my coming out monologue

It took me a long 26 years to come out to myself as a gay man and another 3 years on top of that to come out to my family, trust me it was difficult. It was a long and excruciating process where I lost myself several times. I was so lost that at times I convinced myself that I was wrong and I needed to be fixed. The isolation and uniqueness of my feeling was always disturbing. I prayed every night when I went to bed that the next morning when I wake up I should be able to love the right sex, but of course it never worked. It frustrated me when people refused to see that I was a little different than the most around. They made fun of me, told me I will never be successful and will never make anyone proud. I learned to hide myself when I could not kick a football in my sports class when I was ten, and my friends made fun of me, “what a girl you are” they shouted and I retracted in the shell I made for myself. I learned to please everyone else, but me, when my father shouted on me, “be a man for god’s sake” just because I was cooking. I learned to be manipulative when my mother did not acknowledge that I never had interest in girls and to her defense she said “he is too busy with his studies”. But the most frustrating was when my friends did not “believe” my sexual identity just because I did not wear lipstick.

And then one day I snapped, I told myself to hell with everyone, to hell with all the rules and living for others, I will be as gay as it can get. I shouted wearing my skinny jeans and my pink shirt that I am gay! And no it is not because I was raised with two sisters, not because I grew up in a broken family, not because I never liked sports and always liked art, it is simply because I like men. Yes as simple as that, I like men, everything about men, the way we talk, the hair, the smell, the whole body, and there is no need for any justification. After I broke out of my closet, I thought I knew everything about myself, what I like, what I am going to do in next ten years. It seemed the cloud around my life has suddenly disappeared, and there I was, I could imagine myself with my man, my very intellectual and bearded man.

I sincerely believed that life onwards will have a lot of struggle, but less surprises.  And then that night I met him and my world changed again. I knew there was something very odd about him, no one smiles so much for a hook up. “I’m just a little drunk, hope you don’t mind” he said when I asked him why was he smiling all the time. As we started making out and undressing each other, he insisted that i do not take his pants off. "But how would we have sex then" was my immediate response, but he was firm on his point. As i gave up and continued with making out, my mind for some part wondered around for all possible reasons for his not getting naked. It took me actually couple of minutes to actually understand, i was in bed with a trans man. My idea of maleness and manhood has been shaped by the cis-centric society, that attaches ones identity to their genitals. i am a product of that society, my desires run deep and wild with popular gay porn where men have big dicks and they just fuck. It has taken me several months and would take several more years to unlearn gender. But right at that moment, in his arms, while he kissed me, my unlearning had already started. It will be a long journey now, an uneasy one. But i know i can do it.