The experience of 'coming out and being 'out as a lesbian or gay man is different for everyone, but there are some common features. In this article, I want to reflect on my own personal experience and how it fits into what is common to all lesbians and gay men.
Something which few heterosexuals understand is that coming out is not a once and for all action -something you do once and never have to repeat. Iț is a continuous process, not only because you meet new people, but also because what it means to you to be lesbian or gay may change.
I came out as a lesbian on national television at Labour Party conference about four years ago. Before that the number of people who counted on the fingers of one hand.
Some of my fears about coming out so publicly have proved to be groundless - that all my straight friends would drop me forthwith, for example - but others were confirmed. I have been subject to verbal abuse -not just from Sun readers - on occasion, it has come from people who 'ought to know better including, occasionally, members of left groups. I have been the subject of personal abuse in meetings.
Clothes
After I spoke, some work colleagues refused to speak to me. I am, at the moment, finding i* difficult to get a job. I have no way of knowing whether or not this is because I am a lesbian, but I know that my clothes (I always wear trousers) and hair (very short) are signifiers of lesbianism. I have been threatened when holding hands with a girl friend in the street.
All this is difficult, but what I find more difficult in many ways, is the profound lack of support and understanding from heterosexuals on the left. This has ranged from total marginalisation to being told that the issues I was concerned with were unimportant, and certainly shouldn't (couldn't) be prioritised for discussion at, for example, my union conference. The assumption is there that everyone is heterosexual, and this is true on the left as well as in wider society.
Straights - even sympathetic ones - don't, perhaps can't, understand how emotionally exhausting the constant marginalisation is. They don't seem to appreciate that speaking at a meeting as a lesbian is not an easy option, but fraught with difficulty and even physical danger when the meeting is public.
Marginalised
I am one of a handful of lesbians willing to speak on public platforms, but every time I do it, I have to screw myself up to come out publicly yet again. Sometimes I make the effort and find myself marginalised on the platform, either because the organisers have not stated that there would be a lesian speaker, or because there of a (deliberate?) marginalisation of lesbian and gay issues from certain left groups, which have the ability to dominate meetings by force of numbers.
So when Í want real emotional support, I don't feel able to go to my comrades on the left. I look to lesbians and gays active in the community - many of whom are hostile to left groups because of the appalling record they have - at best marginalising the issues, and homosexuality is a bourgeois deviation'. Despite this, I think it is right to be a socialist and to call on lesbians and gays to take up the wider struggle - in their own interest as well as everyone else's. So the question is, where do I, as a socialist lesbian, go? Answers on postcards please.
'knew could be
of Pam. wild guy! at worst claiming that Not way.