Connect with us

Out October: “I Guess I’ll Be Coming Out For A While.”

Published

on

Today’s Out October Project story comes from Greg Mitchell, who originally wrote this story for “I’m From Driftwood.” Greg’s story reveals a life of uncertainty in the face of perceived rejection.

Make sure to catch up on all the other coming out stories here.

“Nah, I can’t be g*y…I just have to find the right woman…yeah, that’s it…”

If you say it to yourself enough times, you’ll believe it.

Too afraid to face my truth for fear that God would hate me, and too afraid to face the few friends that I worked hard to have, silence was my only option.

At 16, two strands of life were developing for me: a personal one, and a professional one.  Personally, I felt different than every other 16 year-old I knew. I wasn’t interested in the same things that I saw other 16 year-old kids were into: sports, cars and girls; I was into music and boys. My interest in music was rooted in the construction and production of music, more so than the composition of it. I wanted to be a recording engineer, and I wanted to be on the radio. As far as my interest in boys, I constantly dismissed the feelings I had and delved further into my music, because all of the gay boys I saw were effeminate. I was attracted to some of the boys I had befriended who were finding their masculinity, but it seemed wrong to try and be with them.

Professionally, I wanted to make a career of my personal interests. As I moved from 16 on up to 19 and started going to college, my interest in Rap music was starting to get stronger.  I was able to separate my interest in men from my interest in music, until a male Rap star graced the television screen.  Further, the culture of Rap is very homophobic.  Even as I type this, I as a self-professed gay man am still not ready to hear an openly “Gay Rapper”.  I certainly want no part of a gay Rap movement either, because my sexuality isn’t the first thing I want people to know about me.  Rap was always entertainment to me.  I don’t really believe the stories that rappers tell in their songs, I just applaud their ability to tell lies very well.  The types of things that the male Rap stars I adored rapped about were how they found other women attractive and what they wanted to do with them.  As weird as it sounds, in Rap, I could fully accept men talking about women in ways that I can’t accept hearing about other men.  I mean, they were lying anyway, right?

Having hid behind my music and first career choice all through my 20’s, aside from one unsuccessful experience at an after-hours club at 27, I had never been with a woman.  I got more feelings from seeing male physical features and I wasn’t attracted to women at all.  I felt like I could be their friends, but sexually I just wasn’t interested. I had heard rumors of other gay men who had been with women to help them figure themselves out, but I was too afraid to get women involved in my mess of a life.  Being uncomfortable with the main act that most gay men do didn’t help me either, but I couldn’t get past that idea of actually being with a man.  I had also never been involved with a man because I was too afraid of being caught by someone I knew.  If I was out and about on a date, what if some friend or family member saw me? What would they think?

In an attempt to understand myself, to find someone to be with and to deal with the increasing loneliness and desire to have someone in my life romantically, in 2007, I started to explore my sexuality by asking questions of other homosexuals.  I had debates electronically with these people letting them know that I wasn’t afraid of them, yet, afraid to admit that I was one of them.  The debate topics ranged from gay adoption to my disagreement with the word “homophobia”.  Of course, I was defensive and relying on twisted logic to justify my homophobic thoughts, but I saw no fault in it at that time.  Still working on Rap music, I released my first album in 2008 at the age of 33.  I began the next step in exploring my sexuality by starting one-on one online communication with another gay man who had shown some interest in me.  After my experience with this man, I started reading, listening and watching materials that dealt with homosexual issues.  The movie “Milk”, the documentary on the life of Harvey Milk, “For The Bible Tells Me So”, and the podcasts and columns of Dan Savage are all things that changed my life and perspective.  For the first time in my life, I was seeing gays who lived past the sexual aspect.  I believe that God put these things in my path to show me that I wasn’t alone.  I talked to God about it through prayer.  I expressed the desires of my heart.  At that point, I had started to distance myself from regular church service because I was feeling disconnected from it for different reasons, but I still had a strong connection to God through the help of my pastor who always taught that knowing God “is about relationship – not religion”.  I was okay with that, but I still felt unresolved in my sexuality, and I had questions: Why did the experience I had feel right if gay is wrong? Why don’t I feel this way about a woman?

