Darrel professed:
I have always wanted to attend the PT Sunday Afternoon Session. The topics always seem so interesting. But unfortunately, I never seem to have the chance to be in KL on a Sunday before, until the most recent Sunday after the fabulous LPG ultimate 80's party.

This particular Sunday Session discussion was chaired by Robert. And I was actually quite pleasantly surprised at the good camaraderie among the participants. That day, there are Eric, Simon, Dennis, Brian, Vincent, Alvin , Carson ...err...and a few others whose name I can't remember now (sorry). They were all good companies and all have really
interesting things to share, which makes the whole discussion really interesting.

The topic of discussion that day was about Coming Out, or more specifically the Hazards of NOT Coming Out. I think this is an interesting perspective to look at this issue. Instead of talking about the advantages of coming out, i.e. to live a real honest life, to realise one's true potential, to make it easier for one to find a partner...etc, to be able to discuss about the hazards offers and different view to the whole matter.

So what are the hazards of not coming out?

Robert asked a very interesting question: WHAT IS IT THAT WE FEAR MOST ABOUT COMING OUT?

Yeah...so what is it? You see, we always thought that by NOT coming out, we can actually avoid facing that biggest fear of ours, and sweep it under the carpet. BUT, the ironic thing is, the very thing that we fear most will one day, inevitably come back to haunt us.

Robert then asked another interesting question: IS THAT FEAR OF OURS ACTUALLY PREVENTS US FROM DOING SOMETHING WE REALLY FEEL LIKE DOING? IS IT ACTUALLY PREVENTING US FROM BEING OURSELVES?

These two questions made me think long and hard. So what is it that I fear most? I guess, my biggest fear is not getting accepted, getting rejected for who I am. And I guess, my biggest, biggest fear of all, is not getting accepted by my own family and loved ones. I supposed that's why I always contemplate with caution the idea of coming out to my family. The stakes are high and it has to be planned properly if I ever want to come out to them at all!

So what has that fear actually change the things that I would do?

Well...lots. For one, I have always introduced my friends to my family. My mom knows my friends from primary school, secondary school and university. Right now, I have a group of really, really significant friends whom I care deeply - my friends who happened to be gay. And sadly and strangely, my mom doesn't know them. Am I secretly ashamed of them, just as I am secretly ashamed of myself? Err....No...but what is preventing me from inviting them to my house and introducing them to my family just as I have done so for my other friends who happen to be straight?

My intellect tells me that I am just as NORMAL as anyone can be, that I can be proud of myself because I am who I am and homosexuality should have no effect on my self-pride. My intellect tells me that my friends, who happen to be gay, deserve to be treated with the same respect and privileges that I accord to all my friends. But alas, I obviously still have some internalised homophobia that I need to deal with.

After being rather outspoken about gay marriage and gay rights, this realisation about myself came as a rude shock. How could I possibly treat these friends whom I really care about, so badly?

Robert than pointed out something that is prevalent even among the gay community. Now how many of us actually used the word "PLU" when we are conversing among gay friends in the midst of straight people? How many of us, in fact, only use the single letter "G" to mean Gay, as in G-friends, G-lives, G-people, G-magazine, G-themed movie, G-string (just kidding).

This reminds me of a conversation between Harry Potter and Prof Dumbledore. For a long time now, the magical community, the witches and the wizards has avoided calling The-One-Who-Cannot-Be-Named, and instead calling him You-Know-Who. But Prof Dumbledore is determined that Harry should call him by his real name, which is simply, Voldermort. By avoiding his real name, the wizardly community has created an envelop of fear and mystery among the person. But by calling him by his true name, one sees him as he truly is - just a person, albeit an evil one.

So why do we call ourselves "G" or PLU. We are gays, we are homosexuals, we are people who happen to feel attracted to members of our own sex. So what? We are still we. Nothing changed. By avoiding calling ourselves as we are, we unwittingly create a sense of shame about ourselves, knowing or unknowingly, as though we are something that should not be spoken about.

AND THOSE'RE THE HAZARDS OF NOT COMING OUT!

There are many stages of coming out - to oneself, to one's gay friends, to one's straight friends, to one's family, at one's work place, at one's place of worship, to the country and to the world. Whichever stage one is at, one must continue to see the possibility of
advancing to the next stage. And it is obviously a life long process. There is no judgement. No coercion. We just need to know exactly what we are doing to our own lives. We just need to be responsible towards ourselves.

Can we really come out completely one day? Can we really liberate ourselves from this suffocating burden of our own homophobia? When can we be truly free?

I am working on it. If you have not been working on it, I hope at least you consider on working on it too.:-) So thanks to Pink Triangle, I had a great time and learned something
valuable about myself.

Eric Goh added:
That was a very good piece of sharing about the hazards of not Coming Out.

