A teenager's story about coming out

This story is part of a collection of stories from young people on ReachOut.com. You can find the original text by visiting http://au.reachout.com/attracted-to-boys

Attracted to boys?

Ever since I was young I have done life the hard way. This was the same for "coming out". For my whole life I've known that I would be different. In kindergarten I would always play with the girls and sometimes the guys as well, this continued on into primary school where I would hang out with the girls and I was the only boy in the choir. As I went through primary school I started feeling attracted to boys in my class. It wasn't until Year 6 that I started to notice 'being gay', but that just blew over and I thought it was just puberty starting.

Then I moved into High school (which was an all-boys college) and I didn't know anyone. In Year 7 I was bullied for not admitting that I was gay (this was from someone who I thought was a best friend), so I threw iced coffee over him (it was the only thing I could think of doing).

Word was spreading

After I did that, I started to think long and hard about who I was and what I wanted to be. I started experimenting with the idea that I was in fact gay. As I moved into Year 9, a couple of weeks into Term 1 (the Mardi Gras weekend), I was in Tech (Woodwork) class and I was talking with a good friend and I said to him, 'I'm Gay' and he goes, 'Yeah, we worked that out'.

From there it kinda just took off, the word was spreading quickly across the school. As more people found out I started getting bullied and one time on the bus kids started pushing me around and bashing me up because I had a boyfriend. Then in Year 9, school made us go on a four week camp where we did stuff like camping and hiking and all that outdoorsy stuff. Whilst I was down there I was pushed into the corner of the cabin and gay-bashed by two of my best friends.

Life since coming out

Life since coming out as being gay hasn't changed all that much. As I walk through the school grounds I might get the comment 'oh there is the fag' or something along those lines. I have gone through a couple of groups of friends because of the whole experience but my two best friends have stuck beside me and if there was ever a problem they would help me sort it.

When I first started going through difficulties, my English teacher suggested I see the school counsellor. At first, I was like 'I'm not talking to no counsellor' but in the long run it was a lot of help because he guided me through everything.

The one thing I have discovered about coming out is to choose who you tell carefully and if you don't think you can trust a certain person, then you can't trust them. Also make sure you have some close friends that you can count on, because it is a very emotional experience. Make sure you are ready and don't feel you have to hide who you are, because you were born this way!