The year 2009 became a year that I will never forget.  After all the years of living a double life online, fearing that the two worlds would clash horribly if anyone from one world met people from the other, I finally began my process of coming out.  First, I came out to the one female friend I had in college that I saw myself possibly being with when I denied my sexuality, then I came out to my mother and sister.  From there, I slowly started having that conversation with the close friends that I had made within the past 10-15 years. Surprisingly, all of them accepted me.  Slowly, I gained the courage to come out to more people. As I continued slowly coming out to my friends, 2010 approached.  I moved to Chicago to finish school, and I started attempting to date and meet more men.  I submitted a draft of this paper to the website “I’m From Driftwood” in an effort to slowly come out some more, and I showed the piece to other homosexuals that I had previously argued online with about sexuality, while attempting to atone for the horrible things I had said to them.  On October 11th, 2010, I officially came out online to the 200+ people that I had befriended on Facebook.  Aside from that, I have still resolved to continue to be private about my sexuality, but if asked, I won’t lie about it, so I guess I’ll be “coming out” for a while.  There are still some of my family members who don’t know, but in accordance with living what I believe is my truth, I will risk losing those relationships if this topic comes up and they disagree with who I am. I feel closer to God because I’m living my truth now.

If there’s a moral to this story, it’s this: truth always rises to the surface.  Fighting it may delay it, but it will eventually rise.  We all have truths that we refuse to deal with in our lives, but accepting them is how the bruises in our lives begin to heal.

Editor’s Note: Back in July, contributor to The New Civil Rights Movement, J. Rudy Flesher, wrote for this blog, “I’m From Driftwood,” a review of the project. It’s a good read, with some excellent videos!

Remember, there are always options.
The Trevor Project: a 24-hour hotline for gay and questioning youth: 866-4-U-TREVOR (488-7386)
National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 800-273-TALK (8255)


Subscribe to
The New Civil Rights Movement


<!–
google_ad_client = “pub-6759057198693805”;
/* 468×60, created 10/21/10 */
google_ad_slot = “8507588931”;
google_ad_width = 468;
google_ad_height = 60;
//–>

Related Topics:
Continue Reading
Click to comment
 
 

Enjoy this piece?

… then let us make a small request. The New Civil Rights Movement depends on readers like you to meet our ongoing expenses and continue producing quality progressive journalism. Three Silicon Valley giants consume 70 percent of all online advertising dollars, so we need your help to continue doing what we do.

NCRM is independent. You won’t find mainstream media bias here. From unflinching coverage of religious extremism, to spotlighting efforts to roll back our rights, NCRM continues to speak truth to power. America needs independent voices like NCRM to be sure no one is forgotten.

Every reader contribution, whatever the amount, makes a tremendous difference. Help ensure NCRM remains independent long into the future. Support progressive journalism with a one-time contribution to NCRM, or click here to become a subscriber. Thank you. Click here to donate by check.

News

Rubio Sidesteps J6 Pardons by Declaring ‘I Work for Donald J. Trump’

Published

2 hours ago

on

January 21, 2025

By

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio refused to comment on President Donald Trump’s pardons and commutations of more than 1500 people convicted of crimes surrounding the January 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol, including the insurrection — despite having denounced the attack in strong terms four years ago.

In three separate interviews on Tuesday — on ABC News, CBS News, and NBC News — when presented with his comments about the 2021 attack, Rubio declared that he would not discuss domestic issues because he is now Secretary of State.

CBS News’ Gayle King told Secretary Rubio, “in February 2021, even you issued a statement and you said the images of the attack stirred up anger in you, the nation was embarrassed in the eyes of the world by our own citizens.”

“How do you personally reconcile those feelings with the pardons that he did yesterday?” she asked. “I understand you have work to do in the job is hard for many things, but on this particular issue, I’m curious about what you’re thinking.”

