Sometimes I really appreciate Facebook’s ‘memories’ feature. It reminds me of the fun and often funny moments I’ve shared with my friends and shows how far I’ve come since joining the social media platform. Other times, however, I scold the feature for reminding me of just how embarrassing my posts were or for reminding me of the underlying homophobic tensions of my family members.
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August 25th marks one year since I publicly came out. Excluding, of course, my closest friends at the time whom I told a couple of days before, as well as my parents whom I came out to several weeks later. So I thought I'd write a series of posts concerning why I came out, my experience coming out, and how I dealt with the experience afterwards. This is a chance for me to reflect on the past six years and hopefully gain some closure through therapeutic writing (aka ranting). This is also for the small possibility that my unfastidious posts could possibly be useful for anyone who wishes to feel less alone.
June 14th marks the first time I purchased a Pride flag and saw, but did not visit, a gay bar. Needless to say it was one of my 'gayer' moments since coming out.
For those of you who do not know, and somehow have managed to stay off of Snapchat, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram for the past 16 days, it's Pride Month! 30 days of celebrating specifically diversity in sexuality and gender identity, the struggle of those who sparked the LGBTQ+ movement, and love for others and one's self. In spirit of this colorful month of visibility, I wanted to buy a Pride flag whilst I was with my friends on a trip to the beach. The other day I was walking home because I was too worried about bothering my teacher for a ride. It was't raining so I thought it would be fine. When I was passing through downtown I was startled by a phrase shouted at me from across the street. Two students, who seemed to be sophomores, looked my way and screamed, "faggot!" and then proceeded to enter the local Baskin Robins.
The Son, the Father, and the Holy Spirit...also Adonai, Yeshua Ha-Mashiach, and our lady of Guadalupe. These figures provide a light into my family's complicated relationship with religion. Their relationship and ties to strict religious doctrines were what prevented me from coming out to my family sooner.
When I was born my family was atheist and a couple of years later we became a Catholic family. If I am being completely honest, my family and I had come to a consensus that the one and only true reason we enjoyed going to the Catholic church was because of the food they served afterwards. Anyways, around the time I was 10 or 11 years old we converted to the Christian faith. Coincidentally this was also around the time I began questioning my sexuality. I am glad you asked. Although the entirety of the story would take more then a single blog post to completely relay to anyone reading, I will quickly paraphrase my life's story with the following. I am gay and have always been gay. My family thinks differently, and that is to be expected from a traditional, latino family guided by religious superstitions based on unsound scientific studies. I have had to deal with a lot, but never something this...complicated
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