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Thursday, June 22, 2017

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com MICHIGAN IN COLOR

quated system of societal expec-
tations. Looking out from your 
own community at the world in 
front of you, you’re only ever told 
by those inside of it to submit to 
what is the norm of those around 
you, and in that regard you try to 
do your best to conform.

Pride in itself is not a pride-

ful trait; to freely boast your 
strengths and exist as yourself in 
any raw and uninhibited form is a 
symbol of anything but pride, but 
rather the most profound weak-
ness. It’s a largely cultural aspect 
for where these views come from. 
There’s like this unspoken sin to 
deviate from conformity in the 
Vietnamese community I came 
from, and not only being out, but 
being openly out is seen as just 
about the pinnacle of all sins, on 
par with not taking your shoes off 
when you come inside and disre-
specting your elders. So much of 
my culture is marked by obedi-
ence and reverence to our elders 
and following long held tradi-
tions, so to deviate from common 
practice is just about the worst 
possible thing you could ever do. 
It was the amalgamation of all 
of these things that made me so 
scared and forced me to hide for 
so long. I became very familiar 
with the closet, so the moment 
where I didn’t feel the need to 
hide in there anymore, I chose to 
take every opportunity to become 
myself and make up for lost time.

To be gay is to be resilient, but 

it is an incredibly lonely place to 
come of age in. Nobody ever tells 
you how incredibly lonely it can 
be. You grow up questioning these 
expectations placed upon you 
before you have the vocabulary 
to be able to vocalize and defend 
yourself. You grow up bombarded 
by both media that does not rep-

On pride 
and being 

out

By KHANG HUYNH

Michigan in Color Contributor

For eighteen years of my life my 

mother’s arms were the warmest 
home I ever knew. A home for 
when I felt scared or lonely or 
sad. What an actual home lacked 
in structural support, my mother 
made up for in love and kindness. 
For eighteen years this home 
allowed me to grow and learn and 
supported me in every endeavor 
until the day I felt this unnerving 
urge to tell her that I was gay. No, 
that I am gay. Like I mean I was 
gay in the past tense as I retell 
this story but I also still am very 
gay and like … you get my point. 

Okay but anyways, at this point 

in my life, everyone except my 
immediate family knew of me 
being gay, like it wasn’t really 
hard to guess; I didn’t really try 
to hide it. Like even if I was trying 
to hide it, I wasn’t doing that hot 
of a job at doing so. Why was it so 
hard to tell the most loving per-
son in my life what I had openly 
told to so many strangers before? 
Okay to be fair, coming out to 
strangers and friends never war-
ranted the fear of being kicked 
out of my own home, which was a 
valid excuse for me to hide myself 
for so long to my own mother. I 
don’t really remember exactly 
what led up to me finally com-
ing out to my her; everything’s 
just really hazy and sad, but I do 
remember that it just really need-
ed to be done, and as I was tell-
ing her what I needed to tell her, I 
was doing so through this flood of 
tears, and it wasn’t anything cute 
either. I cried so hard my contact 
lenses fell out and my entire face 
was swelling up from the tears 
and the snot … It was the imme-
diate opposite aesthetic of this 
emotionally strong and well-put-
together person that I try so hard 
to build up as myself. As I was 
going through this profoundly 
hideous breakdown, my mother 
didn’t really know what to do. She 
tried to tell me it was okay but she 
also didn’t want to touch or hold 
me. This home she had built for 
me couldn’t hold the well of emo-
tions she was feeling. She just 
told me that things would be okay 

in between my teary gasping and 
just sat at the side of my bed for 
awhile.

We don’t really talk about it 

now. You know the whole gay 
thing. Like it’s just something we 
both know is there but neglect to 
bring up like some big fabulously 
gay elephant in the room. But the 
fact of the matter was that I was 
out. I didn’t need to hide any-
more.

Coming out and being out is 

this really weird and often real-
ly touchy subject that’s unique 
to 
the 
LGBTQ+ 
community. 