“Yeah, well, what I’m thinking is that I used to be a United States senator until midnight last night, and now I’m going about to be sworn in as the Secretary of State of the United States,” Rubio curtly replied. “And that’s what I’m thinking is I work for Donald J. Trump, the new president of United States, the 47th president who has a clear mandate to reorient our foreign policy to one that once again puts America and our interests at the center. And that’s what I’m gonna focus on. A hundred percent.”

READ MORE: Trump Defends His TikTok Flip Flop: America Has ‘Bigger Problems’ Than Young Kids’ Privacy

In an interview with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos, Rubio would not budge, even when faced with more of his own comments from 2021.

“You called it a national embarrassment, saying we now have third world countries that are lecturing us and we have tinpot dictators that are mocking us,” Stephanopoulos told him. “Of course, you’re now America’s top diplomat. You’ll be speaking with your counterparts around the world. What message does that pardon send to them?”

“Well, I don’t anticipate a single one of our partners will ask about it, obviously, and you know this well, from your time in the [Clinton] administration and my job is to focus on the foreign policy of the United States,” Rubio continued. “I have a different job this morning and a different focus. And it’s one that demands 100% of our attention, and so that’s what I’ll be focused on and won’t be opining on domestic matters at this point, because, frankly, my focus needs to be 100% on how I interact with our, you know, counterparts, our adversaries, our potential enemies around the world to keep this country safe to make it prosperous.”

“That’s the clear mandate from the president,” he added. “It’s what he campaigned on.”

“But as a senator,” Stephanopoulos pressed, “you did say that it affected our standing in the world. Don’t believe that anymore?”

“Well,” Rubio, seemingly somewhat irritated, replied, “as a senator, I had an opinion all kinds of domestic matters, but now I’m focused singularly on foreign policy, on how I interact with our allies.”

President Trump’s pardons of the convicted January 6 attackers, including nearly 90 who committed acts of violence, even against law enforcement officers, were also the subject of Rubio’s interview with NBC News’ Craig Melvin on Tuesday.

According to Fox News, Melvin played video of Rubio saying in 2021, “Vladimir Putin loved everything that happened here today because what happened is better than anything he could have ever come up with to make us look like we’re falling apart.”

Melvin then “asked Rubio what message the pardons send to the rest of the world,” Fox reported.

But Rubio declared that he “would not ‘engage in domestic political debates’ with the media and could not in his role as the head of the State Department.”

READ MORE: Cannon Blocks Classified Docs Report as Trump Targets Ex-Officials Over ‘Sensitive’ Info

“I hope you guys all understand that my days – at least in the time at the Department of State – of engaging in domestic politics will be put aside as I focus on the affairs the United States has around the world and the engagements we have to have to make our country a safer, stronger, more prosperous place,” he said, after refusing to respond.

When pressed again, Rubio apparently expressed frustration.

“I think it’s unfortunate, you know, our first engagement as I agree to come on this morning with you. I’m going to be working on foreign policy issues, and you want to revisit these issues that are going on in domestic politics. I’m just – it’s not going to happen,” Rubio said. “If you have questions for me about foreign policy and engaging in the world, I’d be happy to talk to you about those.”

Watch the videos below or at this link.

READ MORE: Skipping Hand on Bible, Trump Declares ‘We Will Not Forget Our God’ at Inauguration

Image via Reuters

 

Continue Reading

News

Trump Defends His TikTok Flip Flop: America Has ‘Bigger Problems’ Than Young Kids’ Privacy

Published

5 hours ago

on

January 21, 2025

By

President Donald Trump has taken varied stances on TikTok, the wildly popular social media app that experts — including members of Congress and the FBI — warn poses risks to U.S. national security and raises significant privacy concerns for American users. Now, Trump is now disregarding those issues and leveraging his presidential authority to intervene in favor of the Chinese-owned platform, which, under federal law, was to be sold to a U.S. company or banned in the United States by January 19.

“Every rich person has called me about TikTok,” Trump declared to reporters Monday evening, highlighting his newfound relationships with tech billionaires, some of whom were noticeably on stage near him during the inauguration.

About a dozen countries, including the U.S., have banned, fined, or restricted the use of TikTok in various ways, including by children or on government devices, according to a Washington Post report.

