My coming out, part 1

by Dan Cheng

I have been wanting to tell this story of my coming out for a long time but as yet, I have found no one I am actually close to to tell this. As I'm writing this, I have not even decided to send this out, but I guess writing it out would be good for me.

My coming out has not been particularly easy, but then, whose has? The surprising thing is that my coming out coincided very nicely with my becoming a more devoted Christian. But that is in the past now.

I have been a Christian since 10 or so, but that was mostly in name. I never went to church, hardly ever read the Bible, etc. It was later in junior college that I was more concerned about this, being exposed, due to circumstances, to other more active Christians.

It was also this time that I became slightly aware that I might be gay. However, I put it off as a phase, something I had read somewhere. Besides, to me then, as to many of my friends now, gays do not exists. They are just a bunch of limp-wristed effeminate ba-poh out there somewhere for you to make fun off.

Then, I went overseas for studies. Eventually, that gave me the opportunity to become more involved in Christianity. I joined a fellowship and became very actively involved in it for a year or so.

Even more coincidentally, it was during the same time that I became more aware of my sexuality. Gays no longer existed in that otherworld. They do exist, and they not necessarily have to be any more effeminate than any guy on the street. It did make accepting easier, but not much.

By then, I had already gleamed lots of info about homosexuality off the Web. The first person I came out to was one of the staff in the fellowship. She was supportive but nevertheless, urged me to speak to one of her guy friends who was gay but had been "healed". You see, the official fellowship stance was the standard "Love the sinner, hate the sin" mantra.

I was all for trying to heal this thing. I wanted to get rid of it, not because I despise gays but because I did not know how I was to live a live like that, especially in Singapore. However, the information the fellowship gave me contradicted that which I had gotten off the Web, such as how often people are actually "cured" of this. Deep inside, I didn't want to be cured. Deep inside, I never believed them. Maybe I didn't want to. I don't know.

A while later, I spoke to the "ex-gay" friend of the female staff member. And I was persuaded to go for a conference on healing, not on gay matters specifically, but just on healing, although it was hosted by a "struggling gay". Somehow, I was never completely convinced.

Not long after, things came crashing down. I finally admitted to myself that I was not believing them and that I never have. This, on top of other doubts I was having about God, the Bible and Christianity on a whole, I finally lost my faith and fell away from the fellowship.

I lived in an impasse for some time, although admittedly, I was slowly accepting the fact about my sexuality. I eventually told my first Singaporean, a relatively good friend of mine from Singapore who was also studying at the same college, over dinner. He was quite cool with it, although right after that, he was never made any reference to it whatsoever. The conversation didn't stay on the topic for long. I was disappointed that he didn't want to talk about it. He did admit that if I had told him before he went overseas, his reaction would have been different. At that time, I was on the verge of graduation and was going to another college for my Masters. I realised that I timed it rather conveniently, since I wouldn't see much of him after I leave.

The second Singaporean I told was another friend of mine from Singapore who was taking summer classes at my college. We were not very close in Singapore but one night, he happened to come up to my place and we started talking about everything. After like 3 hours, I eventually told him. You see, you don't really speak to someone for 3 hours unless there are things in common (not referring to sexuality). Besides, he was a devoted Christian and I wanted to get his perspective on things. He was cool about it. He admitted that he had never thought much about it and that my telling him really made him think about it. He admitted that he didn't know, from a Christian's point of view, whether it was right or wrong, but he didn't believe that God made gays just to make them suffer. We talked about it for another 2 hours or so before we had to call it a night. I was glad I told him because at least, it made him ponder, although I was never close to him. However, I also realised that once again, I had timed it nicely. He would be going back to his college after summer school, and besides, I was flying back to Singapore not long after.

The third Singaporean I have come out to is my brother, about a month ago. Much of time I was back in Singapore, I was in a bad mood, and finally I decided to tell him, so that he would know what in the world was bothering me. Besides, I couldn't hide it from him; we used to be quite close before we drifted apart due to me studying overseas and him getting a steady. His first response was "What did you say?" and I replied "You heard me the first time." He was, among the 3 Singaporeans I have told, the most shocked and the most uncomfortable, for he had not had much western influence like the other two, and he was a heavily prejudiced person in other aspects like race and gender. He admitted that he would not be comfortable knowing if he knew that I had a boyfriend, and I rather bitterly replied that he would never have to know.

Since then, I have felt us drift farther, especially since he started working on top of spending time with his girlfriend. We have talked about it once or twice, such as after watching "Hot Dogs and Eternal Triangles", and he seemed to have become more comfortable about it. But I'm not very sure. We have not spoken of it much.

That's my coming out experience so far. I still have a long way to go, I guess. I have far from completely accepted it myself; I am telling myself that I really don't want to be this thing, but then, I keep asking myself if I have any choice.

Something interesting happened to me last night. My friend was giving me and some other friends a ride home, and I was sitting in front. The conversation with my driver friend and I somehow drifted to gay people, starting off with some comment about him not choosing to be gay (we were joking with some of the girls in the car). When the laughter stopped, I told him that it wasn't a thing of choice. His follow-up was "How would you know, are you gay?" followed by laughter. I wanted to tell him but I wasn't close to the other people in the car so I made some comment about being more exposed to this overseas. I didn't succeed in convincing him that it wasn't a choice thing although I wanted to scream in his face that I wish I had a choice 'cos I would never have chosen this.

I never did tell him even after he dropped off the other people first.

Fuck, now I want to cry.     

Footnotes

None

Addenda

Dan Cheng wrote a follow-up piece 2 years later. See Part 2