Coming out and around

A gay Black man reflects on his coming out.

By Earnest Offley

The author attends his fourth annual Fourthof July gathering of fellow gay Black men onMartha's Vineyard. Credit: Courtesy of the author.

When the media began to focus on the suicides of many of my LGBTQ brothers and sisters, it brought to light their stories and the realization that others went untold. I realized that we need solidarity in the LGBTQ community. We are stronger standing together as one oppressed group than we are as multiple groups, separated by the different races, sexualities, and gender identities within the community.

I want others to be able to identify with my story and understand that, while the struggles I faced when coming out as a gay man are common regardless of race, culture can play a role in a person’s coming out experience. When I came out to my mother she was upset because she had spent her whole life defending me from accusations of homosexuality. She truly believed that I was not gay, but just had some stereotypically gay characteristics. After coming out to my mother she explained that in the past she had asked me indirectly if I was gay or not, and because I changed the subject she assumed that I was not. Despite this past miscommunication, my mother and I went only one day without talking to one another, and then we picked up and spoke as if nothing ever happened. Not many people in my community can say that their parents reacted to their coming out in such an uneventful way.

When I told the rest of my family, they simply asked what took me so long! Some of my family members are religious, and my coming out started a small debate in which we agreed to disagree, because I truly don't see the way I live as a sin regardless of what any religions teach about homosexuality. From the day I came out, my family was very supportive – even to the point of asking when I was going bring a partner into the family. I couldn't have asked for anything more than this.

While it may seem like I had the least stressful coming out experience imaginable, leading up to my coming out I had many of the same experiences as other people struggling to come to terms with their sexual orientation. I dated guys and girls (not at the same time) and tried to convince both that I was sure of myself. I was always changing the subject when friends and family members asked whom I was dating. As the oldest grandchild in my family, there are a lot of expectations. I assumed that I wasn't living up to one of them by not being a heterosexual. I just wanted to be considered normal for the feelings that I had inside of me. My life only got better after I came out, and this is because of the love and support of my family.

My life and my coming out experience are different from many of my peers in the African American community regarding family. However, from a religious standpoint I had similar experiences. In my experience, African Americans tend to be more conservative on this issue than any other group in the United States.. While my family may have been okay with my life, many of my peers are less fortunate. As I mentioned before, my coming out sparked a conversation within in my family that was religiously based. In my community we hold religion in high regard, especially when it comes to things we see as “Sins”.

We all have a story, and no matter how nominal you may think your story is, it matters.

I have often seen the damning of gays in my community and religion, but not the damning of those who have been divorced, or have other issues that are deemed as “Sins”. We run to the Bible to justify our hate speech when we know that our God is love and that Jesus was known to hang out with prostitutes. We are all human no matter how we look at it, and given that we are a people who were, and continue to be, oppressed, you would think that we would be welcoming towards another minority dealing with similar societal discrimination. If you replaced the word “gay” with the word “Black” 20 to 30 years ago you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between the treatment that one group received and the other. Even though my family has been okay with me, I still am part of a larger community that has problems with the way I live my life. As part of my full cycle of coming out, I have returned to religion and have been embraced by an amazing church family at Myrtle Baptist Church, where we are working to become officially known as an open and affirming church. I have returned to religion to help create an affirming place for other LGBTQ Black people to worship and find fellowship. Steeped in African American Baptist tradition, we are welcoming of all races, sexualities, and gender identities. The work of helping to heal those in the LGBTQ community who have been riddled with Bible bullets is ongoing in my church.

We all have a story, and no matter how nominal you may think your story is, it matters. We come from so many walks of life in the LGBTQ community, and these vast differences should pull us together. By acting as a unified community to stand against the hatred and bigotry of this world, we will continue to change the hearts and minds of those closed off to the reality our lives.

I am living my life as free as a bird and looking forward to marrying my partner of five and a half years this September 23, 2016.

Earnest Offley is Director of Human Resources at Cambridge Housing Authority in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In his spare time, Earnest remains active at his alma mater Roger Williams University, serving on its Alumni Board. Since summer 2014 Earnest has been on the Board of The Theater Offensive (TTO). He appreciates the work that is being done by TTO to help change the way we think about race, gender, and sexual orientation. Earnest can be found traveling, checking out a local vineyard, or running a 5K.