Video Transcription

QLives: Coming Out in to the Light

Growing up in Bathurst was difficult at times. It’s a little country town. If you’re different in any way from what’s considered normal, then you’re kind of isolated and alienated. I found that as I grew up, dance was the one place where I felt really free. I never thought about anything while I was dancing—I was only ever focused on the movement and the feeling of the movement in my body.

Dance helped me deal with a lot of the fear and anxiety I had about being gay growing up. I was very much a tomboy, and I loved showing people how physically capable I was. Training was something I could control, and in many cases, you can’t really control your sexuality.

I grew up in a very Christian background where I couldn’t talk to anyone about anything. I didn’t really understand being gay. When I was 11, I remember being enamored by seeing older men but just thinking that they were handsome—not really understanding it. Growing up in a community where I couldn’t talk to anyone about it, I would have just been shunned.

I was married for 10 years to a woman, and when I got divorced from her, I was shunned from the community. Everybody just kind of went, “You’re divorced, you’re nothing anymore.” So imagine having to then come out and say, “Oh, I’m gay.”

Moving into adolescence, I found myself attracted to girls, and I actually thought it was something I’d grow out of. It wasn’t an enjoyable period. It probably wasn’t until later on that I realized I might actually be gay.

When I came out, I was probably about 15. I still tried my hardest to minimize people talking about it because it was really difficult to be walking through the school hall with everyone gossiping about you, calling you names, and people threatening to bash you for being gay.

I didn’t move over to disability sport until about the same age that I was comfortable being gay, and I think that had a lot to do with accepting myself. I got to a point where I needed to stop worrying about what everybody else thought of me and start thinking, “What do I think of myself? How do I value myself?”

Society expects that the norm is you’re straight, you’ll have a boyfriend, and you’ll get married. People make the assumption that you’re straight, in the same way that when I talk on the phone to people, they assume I have two hands.

Before telling my family, I was scared. I think I was most terrified about having to tell my father and my brother, fearing that they would treat me very differently or that I might lose them from my life. We had such a strong connection growing up.

I actually came out to my dad, and he said he would deal with my mother. It was a long conversation, and he said to me, “It’s not that I’m disappointed, but you just never really want your child’s life to be harder than it needs to be.”

All the ridicule I was receiving at school put me in a place where I was really upset. I was in the car with my dad, and somehow we got onto the topic of me being gay. He always talks about how I’m his blood and that he will always love me because of that. Whenever anyone speaks to him about me being gay or says something about it, he always stands by me.

It was pretty gradual. I took it day by day, but I did feel a lot better just knowing that they knew. I felt as though a weight had been lifted off my shoulders.

For me, coming out at 31 felt like being a teenager. It was never, “Oh, I’m out.” It was more of an evolution—more about me accepting myself rather than other people accepting me.

And it was incredible. I could finally let go of the fear that my family would react in a negative way to me being gay. I could finally release those feelings and really begin to enjoy being gay around them. I could have partners and realize that they were fine with me loving whoever I wanted.

To be comfortable being a little bit different—I think I’m a bit different, and I love being different. But it took me a while to be comfortable with that.

I think for most people, coming out is about dealing with themselves first—feeling comfortable in your own skin, understanding that it’s not shameful. If anything, what’s shameful is not being your true self and not allowing all the people who love you to see you for who you are.

Video by QLife