Coming Out Stories by Emma Goswell

Author:Emma Goswell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Jessica Kingsley Publishers
Published: 2021-01-21T00:00:00+00:00

‘Coming out is a bit like having anal sex for the first time. You dread it, but it’s usually not half as painful as you thought it would be. It’s all about being true to yourself. You’re not living your life for others. But they will still love you. Courage, mes braves.’

Iain Dale, writer and broadcaster

Sophie

‘We promised to never mention that we saw each other in a gay club.’

Sophie came out as gay at 17. Her mum really couldn’t cope and threatened to divorce Sophie’s dad. This, however, is a real story of eventual understanding and the realization that things do, nearly always, get better.

I was about 15 and I was walking into town with my friends and there was a girl in front of us. She had a fairly short skirt on and she had really long legs, and I just turned around and said to my friends, ‘Oh my god, that girl’s legs are beautiful!’ One of my friends then turned to me and said, ‘Are you a lesbian or something?’ And I said, ‘Absolutely not!’ It hadn’t even crossed my mind!

Growing up, my dad always called me the ‘lesbian daughter’, as a joke, because I was never into boys. I was forever helping my granddad out with the DIY or the gardening. My nan and my mum, they’d go shopping and they would leave me with my granddad and I’d do all the DIY with him. So, I just assumed that I was a tomboy and I just never really thought about guys.

Then, around the age of 15 I started to realize that all my friends were into boy bands. They basically said to me, ‘Oh, you’ve got to like one of them. Which one do you like?’ And I said, ‘I don’t know.’ So, they went, ‘Oh, you can like this one. Here’s your favourite!’ And I said, ‘Yeah, okay, cool.’ So, it got to that point where I had to pretend that I was obsessed with Zayn from One Direction!

But secretly I had a closet door (it’s even funnier that it was a closet door) in my bedroom with posters of Lady Gaga on it. My mum wouldn’t let me have posters on the walls, so there’s naked pictures of Lady Gaga still to this day on my old closet door at home.

It was just a weird time for me because I wasn’t interested in guys. Then I went to sixth form and I became friends with a group of lesbians there. It still wasn’t really clicking in my head though. I can look back now and see all these signs, but it still wasn’t clicking.

I think what did make it click though, was this guy at my work that had a crush on me. He kept sending me messages and asking me out on dates, and I kept turning him down, saying I was too busy: ‘I’ve got work, I’ve got school, I’ve got grades to get!’ I finally accepted and I went out on a date with him.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.