Buddhism and the Act of “Coming Out”
In the queer community, the act of “Coming Out” tends to be viewed as a collective right of passage; the inevitable final boss of accepting your queer identity. For the uninitiated, “coming out” or “coming out of the closet,” is a metaphor that has been adopted by the LGBTQ+ community to articulate the moment an individual chooses to declare their sexual orientation and/or gender expression to the world.
And while this specific narrative has become ingrained as a right of passage within the universal queer experience, I find that it lacks some of the nuance the moment deserves. For one, the words “coming out” make it sound like a one-time event; as if each queer person is given a megaphone and a feather boa to then parade around town with and proclaim their queerness for all to hear, and after that everyone knows everything! Except that doesn’t happen because A) Life is suffering (aka I have yet to receive my free feather boa), and B) “coming out” isn’t something that happens just once.
The truth is—at least from my view as a thirty year old queer trans-masculine person who settled into their queer identity somewhat later in life—I have come out more times and in more ways than I can count. Ironically, my first memories of coming out were well before I could even recognize my own queerness.
Growing up in a primarily conservative, right-leaning area of Southern California, the subject of religion filled me with the same dread-laced nervous energy I would later experience in my late twenties when I began to come to terms with my queerness. Kids at my school came from mostly White, Christian, and overall conservative families, which meant there always came a point when I inevitably had to figure out how to tell my new friend that I was Buddhist.
This revelation was typically met with a barrage of questions ranging anywhere from, “Do you worship that fat bald guy?” to “If you don’t believe in God, does that mean you’re going to hell?” You know, questions every ten year old loves to be asked. By the time I became a teenager, I had subconsciously trained myself to steer conversations away from religion altogether at school to avoid awkward questions I didn’t want to be confronted with. Mainly because the mass majority of questions had vaguely racist undercurrents running through them, but also because many times I truthfully didn’t know how to answer.
I grew up going to service almost every Sunday but that didn’t mean I was an expert on all things Buddhism. I could recite the Golden Chain just as well as I could say the Pledge of Allegiance; but I also had undiagnosed ADHD and kept myself entertained trying to make different origami shapes out of the single dollar I was trusted with to drop in the collection box at the end of service. I was a kid. Just because I was Buddhist didn’t make me an encyclopedia on the subject.
I’ve been thinking about this a lot recently because in the past few years since coming out as queer and trans, I am once again being bombarded with questions I don’t always have the answers to.
Some are easy: Pronouns? Thank you for asking, right now I use they/she.
Pretty much everything else? Don’t mind me, I’m just going to back myself into a hedge wall like Homer Simpson.
Coming out has strangely transported me back to fifth grade, suddenly responsible for answering questions on behalf of an entire community I only realized I was a member of a few years ago. Only this time it’s not something I was grandfathered into, but rather an identity I found in myself and only now have chosen to share publicly with the world.
It’s in these moments that I am reminded of the sermons I folded origami to on the Sundays of my childhood. Siddhartha Gautama was not a God, but a man. He was not born the Buddha, but became him over time and reflection. It was okay that I didn’t have all the answers back then, and it’s more than okay I don’t have all the answers now.
“Coming out” doesn’t mean this exact version of me is what I’m going to be for the rest of my life. After all, the only constant in life is change. If I decide to later use he/him pronouns or even go back to using she/her it will not invalidate the truth of the moment I am living and choosing to come out in right now. Because coming out is not a moment, but a process. It’s sharing the recognition and acceptance of our truest selves with those within our chosen community.
And I want to make it clear: not all queer or trans people will identify with my story. In fact many of them probably won’t, and that’s perfectly fine! I urge them to share their own so I too may learn more about the universal queer experience. I only share this today in the hopes that someone else (gay, straight, cis, trans, alien being, etc.) may find some part of my story that resonates with them.
“Coming out” within your given community is as much a gift as it can be a hurdle. It’s freedom at the cost of exposure; authenticity at the risk of not just emotional, but at times even physical violence. It is an act of bravery and vulnerability that should be received openly and without judgement.
When I did finally start to come to terms with my queerness, my memories of coming out were not excessively flamboyant or dramatic. If anything I would often rush to say my piece, maybe even mumble it under my breath, as if by muffling the news it would somehow dampen the blow. And even though my experiences as a Buddhist kid in a conservative community had primed me for the worst, most of the time the record-scratch moment of confusion I could see happening behind my friend’s eyes was immediately followed by a soft smile, or spontaneous hug, or maybe even a “thank you for trusting me enough to tell me.”
And it is those moments that make every uncomfortable confrontation worth it to me. Because just as it was when I was younger, after those who tried to poke and prod at my identity found some new shiny piece of gossip to fixate on, the people who stayed behind did so because they wanted me in their lives. The authentic me. And I can only hope others can find the same quiet peace I’ve settled into coming into my own queer identity.