Coming Out Gay 4 times! Quick Overview.

Being Gay In Modern Society seems to get more tolerable in the united kingdom at least. Although this doesn’t mean it’s hard for the individual to escape and having to hide their true selves. In this story, I speak about the 4 times I had to come out of the closet. I know at this point you’re all confused. But hang in there, read on to see My Journey Escaping The Closet.

When do people discover their sexuality?

it really depends. For me, it was 10, my partner later on in life when he was 18 and for other people a lot later.  There is no wrong or right time for that clock to tick. but hiding your sexuality and being ashamed of who you are is the worst thing ever. Scared of bullying? Religious beliefs. or a family of homophobic people. have always been the big issue for the LGBT Community. but in my story at the end I was lucky.  and it breaks my heart to know others have a harder time.

Don’t be a sally, coming out aged 10!

in the post My First Foster Care Placement I briefly mention about my first time coming out. and how it negatively affected my judgement and identity. When I realised i was gay I was young and unaware of most people’s judgments on gay people. I remember being in the room with sally and 2 other foster children and the topic of gay people came up. (initiated by another young person in the room) “I blurted out how do you know who is gay? , for all you know I could be gay?” and of course the response was “Are You?” and I responded yes.

at this point, sally immediately intervened.

But how do you know your gay, your only 10 You’re going through a phase, your way to young to truley know your sexuality?

Even though I was adamant that I was gay sally dismissed it all, even worse is it was never brought up again. and my confidence was broke. as well as self-understanding of myself.

2nd Attempt Coming Out Gay Over the internet

so again i  Messaged my family in a group chat I was around 13 at the time and it was a sweet and simple “I’m Gay”, after having family members contact mebut then  denied any acknowledgement to the message and refused to accept it was me. I accused an unknown hacker. I’m  still unsure why I denied it over a phone call… I can only assume nerves and not truly knowing what was the response.

3rd Attempt Coming Out Gay Over the

I must have been around 14. Still not entirely sure myself, but in the same group, I messaged my family with the same simple message. And once again I got a phone call. Guess what I did. I denied it…., my parents and family at this point were very suspicious but not too pressuring of the situation.

4th And Final Attempt to come out as gay

because this was the last part and I wanted to know I would not back down I had 3 stages to coming out.  I was aged 15 and fully acceptant of my sexuality and just frustrated with hiding the truth.

Stage One – I Told My Close Friends that i was Gay

Confront Close Friends, I asked about 4 close friends. 2 of which already knew my sexuality for advice on how to approach this, they told me to be myself. be strong and firm and agreed this was the time to come out. as long as I was sure. so I started prepping the message which was in paragraphs

Stage Two – I Took My opportunity and i told my Family I was gay

I wrote the message, it took me weeks. during this period my brother David at the time disclosed himself as Bi-Sexual and was accepted by the family which made me well less paranoid about the outcome.

On February the 4th 2012 in the evening. I sent the following message and excuse me for the grammar and spelling this is unfiltered or modified on purpose.

hi… and once again i am writing to you for to long now i have been hideing who i am for to long i have been pretending to be someone that i am not, but not any longer i am fed up of hideing away the thing is im gay i know i have said this before but then lied about it but i am and i want you to respect who i am
it was about a week ago david came out and that was when i realised i had to come out and dont think im following david as i am not i have know i was gay for 5 years now
Well thats about all i just want to say please dont call me or contact me straight away i dont want to start lieing about it again if you dont beleve this is me my midlle name is jean-Luc my mums real name is julie ann hagan and my fb account is pritty much unhackable now 😉
now weeks for that, yes it honestly did…. the number of times I wrote it and scrapped it.
of course, my mum did call me straight away once again xD, I let it ring for a while but picked it up “So is it true Li?” Said my mum and I responded, “Yes, its the truth.”

Stage 3 – Rainbows and Pride. The World Must Know.

Now it was time to get the message out to the world, how I did this was interesting. at the time we used “BBM” as blackberries were “Cool”, but it allowed me to get the message out quickly I updated my Status and Sent out a simple Broadcast. “It’s true, I’m Gay. I’m Officially Coming Out” and also updated something similar to my facebook wall.

The Outcome

my family was very understanding and happy for me. my friends still liked me. some people at school who I thought was homophobic turned out to be fine with it. and others I thought would understand did not. if I knew the result of coming out would be majority positive then I would have come out again at 13 but once again if sally took on board what I had said previously I wouldn’t have been scared to come out on the other two occasions.

A Message From Li Jean-Luc Harris

I hope you enjoyed this story; I wrote a brief story when I started these posts called Growing Up Gay and many people asked on me to expand on this; I was going to post this last month but it was pride month and I did not want to jump on the wagon. I think I’ve concluded this part of the story in full now.

Thanks for reading, and would love to hear your thoughts.