National Coming Out Day
The spaces we share are often an essential part of how we share ourselves.
I didn’t actually come out. More accurately, I was drawn out – by friends and then by family. In my early 20s I couldn’t find the impulse or the words to express who I was, who I had always been.
One night, in the smoking area of a nightclub, a kind and considerate friend tentatively discussed my sexuality and encouraged me to come out as gay. In that space – noisy, the air laced with smoke and knock-off Dior Sauvage – I’d taken the first few tentative steps. It felt like the most ‘honest conversation’ ever. Something I’ll be forever grateful for.
Suddenly, a part of me that I had held so privately was out there. It was freeing, like a new world of possibility had opened up to me. I did not feel like I was making up for lost time, but I did feel like I now needed to be in Dempseys (gay nightclub in Sheffield) every Friday night. Dempseys became a kind of anchor point – somewhere outside everything else where I could just exist. Whilst I mostly prioritised losing myself to the absolute bangers of the early 2010s, it was also the first time I really started to feel seen. I didn’t need to explain or justify anything, or have all the answers.
My friends were so supportive. They no doubt knew long before I was ready to come out, but had given me space (and maybe just a little nudge at the end).
A few months later, it then took a very brave mum to ask her eldest – ‘is that man your boyfriend?’ I stood there frozen in my kitchen for what seemed like ages. A direct question deserves a direct answer and so I simply replied ‘Yes.’ Yes, that man who was often ‘just leaving’ when you came to visit (and whom you’d never seen before until about 3 months ago) was in fact my boyfriend. Though the boyfriend is long gone, that memory sticks in my mind. It must have taken a lot for my mum to ask that – a courage that I did not have. To this day I find it moving and now quite emotional retelling it. I might swathe the memory in deadpan and (maybe successful) humour but it was painful – it was a shock to my mum when I ‘officially’ came out, even if it was something that my parents had long considered. It changed everything. But in a way it didn’t change anything at all. Determined to reciprocate the bravery my mum had shown and not hideaway, I spent the subsequent weekend at my parents’ house seemingly ‘available’ to discuss things further. At 22, I sat on my dad’s knee as he told me that he and mum would always love me.
In the queer community it is often said that we have the opportunity to create our own family. Facing rejection at home and searching for acceptance, many form new support networks within the community – stitched together in clubs, cafes, and greasy late-night takeaways; in places where everything is a little less fixed. Somewhere in and amongst the cheap drinks, The Saturdays megamix, and unexpectedly heartfelt conversations, you find yourself and your people.
I was lucky. I didn’t face that rejection. But I still enjoyed the cheap drinks.
When it came to coming out, I was actually helped along the way by my friends and my family. It’s hard for me to convey the level of gratitude I have for them – it really feels like they unlocked something for me, so I could just be me.
If you know me now, you might be asking – ‘you had to come out?’ Which on one level is quite funny, and on another level is quite a problematic question. Over ten years on, I feel quite vulnerable sharing this. I am reflecting on a time of tricky conversations and fear of what might change. But perhaps the biggest takeaway, the biggest reflection, is just how important the support of those around me was. And still is.
Looking back, I can see how much those spaces mattered too – the smoking area, the kitchen, the dancefloor – all the places where conversations happened, or almost happened, or eventually did. None of them changed who I was. But they gave me somewhere to say it out loud. ⚭
Thomas WoodhouseNational Coming Out Day is October 11
Dempsey’s is open Monday—Sunday, Sheffield S1
More 2G4
