01.10.07

The Past and Pending

Posted in Coming out, General, Identity at 10:45 pm by Guest Writers

The other day, while I was supposed to be praying in church, I started to reminisce about the last 30 years of my life. As I recalled, I went through the same things as everybody else while I was growing up, but only one particular event stood out amongst all of them.

6 years ago, during a long distance telephone call from my mum to me in a land pretty far away from Singapore, my mum asked me (for the second time) if I was gay. When I answered yes, my mum proceeded to bawl her eyes out. She kept on asking me where it was that she had gone wrong. “If only I had bought you those Barbie dolls when you were young.” she kept saying, amongst other things in her long list of regrets.

I guess, at the time, both my mother and I wanted the same thing – affirmation that I was gay. She wanted confirmation for her suspicions about my “wayward tendency”, and I wanted confirmation from her that she still accepted me as her daughter, regardless of my sexual orientation.

Till this day, I still wonder if I did the right thing by coming out to my mother 6 years ago. I wonder if I had waited a little longer, would her response have been any different? Or would she still have had that long list of regrets? Nothing is for certain in this life, but for me, at that point in my life, one thing was for certain – I finally decided that I had had enough of dodging familial bullets – especially after I had already been forced to come out to all and sundry 6 years before that.

What happened the first time, 12 years ago? At the tender age of 18, an argument broke out between me and a female classmate (to whom I had been writing love letters). The argument opened up a veritable can of worms for me, as the classmate decided it would be best to hand over all my love letters to the school principal. Parents were called in, and counselling was suggested to “cure” my “wayward tendency” towards people of the same sex. And I spent the rest of my A levels years being ostracised and gossiped about by both schoolmates and some of the female teachers. I even became fodder for a Charismatic Christian classmate who sought to “save my soul”.

My parents (although mostly it was my mother) fell into a state of self-denial about my sexual orientation. There was really no talking to them when it came to being queer. My mother built up a wall of responses to it, such as, “It’s just a phase.”, “You don’t really know what you want yet,”, etc. etc. So there was no turning to them for the support that I really needed at the time.

But as the saying goes, what doesn’t break you only makes you stronger.

I trudged through my A levels, strongly believing then that if I did well enough, that I would be one step closer to being who I am. One step closer to being accepted by my parents (which, to me, is very much more important than being accepted by peers). Later, my parents decided that it would be to my advantage to send me away to continue my tertiary education overseas. I don’t think they realised then that that would be another step in my coming out process. While overseas, I deliberately exposed myself to diversities in culture, religion, nationality and sexual orientation. I listened and learned by trial and error on some occasions, and upon advice and witnessing events on other occasions. I developed a social support group of friends, straight, gay, bisexual, queer and transgender. I taught them a thing or two about being queer, and they taught me many things about being human.

Towards the end of my studies overseas, a motley group of friends and I decided to participate in the then upcoming 2000 Pride Festival. We pooled our money together and rented a truck to turn into our very own float. On the night of the parade, while trying to maintain some balance between beating some rhythm out of my bongos as well holding my balance aboard the float, I realised that after all those years as a lost sheep dwelling in a concrete jungle of wolves and sheep shearers (and especially after my emotionally charged telephone conversation with my mother), I was celebrating something more than just queer pride. Something more important than love, relationships and money.

I was (finally) celebrating my self.

Happy 2007 everyone.

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