Monsters—from the Id!

In 1988, there aren’t a lot of options in how to come out; it usually involves either a great deal of careful planning (writing letters, setting aside time with close friends and family to talk to them) or a great deal of getting caught, sometimes literally, with one’s pants down. And then there’s the way I do it.

It’s late February in Kirksville, Missouri. I slip in the back of one of the biggest student lounges among all the dorms to see the place is packed. At a college where the biggest group on campus is the CCC—Campus Crusade for Christ—I would’ve thought something advertised as “A Panel Discussion on Homosexuality” would fly mostly under the radar. But no. Standing room only. Easier to lurk in the back that way, at least. I mean, last semester I couldn’t even get up the nerve to go to the off-campus group, and now that I’ve gotten up the nerve to go, the group’s gone. Never knew anyone in it, either. Nobody’s out on this campus. That’s why the whole “Panel Discussion on Homosexuality” (couldn’t have made it a more clinical name if they’d tried) is a surprise.

But once it starts, I’m not surprised at who’s on the panel. It’s a who’s who of stereotypes: two very masculine-looking lesbians and a gay man who’s a hairdresser, all from Quincy, 75 miles away. Nobody from here on this panel. I bet people asked around and got nothing but “Oh, hell no!” for answers. The panel members introduce themselves, and then the Q&A begins, if you can call it “Q&A” and not “the grand inquisition.” I figure all the CCC members are there; the SRO audience is filled with people on a mission to verbally flay these people who just came to answer questions, though the panel members probably expected this.

My blood’s starting to boil. This isn’t fair. If I’d had to deal with people like this last summer instead of my best friend back home and the people I met through the friend of his from the local community college, I’d probably be six feet under right now instead of being half-figured out and trying to get a handle on the rest of myself. Then again, I also wouldn’t be caught between having a girlfriend (excuse me, fiancée) back home and having things happen like…well…like what happened a couple weeks ago at that party (and what happened again three days later) and how I feel about that. Given the choice, though, I think I’m okay with having spent that night in the emergency room emptying my stomach of all those pills instead of the alternative.

Back to the panel. The rhetorical assault continues, with the CCC folks (I guess that’s who they all are) spouting Bible verses and making sexuality sound like a mathematical equation: straight relationships = love (pure and holy), everything else = lust (impure and sinful). It’s just ticking me off more. I didn’t get the nickname “Einstein” in high school because I put up with stupidity, and this exercise in faulty logic is stupidity at its finest.

Disengage brain, open mouth, fire away. From the back of the room, my voice rings out. “You can’t tell me I didn’t love my ex-boyfriend the same way I love my fiancée now!”

A silence so awkward it trips rather than just falling.

I storm out of the room and walk around the campus for while, going back to the panel long enough to grab my coat (which, considering it was about 25 degrees outside, I probably shouldn’t have left in the first place). I get back to my dorm room and lie on the bed when the phone rings. It’s the campus newspaper, wanting to interview me about what happened at the panel. I probably should stop to wonder how anyone at the Index got my name, and whether I should ask them to keep my name out of the story, and how much of my story I should tell, and if I should even say anything in the first place.

Do I stop to think about any of those things? Oh, heck no. I keep the reporter on the line for an hour or so, pouring out my whole tale of my first love (really just an infatuation that happened to be mutual), the fallout from that, and meeting a young woman I decided to propose to over Christmas. Most of it isn’t in the next issue of the Index, but my name’s there. For the rest of the time I’m at school, I’m the only one who’s “out” in the sense that everyone knows who I am. When there are stories about LGBTQ+ events in the news that the Index wants to write about, they literally call me to get my reaction and put it on the record.

About a year after I graduate, I get a letter from a friend who’s still at school. After a year without me, several people still in the campus closet decided I’d been right to be as out as I was, so they were creating an LGBTQ+ group. It’s a group that, a couple years later, I find out some people considered me the unofficial founder of. (Now, 35 years later, I’m sure nobody remembers that anymore.)

Sometimes blundering out of a closet isn’t really all that bad.