Coming Out: A Long Journey
The voyage of sexual self-discovery is a long road filled with awkwardness and pratfalls for people of all ages. This voyage can be painful, even for individuals in the mainstream.
By NOAH C. ZUSS

For heterosexuals, or what many Western societies consider people living non-alternative lifestyles, acceptance by larger societies of their physical coming of age and sexual identity is assumed.

The same cannot be said for same-sex curious or alternative lifestyle individuals. People of all backgrounds and lifestyles struggle with their sexual identities throughout their lives, but because many societies still do not readily accept openly lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people their journey is often more arduous.

This resource guide focuses on advice for African-Americans.

The narrative comes from people of diverse backgrounds and all ages. Some come out in their teens, others as married partners after many years of silence.

Some are conscious of whether the larger society will accept them; others fear the change in their lives that may occur.

Coming out is a seminal decision in a person's life; the changes that occur can shape a life and go a long way to determining their future.

Unfortunately, many people going through the journey of self discovery are often misunderstood and criticized by loved ones and society at large, making this journey and the subsequent changes more difficult.

Therefore, individuals that live alternative or same-sex lifestyles and come out can face hardships from their families, their community and society at large.

These attitudes can be pervasive, as several scholars on the topic suggest.

In a study by Dr. Jack Drescher, published in Psychiatric Times, he writes, "beginning in childhood - and distinguishing them from racial and ethnic minorities - gay people are often subjected to the antihomosexual attitudes of their own families and communities."

These findings are supported by the work of many others in the field of social psychology. Drescher credits the work of pioneers in this field of research, George Weinberg and Gregory Herek, who coined terms like heterosexism and homophobia.

Dreshcher also finds that "hiding activities learned in childhood often persist into young adulthood, middle age and even senescence - leading many gay people to conceal important aspects of themselves."

The research of Drescher and others certainly finds these personal changes difficult when viewed in the context of acceptance by society. All cases are slightly different, but reporting points to great complexity of feeling and challenging periods for those that wish to come out, and acknowledge their true selves to the world.

Further supporting this fact with research, Drescher writes that, "Closeted individuals frequently cannot acknowledge to themselves, let alone to others, their homoerotic feelings, attractions and fantasies. Their homosexuality is so unacceptable that it must be kept out of conscious awareness and cannot be integrated into their public persona. Consequently these feelings must be dissociated from the self and hidden from others."

Dr Hindi Mermelstein, medical director of Ambulatory Services at North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System has worked in the field over 20 years and counseled individuals from all backgrounds that have struggled with these issues.

Not only can the changes be painful, many debate whether to reveal their true selves to others for many years, often suffering in silence.

In her experience these changes can be painful, but are not always. She feels a supportive family environment is the single largest determinant in whether someone experiences depression, feelings of isolation and loss after coming out to family, friends or others.

One of the largest hurdles according to Mermelstein is for a person to actually say it out loud. This means it no longer is a thought, but a reality in their life.

Resources for those thinking of coming out are now available online.

"When someone says it out loud, it makes it true," she said. "The ambivalence of a person accepting their own homosexuality remains there, but the hidden secret can no longer live in that ambivalence. When a person announces it, it becomes true in a more real way."

For many coming out under difficult circumstances can mark only the beginning of their struggle. For them, the process of deciding to reveal oneself coupled with the anxiety and pain of feelings of isolation makes for a long, hard road.

These feelings are very real and not imagined. The social stigma of homosexuality or alternative lifestyles has a long history in the United States. The current LGBT rights movement aims to abolish this negative perception.

Much of this stigma stems from these same mental health circles that even 100 years ago deemed homosexuality a disorder and something that could be cured with therapy and medication. Until 1973 the American Psychiatric Association included homosexuality as a disorder in the sexual deviancy section of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the DSM-II. The World Health Organization listed homosexuality as a mental illness until 1990.

According to Mermelstein much depends on the specifics. If a person grows to adulthood in a supportive family and community, the negative effects if revealing and subsequent changes are far less severe.

"It depends on the community and circumstance," she said. "There are many factors involved, if a person is from a religious background for example."

The story of Rick Mueller's coming out is probably typical. Today Mueller is a strong, confident, openly gay man. But it wasn't always that easy. His journey was marked by supportive and suspicious individuals, touching on many gray areas in a scale that is not strictly black and white.

Rick was born in Brooklyn in the 1960s and knew he was gay in high school. In an e-mail about his experiences he writes he "had actually been pinned as such for one of my friends witnessed a sexual encounter. I actually began experimenting when I was 18 and by the time I was 20, my Father asked me if I was gay and I said yes. My parents got used to it. They were supportive. And allowed me to have friends over when I moved back. My brothers, I believe, wish I was quieter about it. What was easy for me was that the early nineteen seventies marked the beginning of gay culture, so it was a time best described as Camelot for gays - in Manhattan. But still, I did not come out on a public level. Some knew at work but most did not - or maybe I was more out than I remember. But by the 80s I came out at work and was totally gay."