Trailblazer
I was sitting in the chair getting my hair cut last weekend, when I heard someone yell, “G!” (And yes, I have many friends who actually call me that.) I looked up, and it was my friend K, who has been my friend since my freshman year in college, a.k.a. a LONG time ago. She came over for a few moments to say hi, then left to chaperon her young daughter’s hair cut.
When my stylist asked me who she was, it took me a minute to really answer. Yes, that’s K, we were teammates when I was a freshman and she was a sophomore, but she is also the first REAL LIVE lesbian I ever met.
Going to a mostly Mormon high school didn’t help that. There was the One Lesbian in school that everyone knew about, and there were coaches I suspected were gay, but I didn’t really know any until I met K. And honestly? She scared the hell out of me, mostly because she was so … unfamiliar. I had to room with her on my very first road trip, and I didn’t know what to expect. Was she going to hit on me? Watch me dress? Factor in the religious part where I’d been warned about people like her, and you have a whole mess going on in my head. Not to mention plenty of my own internal homophobic thoughts, but that’s another post altogether.
As our basketball season went on, I got to know her better, and you know what? I just loved her. She was smart, charismatic, and funny. We would cut up during practice, on road trips, team meetings, or any other time we had the opportunity. One of my favorite moments happened after one of our games, when she cracked us all up by telling a teammate, “Tonya, I saw your boyfriend, and he is CUTE for a guy!”
She became K the good friend, not K the Lesbian, and that was huge for me because I was having my own issues as I questioned my life and sexuality. I began to see that she was a normal person who had normal highs and lows, which was such an eye-opener. I was so sad at the end of that year when she left, but in a time when I was feeling so much guilt, the lesson learned was valuable: I was okay, just the way I was.
I saw her a few years later at the gay bar, and she flipped out. She couldn’t believe that a) I was gay and b) that I didn’t come out until AFTER we played ball, because as she said, “We could have had so much fun together!” I got back in touch with her when I moved back to Utah; I was running into a coffee shop, and she was sitting there with her partner on the patio. She hasn’t aged a DAY, so I recognized her immediately. I look a lot different than the last time she saw me, so it took her a minute. But since then we’ve gone out to dinner, played tennis, and kept in touch.
I stopped on the way out of the salon to give her a hug and plan our next get-together. I realized not just how much she means to me, but what she represents to me. She cleared the path for me in a lot of ways, and I’ll forever be grateful for that.
Are there any people in your life who paved the way for you? Did you have any gay mentors, so to speak?
June 23rd, 2010 at 1:50 pm
Not so much a mentor, but the first person I ever came out to and had a lot of shared history with was K. She passed away (way too young) in 2004; I still think of her on the daily.
June 24th, 2010 at 12:49 am
I’ve posted several of mine since I started blogging, but my biggest influence was a friend of my parents. She was my first crush, period, and my first butch crush to boot!
I was blessed to be surrounded by a higher-than-expected gay population for such a small town. I was also fortunate enough to have a family that allowed for just about any eventuality in who I was going to be.
I’m grateful for those who paved my way, too, both the gay influences and the ones who just loved me no matter who I loved in turn.
June 24th, 2010 at 1:36 am
Oh man, such a great story! It’s SO GREAT that you guys are friends after all these years. Wow.
My Pave the Way to Gay role model was a babysitter. *Zing!* (Don’t tell the Christian wingnuts, they’ll think it’s proof of child recruitment.) I was really really young when she babysat for me and my siblings — 5 or 6 maybe. She was a student of my mother’s, and she and my mom were pretty close. My mom was one of the first people she came out to. So, after she’d graduated, they kept in touch, and when I was 10 or so, she came back to visit — girlfriend in tow! My mom sat me and my sibs down and informed us that “Eliza is a lesbian, which means that she loves women instead of men.” It was the first time I’d heard the word and the definition together in any coherent way, and I was *enthralled.* When Eliza came, I spent the entire time of her visit staring alternately at her boobs and her girlfriend’s boobs. The thoughts in my head (seriously!) were “THERE ARE SO MANY BOOBS IN THIS RELATIONSHIP.”
I totally blame Eliza for the fact that I’m gay.
June 24th, 2010 at 1:28 pm
My mentors taught/showed me how to deny and lie. And since my Mom on seeing two gay guys in a dress shop tell me “If J or B (my brothers) ever turned out that way, she would kill them”, I thought the best way for me to see any future birthdays was to deny and lie.
Until I got tired of it and my Mom passed away, I finally stopped owning other people’s issues. I could say, what a waste but rather go the route of I’m now making up for the lost time.
I give the young out gays a lot of kudos. They’re living the life they should.
June 29th, 2010 at 7:02 am
I would say that my older sister sort of paved the way for me. She came out long before I did and received the backlash from my parents for being gay. When I came out, it wasn’t AS bad as when she did. She was also the one that brought me to my first lesbian bar. Once I was introduced to that world it was all down hill from there! I would like to think she paved the way for me – even though she’s “straight” now.
July 4th, 2010 at 8:33 pm
Bee: Mentor or not, that history is important.
Alpha: So, we can all thank Eliza for bringing you to the dark side, then? Also, thank you for giving me a fantastic laugh; I’ve been looking for a way to incorporate the SO MANY BOOBS line.
Jude: That must have been tough to hear that from your mom. I’m glad you’re going for it now!
July 7th, 2010 at 5:03 pm
I’ve talked so much about wanting a mentor that I’m sure it must be obvious by now that I am in need of one. I was the “trailblazer” among my friends in high school, with the exception of T, who came out wayyyy before all of us, in 8th grade. But I wasn’t that close with her and she wasn’t even really on my radar. I’ve been named as a mentor for some others in my life, and it makes me feel really special.
July 12th, 2010 at 6:34 pm
yeah, i volunteered at a violence prevention center at my university and met several queer/lesbian women. i would tag along with one girl, S, to different functions around town, concerts, lectures, art exhibits. meanwhile, i was coming to terms with my sexuality. i probably would have came out to her earlier if i was lesbian, but i’m queer, and i thought she might not queer girls (too much blog comment reading for me). however, S is so accepting; i was her tag along ‘baby gay’ for a while; now i’ve graduate and actually hang out with queer people by myself. lol. i love supportive mentors.
July 14th, 2010 at 8:04 pm
Harrison: I’ve had some amazing mentors, and I’ve been able to serve as a mentor to some other friends. It’s an amazing experience either way you look at it.
mizztcasa: Finding that first person you can feel comfortable with as your true self is the most incredible feeling, isn’t it?
July 14th, 2010 at 8:23 pm
finding someone who i could trust, open up to (slowly), and be my real self was definitely a comfort.