Everyone who is out in this com-
munity has their own story of 
how their coming out went that 
ranges anywhere from pleasant 
to heartbreaking. Like much of 
everything else in the world, it’s 
a spectrum from good to bad to 
maybe even horrendous, but it’s 
also not this once in a lifetime 
event either. Something that a lot 
of people don’t realize is that com-
ing out isn’t this end all be all. It’s 
a reoccurring event. I will always 
have to come out to every person I 
meet in some way or another, ver-
bal or otherwise. I feel like this 
is where I can explain the bulk 
of my personality; it’s so much 
easier to be overtly and openly 
gay and make things very clear 
right up front than to have to say 
that you are gay to every person 
that you meet. It’s not that I feel 
any shame in being gay, but it’s 
just different to have to say that 
you are something as opposed to 
just freely being it. The only thing 
was, this practice of my open 
gayness was a newfound source 
of contention; the home of this 
social friction I would feel from 
so many people.

There’s something very sub-

versive 
about 
simultaneously 

being Asian and being openly gay. 
From both the outside looking 
in and inside looking out you’re 
almost required to uphold this 
certain group of expectations for 
yourself that contradict the very 
core of being out and being proud 
of yourself. Looking in from the 
outside world you’re expected to 
be this submissive figure of con-
formity. All that you say and do 
must follow a stringent mold of 
what is expected from you; you 
know, the whole model minor-
ity bullshit and all that comes 
from it. What is expected of you 
is silence. Nobody likes to hear 
from a loud gay, and god forbid 
hearing things from an Asian one 
who has meaningful things to say 
when all that is expected from 
them is obedience to an anti-

resent you and systems of hatred 
and prejudice that force you to 
hide for so much of your life out of 
this fear that the feelings of guilt, 

self-hatred and fear itself become 
a part of your identity. Nobody 
really speaks about how exhaust-
ing it is to have to validate your 
right to coexist. You feel as if your 
queerness is unwelcome in these 
overwhelmingly unqueer spaces. 
The thing is, nobody ever asks to 
be gay. Nobody asks to be treated 
like how so many of us have been 
and have to overcome the many 
struggles that our identity brings 
to us, but to be gay is to also be an 
overwhelming pillar of strength. 
In helping others, you bring up 
these memories that aren’t always 
easy to retell to yourself, let alone 
others, but in doing so, you kind 
of get to see how strong you are, 
to have overcome the many hard-
ships that being gay can bring to 
you. It’s like you’ve almost forgot-
ten all that you’ve needed to do to 
simply be here today. I find praise 
from others at my uninhibited 
love and expression of my identity 
so strange sometimes. Like why 
wouldn’t you want to freely be 
yourself? I would always find their 

kind words to be so … off putting? 
But then I remember that sim-
ply being gay in itself is an act of 
resistance and it’s a privilege that 
is not afforded to everyone. Being 
gay and being out is a powerful act 
of declaring your right to simply 
exist at all. You have to be proud 
of yourself and all you have been 
through, a practice much easier 
said than done.

I feel like that is the defining 

message of gay pride and pride 
month. You acknowledge the pain 
and difficulty both you and your 
community have not only gone 
through, but overcome as well. 
Not only have we survived, but 
we have thrived and shall con-
tinue to do so. We have this huge 
shared experience of learning to 
love ourselves, and the journey 
toward doing so is not always an 
easy one. It’s this journey some-
times marked with more downs 
than ups, and I feel like I’m just 
throwing out these analogies and 
sayings, but that’s just really how 
it really feels. From being beaten 
down so many times you grow this 
thick skin, both good and bad in its 
effects, but I think the major idea 
of pride is that we cannot close in 
on ourselves. We can’t close in on 
ourselves and expect a change to 
come. This thick skin of ours was 
formed to deflect the hatred of 
others and allow us a closer under-
standing of those like us. I think 
the ultimate end goal would be to 
learn for ourselves how our ideal 
sense of self resonates and reflects 
in the context of the greater com-
munity. We must learn how to 
coexist and take care of one anoth-
er and learn to grow from our 
shared hardships. In doing so, we 
can truly resonate with the love, 
happiness and empathy behind 
what it truly means to be prideful.

To be gay is 
to be resilient, 

but it is an 
incredibly 

lonely place to 
come of age 

in.