Adding to it, I would like to share what I have encountered after my TV coming out. For your information, I have not received a single negative feedback from any straight people. Many of us have the fear that straight people will not accept us, but from my experience, as you can see, the fear was more self-created. My straight friends are all very supportive, because they know me well, my character, personality, how I usually behave and treat people. My sexual orientation would not change their view on me. In fact many of them brought along their other straight friends, colleagues and even family members to our Ultimate 80's Party whom I did not know. Many of them came forward and hugged me that night while I was still in drag.

However, it is very sad to say that, I have also encountered a few gay people who felt uneasy about me being "too open" now, some even became so uneasy just to stand besides me or sitting next to me in the public. So you see, the hazard is more from the internal homophobes.

If you watched "American Beauty", the father who hates gay people the most, is gay himself. Of course I am not saying anyone who hates gays must be gay, but there is a possibility. Even for some religious people, although they cannot accept gays, but they don't hate gays. Most straight people are just ignorant. If given a chance for them to
know someone they know well is gay, it will open up their mind and change their perceptions. Only people who can't accept themselves will have a drastic reactions towards people they try not to associate with.

Because life is a Reflection, you fear the most that you are.

Keith commented:
Fear indeed a very powerful barrier for us to really go for what we actually want in our lives. Previously, I did have my own awful fear, I was like an ostrich hiding my head inside the hole, thinking that I would be fine by ignoring the existing problem.

I am grateful to have a chance to learn about my own sexuality, to accept myself while I was in Spain . I had no worries at all since I had my total freedom over there. I began to step out from my closet and made some gay friends. They helped me to explore the gay world, and I found it a heaven.

In my point of view, I think we feel scared about our sexual orientation because we have very little information about the concerned topic, or we do not know at all what is homosexuality. Eric is right by saying that the fear among us is mainly self-created.
Also, it is true because all the while, gay is considered sick, crazy and bestial. And our society still holds on to this outdated and false concept.

Internal fear + external fear = I rather stay inside my closet, more peaceful inside!

Undoubtedly, it is hard to overcome one's fear, worse still if one comes from a truly conservative background and he or she is computer illiterate. These prevent them to actually access the valid and naked truth of the homosexual world. Like a Malay proverb,
"tak kenal, maka tak cinta".

Here I would like to share my personal slow coming out.

So far, I have come out to 3 friends, I mean I really came out by telling them the real me. Meeting gay friends in PLUPenang is not what I mean here.

Two of them were my best male friends, he was Scott (some of you know him) and another one is a straight friend. I was so nervous and scared at that time, many "what-ifs" gushing out, the words were blocked in my throat and pulling out was one of my options. But I did not stop half way, I believed in them, and I uttered out what I supposed to tell. Surprisingly they accept me as I am, regardless my sexual orientation. And now, in front of them, especially the straight one, I do not need to wear mask. I feel so free and........ so me!

And a month ago, I told a Malay friend of mine that I am gay. And she said she knew that long time ago. I am not amazed that she knew me long ago, but what made me reflect on myself is, they (the straight community) are actually waiting for us to tell them the truth, or I should say, this is a kind of silence acceptance, an acceptance in disguise. In fact, they are protecting our feelings by any means. Why I was so scared??

On getting the positive responses from these friends, I am more confident to come out to more friends in the future.


Kenny shared:

Many thanks to Darrel and Eric for sharing with us what they have learned through the PT meeting. I could not agree more that sometimes it is us ourselves who are the stumbling block. I myself was quite surprise one day when my sister ask me why I chose to work in KL and not in Penang and jokingly asked me whether I have a BOYFRIEND there . I was dumbfounded. Split between choosing to tell her the truth or keep silent and brush it away with something else. Needless to say I chose the latter, but deep down I wish I could gather the courage and tell her that I am gay , to tell her that I love her so much as a sister but will she love me as a brother if I am gay. Like Darrel, I am going to make a resolution to come out to my sister soon. I don't know whether she is hinting me but she actually invited me to a gay pub/disco that was newly opened by her friend's friend when I was in Singapore .

That is really positive because that means she is open to PLU but will she accept her brother as one of them? At the meantime, I am dropping clues everywhere, with my bf's picture all over my travel pages in Virtual tourist site and hopefully she notices the consistency of the picture there.

Simon Tan imparted:

My coming out experience has been a long process and most of the instances have been positive. To sum up the long process my journey took me in a sequence as below;
- coming out to accept myself as a gay person physically and mentally
- coming out to gay friends and feeling comfortable in their company
- coming out to be comfortable at gay venues
- coming out to straight friends
- coming out to close family members
- coming out to parents
- coming out to colleagues

The above sequence may happen in different order for other people, some processes may happen simultaneously and some of the above process is ongoing. It will be too long to share the above processes in one email. I will write more if there is some request from the
group.

I would like to encourage more members to post their experiences, motivate each other with positive feedback, conduct healthy discussion and share valuable information. We have many members and I am sure there are many points of view and opinions. In many
instances there is no right or wrong to a topic of discussion.

Have something to share or add? Would like to talk further on this topic? Join our PLUPenang Yahoo! Group now!