KarMel Scholarship 2004

“The Meaning”

By Trinh Nguyen

Description of Submission: “Through personal experiences, I discovered the meaning of being gay.” – Trinh

During my teenage years, I went through a phase where I gravitate toward anything that’s gay related in hope that these books and websites will satisfy my curiosity about my own sexuality. I think, that at one point in their childhood, everyone has a desire to understand their own sexuality, straight, gay or anything in between. During this period of my life, I love reading the coming out stories. For me, reading about people coming out to their families allows me to live vicariously through them with no risk on my own life. I was a caged bird, looking out toward the sky, envy the free birds yet at the same time, afraid to be out there in the open sky. I used to imagine that my coming out stories would be filled with tears and worth a best selling novel. I run scenarios in my mind on how I would come out to my family, friends and everyone else on the face of the earth.

But like my sexuality, coming out stories are not chosen, but rather they just happen. I remembered the conversation I had with my best friend, Kathleen when I came out to her. It was one of the most un-climatic moment in my life. I built up enough courage to told her that I’m gay and the girl said to me “ That was the big secret?” Someone once wrote: “I’ve come out of the closet and into an empty room” and I couldn’t have said it better. That sentence rings true even in my situation with coming out to my parents.

All my life, I’ve thought about how to come out to my parents, two traditional Asians whose ideas about being gay are being fed to them through humorous comedies about flamboyant gay guys in Vietnamese video. Yet when I broke down one Saturday night and told my mom that I’m gay, she can only ask me “ What do you mean ‘gay’?” in Vietnamese. I expected my parents to react negatively to me being gay, but unexpectedly, they were more worry about me overdrawn my bank account and have a possibility of being in a depression than being gay. Once again, I came out of the closet and into an empty room. A comforting thought if you think about it, still, it’s not going to a best selling novel anytime soon.

After I have came out to my parents at the tender age of eighteen (yes I’m a gay late bloomer), I realized that every gay person have three stages of life: pre-sexuality, pre-coming out and coming out stage. But then I’m sure that there must be one more stage in a queer life, but I didn’t know what. I’ve worked so hard eighteen years of my life toward one single night of coming out, and now that it’s over, I’m stuck in this limbo, not knowing where to go. I didn’t know what the fourth stage was until someone I know came out to me.

When this person ,whom shall remain nameless, came out to me, a chill ran through me. I have always thought of him as a straight boy and not once have the idea of him being gay ever cross my mind. Well, ok, maybe once but that’s only because I found him attractive and secretly wished that he would be gay. But when he came out to me, I didn’t know how to re-act. In that one moment when he said “ I’m gay”, that one instant in time, I became the other person. I became Kathleen, my sister, and my parents. I was in the position where a whole new side of this person came out to the open and a part of him that I thought where true came crumbling down. That night, after he came out to me, I suddenly understand the fourth stage of our queer life. The fourth stage is the “ever after” part of a fairy tale (pun intended).

I didn’t see this part clearly because I was too wrap up in my own coming out story to notice. The answer was in my mother’s question when I came out to her. What does it means to be gay? That’s the question and the fourth stage is about this question. Once we have came out to the world, all of us suddenly realize that a burden has been lift from our shoulder, but only to be replace by a new quest, a quest to find out the meaning of being gay. I know that I’m gay, I have kissed enough boys to know that I’m gay, but is that all there is to being gay? The answer also came to me on the next day when I was watching My Big Fat Greek Wedding. The movie is a touching story about two people falling in love across cultural differences, and with a happy ending. But when I saw the part where the couple get married, tears start to stream down my face. I don’t know why I was crying, but I was. I never thought in a million year that by watching two straight people getting married can help me understand what does it mean to be gay. But it’s true, the marriage of those two people speaks to me from a place I never knew existed.

The answer is that to be gay is to struggle, to be strong, and to know the price of love. As “ those gay people”, we all have to struggle to come to term with our own sexuality and have to struggle to find acceptance in society. For all of us, the struggle for acceptant is a daily thing, yet even with this understanding of the hardship, we find the strength within ourselves to go on in our daily lives. With the struggle, we grew stronger. In the current state of our country, where our love is being compare with bestiality, incest and polygamy, we still hold on to the fight for the last part of the meaning of being gay: to know the price of love. In a world where our love is being treated as an abomination and we’re viewed as second class citizen, we are fighting for love or rather a recognition of our love as part of who we’re, an inseparable part that cannot be dictate by the law of man nor God. This struggle, this strength and this love are what being gay is about.

We all need to realize that for all of us, being gay is a badge of honor that we should wear with pride. Hatred in this world has taught us to love with no judgment even though it’s our kind of love that is being judge. Being gay has made us into warriors. Warriors that understand the meaning of humility, to know hate first hand, to stare into the faces of despair and jump into the struggle of life. In this moment, our love is being judge in the court of man for there are those out there who believe that our love is violating the sanctity of the word marriage. It’s this moment, now more than ever, that being gay means so much to all of us. We will hold on to the hope deep inside of us that one day, being gay will only means that we can love whoever we choose. Until that day comes, I will stand by my sexuality for I have found its meaning.

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