Calling it a “national emergency,” Trump in 2020, during his first term as president, signed an executive order aiming to ban TikTok, citing a wide range of issues, including “information and communications technology and services supply chain.”

READ MORE: Cannon Blocks Classified Docs Report as Trump Targets Ex-Officials Over ‘Sensitive’ Info

“Specifically, the spread in the United States of mobile applications developed and owned by companies in the People’s Republic of China (China) continues to threaten the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States. At this time, action must be taken to address the threat posed by one mobile application in particular, TikTok,” his executive order read.

“TikTok automatically captures vast swaths of information from its users, including Internet and other network activity information such as location data and browsing and search histories,” the order stated. “This data collection threatens to allow the Chinese Communist Party access to Americans’ personal and proprietary information — potentially allowing China to track the locations of Federal employees and contractors, build dossiers of personal information for blackmail, and conduct corporate espionage.”

Trump’s order also cited the risk of censorship by the Chinese Communist Party, and said the app “may also be used for disinformation campaigns that benefit the Chinese Communist Party, such as when TikTok videos spread debunked conspiracy theories about the origins of the 2019 Novel Coronavirus.”

Now, Trump is dismissing all those privacy and national security concerns, going so far as to apparently minimize concerns raised about how TikTok reportedly affects children.

In October, NPR reported that “internal TikTok communications have been made public that show a company unconcerned with the harms the app poses for American teenagers. This is despite its own research validating many child safety concerns.”

“As TikTok’s 170 million U.S. users can attest, the platform’s hyper-personalized algorithm can be so engaging it becomes difficult to close the app. TikTok determined the precise amount of viewing it takes for someone to form a habit: 260 videos. After that, according to state investigators, a user ‘is likely to become addicted to the platform.'”

According to NPR, 14 state attorneys general conducted an investigation into TikTok, spanning more than two years.

Investigators in Kentucky wrote that while 260 videos “may seem substantial, TikTok videos can be as short as 8 seconds and are played for viewers in rapid-fire succession, automatically.”

READ MORE: Skipping Hand on Bible, Trump Declares ‘We Will Not Forget Our God’ at Inauguration

“Thus, in under 35 minutes, an average user is likely to become addicted to the platform,” they alleged.

NPR also reported that “TikTok’s own research states that ‘compulsive usage correlates with a slew of negative mental health effects like loss of analytical skills, memory formation, contextual thinking, conversational depth, empathy, and increased anxiety,’ according to the suit.”

“In addition, the documents show that TikTok was aware that ‘compulsive usage also interferes with essential personal responsibilities like sufficient sleep, work/school responsibilities, and connecting with loved ones.'”

Those concerns did not appear to be on display Monday during Trump’s inauguration.

“TikTok’s CEO Shou Zi Chew was seated next to Tulsi Gabbard, President Trump’s nominee to be the director of national intelligence, at the Capitol as Trump was sworn-in,” The Wall Street Journal reported, noting that “the seating of Chew and Gabbard together comes as TikTok is under scrutiny for national security concerns.”

Later on Monday, reporters asked Trump why he flipped his position on TikTok and now supports it.

“Because I’ve got to use it. And remember, TikTok is largely about kids, young kids.”

“If China’s gonna get information about young kids, I don’t know,” he said appearing to shrug off the implications. “I think to be honest with you, I think we have bigger problems than that.”

“But, you know, when you take a look at telephones that are made in China and all the other things that are made in China, military equipment made in China. TikTok, I think TikTok is not their biggest problem.”

Trump went on to make the case for why he says the federal government should own half of TikTok.

“But there’s big value in TikTok if it gets approved. If it doesn’t get approved, there’s no value. So if we create that value, why aren’t we entitled to like half?”

The Washington Post’s Aaron Blake, responding to Trump’s remarks, noted, “Members of the House Energy and Commerce committee saw the intelligence on this and quickly voted 50-0 in favor of the ban.”

Watch the video below or at this link.

