closets are scary, i won’t come out, i’ll be out [for afropunk.com]

Regarding bisexuality my 29th birthday was special. I found myself in Amsterdam near the Museum Square Hotel Amsterdam kissing a Dutch man who insisted that it was okay to let his girlfriend join us. I could only understand the “its Ok…its Ok” rant. But we were far beyond needing validation, after the bathing suit fashion show we’d initiated.

By: Jimmy Twosticks

Something different was happening on this trip as I hop-scotched across the EU and Africa to close out my 20’s. Some unique confidence kicked in. I write unique, because I was somewhat confident about who I thought I was previously, but I didn’t feel as though I could Be Out. After I asked a taxi driver to take me from Schiphol Airport straight to Thermos Day (a popular bath house & spa), I expected a weird look, at least, right!? Clearly I’d never been to Amsterdam before. The lack of push back I got for asking to go to a gayest area, and how the driver gave me an engineers tour of how the city grew and engineered its water levels away via bridges and canals, was as if I didn’t tell this drive that I was disgusting and from middle-America.

So I stopped being embarrassed. Aaaah Euro trips…LOL. It made me feel activist while considering how I’d be treating on the South Side of Chicago if I asked for a taxi ride to Boystown or Steamworks. All of this made me reflect on the time my younger cousin by ~6 years Came Out to our family after years of being teased for being obviously Gay. Even as we all knew, the moniker of Gay consumed his identify.  My life was different because of the women I dated, but I always gauged my cousin to understand how I’d be received. After all, to be Bi is to be Gay. We carry all the colors of the rainbow. 

From this reflection, I thought about how silly it would be to seek acceptance from people for the way I like to have sex. I’ve never had a heterosexual family member approach me to say, “I like it missionary!” So I arrived at the conclusion that I didn’t need to say, “I also like it missionary”, with this cute Dutch woman’s cute boyfriend. I didn’t (and don’t) want to be some label other than the Jimmy. Knowing that reads ignorant and hopeful, I decided to engage each person in my circle as an individual and if we ever talked about sexual encounters, I’d respond about my orientation when the time was relevant.

At 32 now, I find my core objective to just live a productive life Out of the Closet, but I should never be having a conversation about travel and interrupt to say “you know I’m Gay, right?”. When I volunteered for NYC Pride in 2013, I made no announcements but it provoked more conversation on my social media with long-time friends and family that I don’t communicate with frequently. While I’m not sure I understand the word normal, I’ve been able to be comfortable having conversations about my orientation by just Being Outand avoiding the show of stereotypes (both positive and negative) via Coming Out.

My biological father (Jimmy Onestick) sent me a text message about Magic Johnson’s son after we were talking about Michael Jordan’s hall-of-fame speech. Naturally I thought Magic’s son played ball, because of the reference. My father wrote “he plays ball but not that type of ball”. So I Googled him… He is gay and Magic/Cookie are supportive. I wrote the old man, who I am not very close with, a text to say: “me too”. He responded “I guess that is working out for you”, and so it is. He is the first to like my Facebook articles about LGBT issues. I think we influence more when we are able to be ourselves.Closets are Scary, but I won’t come out, I’ll #BeOut

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#BeOut is a campaign touting that sexuality is a range and for LGBTQ community to be unafraid of getting comfortable in their own skin and environment. 

This post was originally posted on whenicameout.tumblr.com and reposted with the permission of the author.