I don't know, but I ask yourself to try your hardest. Because I, and many others like me, could have used those 20 years doing something much more productive.