My Two Moms. "Coming Out"

This book has caused me to think about the concept of coming out a lot lately. Even though Zach is not gay himself, he often talks about how he had to come out as the son of lesbian parents often when he was a kid. His parents sat him down and had a conversation with him that most kids in America don't have to have, telling him how people may view their family as unusual or unconventional because he had two moms. He often says that "I don't have to tell you that growing up in small town in Iowa is no Greenwich Village." In other words, it wasn't easy to have lesbian parents in an area that is not as accepting of non-comformity. Coming out is a reoccurring theme in the book because Zach is confronted with many questions when his friends come over for the first time or when the parents of his classmates see his two moms at PTO meetings.

I think that Zach makes a point to talk about how tedious coming out can be. It's something that a lot of people don't have to think about, but to the average gay or lesbian it's a looming thought. I have always felt very alone in my belief that having the preverbal "coming out" speech is somewhat outdated. I think that Zach feels this way too, as he talks about how it seems like such a big deal to come out when you are young but that as he got he saw how it really shouldn't be that big a deal. I have nothing against the people who decide to have some sort of announcement when they come out but I will say that I personally wouldn't feel true to myself if I did something like that. My question has always been why come out as gay if straight people don't have to come out as straight? Why put labels on ourselves? I would like for people to not be able to label me; that is my freedom. For some people, their freedom is to be able to shout that they're gay to people they know and don't know alike. That's fine. But for me, it's to never label myself, because words really have meaning. I feel sexuality is too fluid to be summed up in a phrase. Human beings are too complex to be summed up like that. When we give each other names like gay, lesbian, bisexual, genderqueer, or whatever else, aren't we all just trying to figure out a way to make something unconventional fit neatly into the puzzle of society? Isn't that exactly why people have such a difficult time accepting LGBTs, because they were 'unknown' and 'undefined'? Sometimes I think that we feel the need to define ourselves to help society define us. I don't just mean this for gays and lesbians though, I mean this for all people. The best way to have society not define you is to not tell them; they can guess, but they'll never really know. I exclude close family and friends from society, of course, because when you're close to someone they will see beyond the surface.

Now, to reiterate, I am not saying that coming out is a bad thing to do. Everyone handles it differently. These are just some questions that reading this book has brought to my mind.