READ MORE: Trump Expected to Target Citizenship of Children With Undocumented Parents

Image via Reuters

Continue Reading

News

Cannon Blocks Classified Docs Report as Trump Targets Ex-Officials Over ‘Sensitive’ Info

Published

6 hours ago

on

January 21, 2025

By

U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon has denied the Department of Justice’s request to share Special Counsel Jack Smith’s report on his investigation into Donald Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents with Congress. Her order came just hours after now-President Trump signed an executive order to hold former government officials accountable for “unauthorized disclosure” of “sensitive” information, and “for election interference.”

Judge Cannon, a Trump appointee whose rulings have been highly criticized, refused to allow members of Congress to review Smith’s final report. Trump was investigated for alleged unlawful removal, retention, and refusal to return sensitive, classified, and top secret documents, reportedly including nuclear and defense secrets. The FBI executed a lawful search warrant on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort and residence to retrieve some of the documents.

Part of her reasoning, Politico’s Kyle Cheney reports, is that Congress “hasn’t asked for it and it’s not clear they need it, she says.”

“The ruling will make it easier for Trump to bury the report on the special counsel’s criminal probe,” Politico adds.

Late Monday night, one of the reportedly dozens of executive orders President Trump signed also addressed sensitive and classified information.

READ MORE: Skipping Hand on Bible, Trump Declares ‘We Will Not Forget Our God’ at Inauguration

In it, he revoked the security clearances of dozens of former federal government officials, including some who had worked in his first administration, like former U.S. National Security Advisor John Bolton, whom he criticized.

The list includes the 51 former U.S. intelligence officials who signed a letter reportedly stating that the disclosure of emails purportedly from Hunter Biden’s laptop “has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.”

“Many of the former officials are long retired and no longer hold active clearances — meaning that the move may have limited practical impact on their careers — but the order nevertheless suggests that Trump intends to act on threats he’s made to penalize national security and intelligence professionals whom he deems to be his enemies,” CNN reported.

“They should be prosecuted for what they did,” Trump had said.

“National security is … damaged by the publication of classified information,” the executive order reads. “Former National Security Advisor John R. Bolton published a memoir for monetary gain after he was terminated from his White House position in 2019. The book was rife with sensitive information drawn from his time in government. The memoir’s reckless treatment of sensitive information undermined the ability of future presidents to request and obtain candid advice on matters of national security from their staff. Publication also created a grave risk that classified material was publicly exposed.”

In 2023, Bolton commented on the classified documents criminal case against Trump, at the time 37 felony charges, most of which were under the Espionage Act.

“Trump appeared to have a ‘pattern’ of wanting to collect materials ‘of interest to him,’ including classified documents,” Bolton said, as The Hill reported. He also “knocked Trump’s behavior as ‘very disturbing.'”

Bolton told MSNBC, “there were some [documents] that we did get back. Others, the most famous, to me, it demonstrates why I don’t need to read the indictment or believe its allegations are true, although I’m pretty confident they are — was the famous tweet that he did after getting an overhead picture of a failed Iranian missile launch, which he was shown during an intelligence briefing. [He] didn’t give [it] back, and it was tweeted before the intelligence officials got back to their office.”

Bolton was “referring to a 2019 tweet from the then-president.”

READ MORE: Trump Expected to Target Citizenship of Children With Undocumented Parents

Trump’s order on Monday also stated: “It is the policy of the United States that individuals who hold government-issued security clearances should not use their clearance status to influence U.S. elections.”

Among the intelligence professionals the order revokes security clearance from are well-known cable news commentators, and political and national security experts.

In addition to Bolton, some on the list include: James Clapper, Michael Hayden, Leon Panetta, John Brennan, Jeremy Bash, and Nada Bakos.

Margaret Brennan, CBS News Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent and “Face the Nation” moderator noted that Trump revoking “the security clearances of a long list of former intelligence officials … makes it hard for his own team to seek informed counsel from them.”

Mark Zaid, an attorney who specializes in national security issues, including security clearances, noted, “no President has ever done this before.”

Watch video of Trump below or at this link.

READ MORE: Elon Musk’s DOGE About to Be Sued: Report

 

Image via Reuters

Continue Reading

Trending

Copyright © 2020 AlterNet Media.