(The author is an associate professor in MSU’s media and information department who studies the use and design of technology in Africa.)
Coming out is a lifelong process. For me, it began by coming out to myself — a slow and challenging process in my early 20s. I came to understand that I was deeply attracted to women and imagined spending every part of my life in a relationship with one. This was in the late 1990s, when “coming out” was a cultural event: Ellen DeGeneres had just appeared on the cover of Time magazine next to the headline, “Yep, I’m Gay.”
For whatever reason, I felt I had to come out to my parents before anyone else. In hindsight, that was a terrible decision. It was the summer of 1997. I was a junior in college and attending a summer arts program at a university in Canberra, Australia. I remember waking up one morning with a strong sense that I needed to tell my mother I was a lesbian. I called her.
Her reaction was disastrous. She told me I couldn’t come home, that my parents would no longer pay for me to attend college. She said I was sick. Even today, recalling that phone call is incredibly painful.
And yet, despite her reaction, I felt relief. I had mostly kept my feelings to myself for three or four years, and it had become unbearable. After telling my family, I was able to slowly create a life that reflected who I am.
That life included spending time in as many lesbian bars, in as many places, as possible. “Blue Jeans,” in Toledo, Ohio — where I lived after college — was one of those places. I spent many weekends there. It was a space to see women, to desire and be desired. I miss those spaces. I’m saddened that so many no longer exist.
Nearly thirty years have passed. My life has included cross-country moves, career shifts, a master’s degree and a Ph.D. These steps eventually led me to East Lansing, where I’m now a professor at Michigan State University — somewhere I never thought I’d be, or stay, for more than a decade.
I’ve built an academic career I’m proud of. I study how people use and design technology in Africa. I have an amazing partner, whom I married in 2008 during the brief window when same-sex marriage was legal in California — only for that right to be stripped away, and then later restored by the Obergefell v. Hodges decision in 2015. That marriage wasn’t legally recognized for years.
My mother’s initial response has taken a long time for me to process. She still struggles to acknowledge me, my partner and our child. That hurts. But it doesn’t take away from what coming out means to me: to be alive, to feel deeply, to see the world a little differently than most — because I am a queer person.
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