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It is quite possible coming out is one of the most difficult things some people will do in their entire life. On the surface it would seem like saying that you are gay, lesbian, or gender queer wouldn't be that difficult. It's just words right? We use words every day. Words however have power, not just the power to convey thoughts, but to empower as well as raise any emotion from elation to terror. The phrase I'm gay/lesbian/transgender is one of the few I know of that touches every chord all at once.

For me coming out was a roller coaster complete with loops and an equipment malfunction. The evening I came out was on Christmas after my first semester of college. The very instant I came out the festive room filled with family and close friends became palpably thick with tension and silence. Not just silent, but the kind of silent you see in movies just before some otherwordly demon rises from the bowels of hell to drag of a pair of teenagers wandering around in the woods at night for no good reason.

After a minute or so that may as well have been a week, I slinked off to my room to lick my wounds. I had established myself as the ultimate party killer. What was so unusual in retrospect about my coming out was not that deep down everybody aside from somewhat senile granny already had a good idea I was different, but this was a coming out they never heard before. When my cousin came out all he had to say was he was gay. I had to say I was transsexual and lesbian. Nobody could figure out how a then physically bodied male could be a lesbian. In a way it was just enough to keep people guessing how that worked long enough to give me some space I dearly needed.

The first person to visit me in my room was oddly enough my father. The first question he had was what was going on with this transsexual talk. I was by all accounts the nearly perfect son. I had excellent grades, over a dozen varsity letters in high school and collegiate sports, a great beard, and a girlfriend. How could I not be man? I did everything men do. I didn't act or appear effeminate. It was impossible in his mind. So impossible in fact that I was told to just leave the house. Pack a bag and don't come back.

While I expected a poor reception that was worse than I thought it would be. What could I do aside from what I was told. Not knowing when I would make it back into the house I crammed everything important to me into whatever I could. I was debating whether or not I should try to take the television

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