Everyone has been told to be themselves probably more times than they can count, but I think being able to actually be yourself is a luxury some of us take for granted. One very important component of our identities is our sexuality, and if you are LGBTQ+ it's a lot harder to be yourself than if you were simply just heterosexual.
I recently finished Fun Home by Alison Bechdel. It was the first graphic novel I ever picked up and I was floored by the blatant honesty of it all. In the beginning of the novel, Bechdel lets the reader know about her father's death caused by being hit by a truck and says she's unsure if it was an accident or a suicide. She writes about her dysfunctional childhood and not only her father's struggle with sexuality, but also her own.
Alison Bechdel is a lesbian and came out when she was 19 years old. In Fun Home, Bechdel discusses coming out to her parents via letter, her father's approval, and her mother's difficult time with acceptance. Bechdel also discusses her father's own struggles with sexuality.
He writes a letter to his daughter saying, "I'll admit that I have been somewhat envious of the new freedom that appears on campuses today. In the fifties, it was not even considered an option." In the 1950's, being anything other than heterosexual was basically unheard of.
When Alison Bechdel came out around 1980, she could be openly homosexual and join the Gay Union at her college. Obviously, she had it much better than her father but it was by no means easy. She was denied from bars and not long after she came out began the AIDS crisis (see AIDS crisis timeline here).
During the AIDS crisis, also known as the "Gay Plague", it was certainly not easy to be LGBTQ+. Some doctors and nurses refused to treat AIDS patients and people believed they could contract the disease just by breathing the same air as an LGBTQ+ individual. Certainly, no one would want to come out during this time.
Coming out today is obviously much more likely to be accepted but it's not as easy as it seems. I once knew someone who would lower his voice and try his best to "act heterosexual" for fear of what his mother would think and that his father would beat him. Marriage between LGBTQ+ persons just recently became legal and still, there are people who want to take that away. Marriage is something I've thought about since I was a little girl and I honestly can't imagine finally discovering who I really am and no longer being able to have my dream wedding.
Buzzfeed put out a video in 2014, illustrating the things that people went through when they came out.
I think an LGBTQ+ person's biggest fear about coming out is rejection. On season 2, episode 18 of One Tree Hill, the TV show illustrates this fear and shows one of the show's main characters coming out to her parents (see below). For this well-liked and successful show to do something like this was huge. It showed LGBTQ+ people that they were not alone and maybe even gave someone the courage to come out to their own parents.
As a heterosexual, white female, I can't say that I know what it's like to struggle with my sexuality and coming out, but I have watched people I love struggle with it. I know that things are better than they used to be, but LGBTQ+ persons still face an incredible amount of judgment, inside and outside of their families. The judgment that they face makes it so much harder to "be themselves" like we were always told to do growing up. In fact, LGBTQ+ persons are 3 times more likely to experience a mental illness such as depression or anxiety disorder, according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness because of the difficulties that they face from day to day.
So if you can fully and comfortably be yourself, you may not realize just how lucky you are because, for some, it is a lot more difficult than you think.
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