It was either December 29th or 30th 2007 that I came out to my cousin. I'd just come out to myself a few weeks before, and I'd just met the guy who would become my boyfriend a few days before. I was feeling such a rush from finally taking the leap to live the life I was meant to, that I just wanted to share it with people I thought I could trust. My cousin was someone I thought I could trust. We'd had many conversations that year about gay rights and he seemed incredibly open-minded. Also, he is one of the gayest people I've ever seen in my life (and I know some almost cripplingly gay people). I think half of me expected for him to come out to me right after I came out to him. I was pretty stupid.
He told me that sexuality is not a definite thing and that he believed it could be changed. He tried to tell me that I'm not gay, yadda yadda. It was not a good experience. Then to top it off, a few days later he outed me to his ultra-religious dad who felt obligated to "call my bishop" who happened to be my dad.
I hated my cousin for a long time for this. I thought I was over it now, but even two and a half years later I don't think I am. He just barely got home from a mission, and I thought I'd be able to move on from what he did since life has been going so well with the family lately, but I still hate that he did that to me. And even more, I'm incredibly worried about what is going to happen when he comes to BYU this fall fresh with his mission fervor. Is he going to be able to date women? If so, will he convince himself that he's not gay and marry a poor innocent girl? I don't know if I could let him do that. Outside of suicide, closet gays marrying poor unsuspecting Mormon girls is the absolute worst side effect of the Mormon church denying the existence of homosexuality. I don't think I would be able to stand idly by and let my cousin get himself into a Scott and Sarah situation. Nobody deserves to go through that.
And now it's time that I apologize for the most rambling post I've done in a long time. If I were you, I probably wouldn't have been able to make it to the end of this insufferably long post. Kudos, you, if you did.
An Education
Love Without Measure