The Big Leap
Coming Out Stories
By Michael David C. Tan

Coming out has never been easy, and whoever says so is... well, lucky.
Here are cases of taking the big step to gay-dentity.

Case No. 1:

‘Enough!’  Mom tried to stop Dad, even trying to drag him away from me.  ‘Enough!’ 

‘Puta!’ he said, to no one in particular, as he pushed her aside.  She fell – though not that he cared.  He was far too busy punching me, his balled hands unrelenting in its attacks.  And then he stopped, turned and stepped outside.  So sudden was his departure it surprised me.  But only for a moment.  What I thought was another end to the series of thrashings was actually just a quick respite.  He was soon back with a piece of wood – the dos por dos he used with his friends to hit the stray dogs they slaughtered for pulutan.  ‘This ought to teach you your lesson!’ he said.  And before I could move away, he started hitting me.  First my thighs, so that I was made to crouch from the pain.  And then my back, as I shielded myself.  And then just wherever as I kept trying to hide parts of my body that he could damage with a single wallop.  The pain was only there initially – I was too focused on covering myself.  All I could hear were the shouts from Mom, again on her feet to try to stop Dad, and the smacking of the wood as it repeatedly fell on my skin. 

And then – after I don’t know how long, exactly – there was silence, save for the heavy breathing.  Him from too much exertion.  Mom from trying to stop him, her voice starting to hoarsen.  And me, relieved and feeling saved at last.  Though apparently not.  Blood started to drip somewhere from the top of my head, wetting my shirt, mixing with sweat and tears.  That was the only reason why he stopped – the sight of blood, that he could kill me.  Yet, after seemingly giving it a thought, he didn’t care even if he did that.  He threw the wood away, and then pulled me to my feet.

‘C’mere!’ he said, dragging me with him.  And he didn’t say anything after that, just walked outside the house, leading me to the office of the Barangay Chairman, his kumpare and my godfather, with Mom trailing behind, pleading with him.  Once there, I was led to a cell usually reserved for criminals, and was locked inside.

‘Maybe he’ll know his place while here,’ my godfather said to Dad, smiling widely.

‘Don’t let him out until he doesn’t clean up his act,’ Dad said.  ‘Fucking faggot wants to be a girl!’

They then left me there.  And I may have been bleeding, sore all over from the beating, but I felt relieved.  Ironic how I felt safe while imprisoned.
It was days later when I went home.  And I didn’t stay – couldn’t, really.  In front of the house were my clothes, stuffed in a trash bag, and some cash (Mom said it wasn’t much, but should help me out somehow).  I wasn’t wanted.  Not even my shadow is supposed to be seen near home, else Dad would kill me. 

‘He doesn’t have a gay son,’ was what he said, according to Mom.  And because I am, I’m not his.
In hindsight, I guess that was just as well.  All the beating wouldn’t have stopped until I became not gay.  Which is never.  So there was no stopping it but by leaving.  But I continue to wonder who had more right to disown who.

Case No. 2:

I can clearly remember one morning when I was only six, when my older brother refused to take me with him to play baseball with the other boys in the neighborhood.

‘What’s wrong with you?’ Dad asked him.

‘But Dad…’ he tried to reason.

‘Well, he’s your brother – younger brother, at that, so he’s your responsibility,’ Dad said.

And because he didn’t have any choice, he had to take me with him – it was the only way for him to be allowed to go out in the first place.  I was glad – Dad stood up for me – as he shouted for me to follow him to the playgrounds, with my sister’s red ribbons daintily tied around the small pigtails I could fix from my short hair.  When Dad saw me, he simply approached me, took the ribbons off my head, and said – not to me, in particular, ‘He’s not gay – just a child undergoing a child’s phase.’

I was 14 when Dad caught me ‘playing around’ – I was lying flat on my back, completely naked, with a boy my age, also completely naked, astride atop me.  Our dicks were a straight line, attached by our foreskins, and he was rubbing it fast, so the sensation made us inattentive of everything else going on around us.  That was when Dad stepped into my room.  And he looked embarrassed – more, it seemed, than the two of us, who immediately separated.

‘I’ll talk to you later,’ he simply said, then turned to leave.
 
So after getting dressed, I tiptoed along the hallway – Dad and Mom were talking about the scene that met him, and he seemed disturbed. 
‘What do we do?’ Mom asked. 

‘I guess nothing,’ Dad said.  ‘He’s not gay – just full of testosterone that needs to go out one way or another.’

Away from home when I turned 21, I appeared in TV – wearing nothing but a thong, naked body full of gold dusts, grinding to the tune of Kylie Minogue on top of a rainbow flag draped float that was part of the annual celebration of the Gay Pride.  None in the family actually saw when it was first shown.  But everybody talked about it – the neighbors, the relatives, Dad’s buddies, Mom’s gossip mongering friends, my siblings’ classmates, and all the friends of their friends of their friends.  Which was what forced them to find a way to watch what everybody talked about.  And I wouldn’t have known about any of these had Mom not called to ask what I was doing in TV.

‘Dancing,’ I said, which she relayed to Dad.  And then he said, ‘Oh, okay.  He’s not gay – just having fun while finding his rightful place in life.’

Not too long ago, we gathered after a while – my elder brother came home from overseas, his family – complete with the five kids – came home, and my two sisters were in town, also with their husbands (the second for the youngest).  I remain the only one unattached.  And happily so. 
‘Your brother’s gay?’ I overheard my youngest sister’s new husband whisper, throwing me a look.  She shushed him, but Dad, who obviously also overheard the conversation, quipped: ‘He’s not – still an eligible bachelor who has yet to find the right one for him.’  Which made me want to laugh. 
So I tried to talk to him.  ‘Dad, there’s something I need to tell you,’ I started.

‘No, no,’ he immediately responded.  ‘You’re not gay.  You’ll soon outgrow that phase, you’ll see.’ 

So he waits as I enjoy this phase.

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