“The biggest obstacle for me was coming out as gay. I grew up in the 80s, and my family wasn’t really open to it, and I didn’t think where I lived was open to it. I also didn’t know any other gay people, so I felt like I had to escape in order to come out. When I moved to the East, I still didn’t come out for a long time. It wasn’t until I was surrounded by more gay people that I felt comfortable. But even then, I was unsure of myself with respect to the process.
I realized that I couldn’t pretend anymore. I actually had a boyfriend at that time, and a lot of my friends were curious, asking, what’s going on? So, I thought, all right, I have to tell them. They all kind of knew anyway, but I felt that being gay was a bigger issue before coming out. You don’t know what will happen to you if you come out. I had built up worst-case scenarios where my life was going to fall apart. And then I came out and no one really cared. I was like, what the hell? It was kind of a shocker how not big a deal it was.
My family doesn’t say one way or the other. But every once in a while, they’ll say something that makes me realize that they don’t have a clue about what it means to be gay. My father had a lot of trouble with it, but he finally came around. He was in a cancer support group that was run by a gay man his age. Meeting him is what convinced him. And my mom had a gay brother. My brothers and sisters would ask some amusing questions. The challenge for me was that I could pass as straight if I wanted to. I basically “cheated” because I could get away with it, and so I surprised some people when I told them.
I had some crazy incidents with strangers, but those times have convinced me that if you’re ever up against the wall, you just have to be yourself. A guy at a gas station came up to me and started calling me a “homo,” yelling at me. I was facing the other direction and pumping gas, and he kept shouting, “Hey you! Homo!” I pretended that I didn’t hear him and, eventually, he walked up right behind me and said, “Hey you! Are you a f*****?” and I turned around and said, “Yeah, what about it?” He responded, “No way. Because my uncle’s gay. You know, I don’t really care.” I thought, what the hell are you doing? He was trying to get in a fight, you know. In those situations, I just say, yes, I am.
Now, I don’t have to worry as much and being gay is not an issue for me. I have a partner of almost 25 years, but we haven’t gotten married. We kind of laugh about that because although we fought for the right to marry, we also don’t know if we want to do it. Neither of us are invested in it as a cultural thing, but it might make legal sense. For me, there’s a lot of baggage in the cultural sense because my parents didn’t get along well. I’m fine if other people want to get married, but I haven’t adapted to the idea that it doesn’t still contain a lot of the oppressive qualities that it originally did. But I still call my partner my hubby and we just say we’re married.” – Matt Bucy, White River Junction, VT
