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I wonder if he wonders if it was the karate gi he gave me instead of the hair bows he gave my sister. Or the hysterical crying when I found out the Hot Wheels set was not for me that Christmas. Maybe the Dallas Cowboy football uniform I circled in the Sears Catalog for my wish list. Maybe someone couldve tapped him on the shoulder all those years ago and said, "Um, your niece, the one who wont take off your Army fatigues and collects football cards? Total lesbian, dude." I don't think anyone ever said that, but I know my Uncle Ronnie was one of the first members of my family to support me when I came out as a lesbian twelve years ago.

To his friends in Ionia, Michigan where he's a judge, his graying red hair and mustache, trimmed with military precision, seems to say he is way too conservative to ever admit to having an LGBT relative, much less be enthusiastic about it. But he is - and he was - someone who noticed I was different and encouraged that difference. All my life, I remember hearing him and my father tell me to bet on myself, to be proud of myself, to refuse to settle for marriage because I could take care of myself, unlike some girls. Whether they know it or not, I hung onto those words like a lifeline during the predictable backlash when my fundamentalist Southern Baptist and Midwestern family found out that one of them was actually one of them.

While coming out can be difficult under friendly circumstances, it's downright radical in parts of the Midwest. "Why can't you be normal?" is a question that many lesbians hear, especially from their mothers. But coming out is the only way to have an honest relationship with your mother or anyone else close to you. I understand fear: I was so afraid to even write the word, "lesbian" in my journal that I'd rip out the page and burn it, lest I be in some horrible accident and my mother read my diary.

And coming out in an age before the Internet, I had to resourcefully search card catalogs to begin building my own private reading list, starting with the work of Rita Mae Brown, who seemed to be telling me: "It's okay and you're okay." And so I told my uncle, then my sister, going down a line of most to least-supportive relatives. And you know what? It wasn't so bad. Sure some members of my family didn't want to see me or hear me talk about "it" for a few years, but they had to come out, too, as the family of a lesbian, and that had its own pain for them.

Some of the fears I lived with in the closet did materialize. I left my church, believing (falsely) I had to
choose love or God, and that I would lose friends (which turned out to be only one). I did lose a little, most people do, but I gained an inclusive church, more friends, and most importantly, self-respect.

Years later, it was those words of my uncle's that made me know that I had a little bit of support. They were enough to give me the courage to tell my truth. Now, all these years later, I know in my heart that even if coming out seems like the end of the world, it's actually the beginning of a newer, freer, and much happier life. And its people like my straight-arrow uncle who are helping to change that for everyone coming out. I know that whenever my uncle presides over a case with LGBT concerns, it's not just a matter of letters to him. Whoever walks into his courtroom is judged by simple human decency and not homophobia. And that's partially thanks to his geeky Texas niece.

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