Finally Dana

Part one

I love my friends. I enjoy acquaintances, but I love friends. When I meet people, I can’t help but try to become part of their lives and have them become part of mine. Most of my core group of friends are people I met almost 20 years ago in freshman year of university. We were assigned to the same dorm floor and that stroke of providence has produced consistent and long term relationships. 

I have made many more friends since, and I treasure the relationships I have cultivated with each of them. Each group of friends is distinct and each group represents a different side of me, emblematic of a different phase of my life. 

When I came out I did so in stages. The first group of friends I shared my truth with was my most recent. They were queer like me and were representative of the phase of life I had finally reached where I started to accept who I was. It was hard to speak my truth, but I did so knowing that I would be accepted and valued. 

The second group of friends I came out to were ones I knew from graduate school. We shared a strong liberal and progressive view on social issues and a focus on equity and social justice. This group was a significant influence on me and my journey towards a mindset open to the value of all people. I was certain I would receive a positive reception by this group, but I was less certain of my ultimate acceptance. The positive foundation I received from my queer friends buoyed me and allowed me to present my truth without significant fear. 

The third group of friends I came out too were my college friends. This group symbolized a time in my life where I did my best to bury who I was. They were my “football and beer” buddies who had known me mostly as someone who could hold their own in a drinking game and could talk sports with the best of them. The person they knew was not entirely false. I do like sports and I enjoy a good beer. But that person was largely an act. It was a difficult and stressful process to admit that while I was the same person inside, I had never shown them my authentic self. I needed the support of my queer friends and my graduate school friends to make this confession.

Finally, I came out to my high school friends. This group represented a person who was willing to at least put on the trappings of religion. The person I was repressed the women inside as much as possible. I attended a private christian school and any hint of “the gay” would have resulted in expulsion. I was told that Sodom and Gomorrah were Gods punishment for men who wore women’s clothing and that men who slept with men must be stoned. I was told that we were supposed to love the sinner but hate the sin while simultaneously claiming that being gay or trans was someone choosing to live in sin. At recess we would play a game where all the children would try and tackle the one person with the ball. The game was called “smear the queer.” I never would have been able to come out to them if I had not already enjoyed the support of my other friends.

I can view my life through the lens of the friends I made and still have. They map out a journey of self discovery and self actualization that has culminated in me being who I was meant to be. My journey took me from a fundamentalist childhood to a insistently straight young adulthood to a position of advocacy and social justice through the lens of an ally to a group of LGBTQ+ friends that showed me what it meant to really be brave and to be unapologetically authentic. 

Every step I have taken has been with the support and encouragement of friends. Without them, I would not be where I am now. Whenever things get hard and may seem unbearable, I remind myself that I am truly and wonderfully blessed.