What is your fondest coming out memory?

[Slater]

Wow reading through these makes me realize how spectacularly uneventful my coming out was.

On some level I had always known, but wasn't ready to confront it until college. I was 20 years old had been dating a guy for awhile and knew I was unhappy and finally just said to myself that really what I wanted was to be with women. And from that moment on, I never felt bad or conflicted or angsty about it.

But here is the sort of pathetic part that pretty well sums up who I was in my 20s: Within 6 weeks of that moment, I was part of a group that was meeting with the president of the university to present a list of demands and recommendations around LGB equality on campus -- but it took 3 years (yes, I said years) before I finally kissed a girl. (Which turned out to be the beginning of a torrid 18-month affair with a married coworker. Because one thing you have when you are 23 and have been waiting 3 yrs to find someome to get naked with? Good judgement.)

--Slater

[EmpressM]

I was 17. My best girlfriend M, who is heterosexul, and I were at an amusement park riding roller coasters and goofing around. We were sitting on a bench eating ice cream and chatting when the hottest butch I'd ever seen walked by with hys friends. I looked at M and said, "Did you see that? Hy's cute! I'm going to go talk to hym." She looked at me very confused and asked, "You know thats really a girl, right?" I smiled possibly the biggest smile I've ever had and said, "Yes" and took off after hym. Hy and I were together until I was 23, turned out to be a good thing I talked to hym! M was totally cool although she had tons of questions for me later. She is still one of my BFFs!

[Vanessa Emma Goldman]

well, i am still in the process of coming out as a trans woman and a lesbian, but so far i would have to say it was being in the production of the Vagina Monologues at the university campus where i work last year. even though i do not have one yet. a vagina, that is. i was and still am so honored that the fine people at the Women's and LGBT centres asked me to be in it, and it was such a wonderful and affirming experience for me.

i and another transwoman read the monologue titled "They Beat the Girl Out of Me, or So They Tried" which is specifically about transwomen.

more recently, i have become a stage performer in a band called the Dirty Virgins which is led by my dear friend Steffie Loveless. i am a "transgender cheerleader" who dances and does cheer moves to the songs. as with being in TVM, it is great to be up on stage performing as a woman!

[luv2luvgirls]

I was 19 and was living with my first gf...I stopped at my parents house to grab a few more things and my sister just got a boob job...so as we pass by my crazy sis on percocets goes...hi Ri, hi Cindy....yanks down her top and proclaims...like my new boobs all smiley and crap...I was like April dont flash my gf your boobs...thats how I first told anyone I was gay.... it was later that night that the rest of my family found out...well only April was supportive at that time lol

[Red Dirt Girl]

Well aren't you freaking cool for having the balls to go talk to hym!! I was always so desperately shy and flustered around butches I could barely even look at them let alone SPEAK to one! It took me until I was 37 (or 38?) to come out as a femme and actually DATE a butch.

Coming out story to follow, but not nearly as good as some of these...

Originally Posted by leFemmeEmpressM

I was 17. My best girlfriend M, who is heterosexul, and I were at an amusement park riding roller coasters and goofing around. We were sitting on a bench eating ice cream and chatting when the hottest butch I'd ever seen walked by with hys friends. I looked at M and said, "Did you see that? Hy's cute! I'm going to go talk to hym." She looked at me very confused and asked, "You know thats really a girl, right?" I smiled possibly the biggest smile I've ever had and said, "Yes" and took off after hym. Hy and I were together until I was 23, turned out to be a good thing I talked to hym! M was totally cool although she had tons of questions for me later. She is still one of my BFFs!

[Nat]

My mom said, "I'm not surprised."
My dad said, "Well, that's new. Want a cigarette?"
My brother said, "I'm happy for you."
My cousin said, "Yeah? That's cool."

but I think one of my happiest early moments was when I was still married. I was staying in Oxford for a summer program, and I happened to befriend the two other queer/genderqueer people on the trip. None of us had figured things out yet regarding exactly where we fell on the spectrum of anything, but the three of us went to London for the weekend. We rented a motel room, got all fancy, and headed down to the Candy Bar - my first lesbian bar. When the three of us walked into that bar, it just felt like home. It's one of those moments where everything shifts and nothing is ever really the same again. I was just so happy and so comforted to be in that space and to feel at home in it. We danced and laughed and drank and visited and had an all-around fabulous time. It was such a weirdly innocent time in a way - just the three of us having our little explosions of self-discovery.

[DoReMiFemme]

My Dad found out through the Internet--not on Facebook or anything like that. No, my Dad got to read some of my poetic genius.

I was in my late teens and had submitted some of my deliciously BAD (it was so bad that the word needs to be in all caps--BAD) poetry to a poetry site run by a dude who held open mic nights in a local coffee shop.

I ended up being poet of the week and that awful poetry was posted out there for all them thar Internet surfers to see.

On a whim my Dad googled my name and, bing! Oh look! Poetry written by his daughter! About her girlfriend. And her girlfriends boobies.

He called me and said, "So...congrats on being a featured poet."

I was flabbergasted. "Oh, hey, thanks...Dad."

To which he replied, "Well? Are you?"

I said yes, and the conversation moved on from there just like usual. He's been my biggest supporter ever since--not supportive of the poetry, but certainly my sexual preferences. I can't blame him for the poetry part.

[Jett]

When I was 17 and told my mom, the hardest one for me, and she totally made it feel like I was ok and it meant everything to me.

I learned later when she was on her deathbed... that after I left that day she cried, but she told me she cried because she knew it was going to be a harder road for me... gawd I loved that woman and am so grateful she was in my life...

[DapperButch]

Driving home the morning after kissing a girl for the first time and thinking...."Hmmmm...guess I am gay. Ok, then." (had no real sexual leanings prior to this).

It was as simple as that. No angst over it at all.

Now when I told my parents, I was a wreck!