On Queer: On keeping quiet

When I was a kid, I did gymnastics. I loved the sport, the aggressiveness contrasted with grace. Sometimes, I did not love the people I did it with. The gym I trained at was full of people very set in their ways and of the opinion that people unlike them are somehow less deserving of their respect. Don’t misunderstand me: They would be perfectly nice to you, to your face.

When I was around 13, a new coach joined the team. He was a gay man. Many of the other gymnasts and the coaches took exception to that. They never said anything to him, but it was clear he was not welcome, and behind his back they were vicious. “So feminine” or “so flamboyant” or “I can’t believe someone would choose to be gay” all floated around in lines for equipment. They were rude to his face -- never openly about his sexuality but enough so that everyone knew why. His opinions on skills were casually ignored and any advice listened to with only half an ear.

I stood there, uncomfortable with the situation yet not willing to speak up. I was 13 and 'straight' and, although I may have been one of the oldest on the team, I was a lower level and not the best in said level. Thus, my position in the pecking order was low. So, I did not say anything.

I watched and absorbed how they treated queerness. I let them make fun of him and remove all his authority as a coach. I watched how all the adults in the situation let this bullying go on and made no moves to stop it but instead participated in it. They laughed with the girls on the team at his 'strange' behavior. It was in that moment that I began to think how I could never be out to these people. They could never know; I was already different for not being Christian.

I started imaging what would occur if I was out. I imagined girls refusing to talk to me and coaches doing the bare amount of training. I thought of what could happen if the parents who sat in on practices knew. Potential accusations that I was in the sport so that I could watch girls in sports bras and spandex, despite the facts that we were all kids and they were younger than me and it was a team flew around in my head.

All I could do for months was come up with the horrible scenarios that could have occurred if they had any idea that I was gay. This was all before I was fully out to myself. I had not admitted my queerness to myself, let alone to anyone else. It prevented me from coming out to myself sooner, because I was scared. I was scared to the point where even during my first semester at Tufts, I couldn’t enter the LGBT Center because “what if someone knows?”