For freshman Rebekah Morris, coming out as a lesbian involved telling her father and sisters - but her mom still doesn't know.
“It’s a lot of fear because you don’t know how people are going to react. Even if you’ve known them for years, they could still see you as a different person," said Morris.
Morris' was just one of the experiences shared during Longwood PRIDE's “Fearless Foursome” event on Tuesday, Oct. 11 in Lankford Student Union, as a panel with coming-out stories and advice to others who are struggling to come out. PRIDE is Longwood’s LGBTQ+ organization.
For the past three years, the “Fearless Foursome” panel hosts members of the university's LGBTQ+ community to discuss their experience each semester.
Freshman M. Heimburg said coming out to her family was different than coming out to her friends.
“With my friends it was more, ‘hey, I’m gay’ or ‘queer’ or whatever the term I was using at the time,” Heimburg said. “With my family, I never actually technically came out to my parents; they just kind of assumed it. It made it easy, but I kind of wish I had sat down and had a conversation with them because we still aren’t on great terms about that … It wasn’t that bad for me.”
Freshman Braeden Butka, who identified as queer, stated his biggest challenge was being patient while others processed the information.
“The hardest part for me was realizing that it does take time and giving them the time to get used to it,” Butka said.
The panelists also discussed their experiences at Longwood in particular, different depending on the speaker.
“Honestly I think of all the places I’ve ever lived in my life, Longwood is the most safe and accepting I’ve ever felt,” said Morris.
Heimburg added, “I came expecting maybe a few queer people, and I found a whole community."
Unlike Morris and Heimburg, junior Nikki Marzwolf said she'd met disbelief at times when others didn't acknowledge the existence of her identity.
“Most of the negative reactions I get are people not believing me or people being like ‘you’re definitely dating this dude,’ or they think I don’t exist, that asexuality is not a thing," Marzwolf said.
Dishman brought up the exclusion of non-binary identities on documents.
“Another thing that bothers me is on surveys and on the census, they should have not just male and female, they should have transgender, they should have non-binary, they should have other,” Dishman said.
“Socially, there’s a lot that needs to change, even within this community, there’s a lot of identities like asexuality and bisexuality that aren’t accepted as they should be because they’re not viewed as valid,” Morris said. “I think if we ever want to change any other part of society, we need to fix on that first before we can go anywhere.”
Legislation affecting LGBTQ+ individuals was also discussed. Specifically, the Defense of Marriage Act - the 1996 act defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman - and the legalization of homosexual marriage in 2015 were mentioned. Dishman said despite progress, there are more issues that need to be addressed.
“People always want to throw in our face, we’ve come such a long way, you should be grateful where we’re at. You all can get married,” Dishman said. “I’m just like that’s not enough because those are basic rights. It’s like saying we should not be grateful to have air.”
The panel included advice for individuals questioning their identities or considering coming out.
“Give yourself time. It doesn’t all have to be now. It can be five years from now, it can be a week from now,” Morris said.
Dishman advised the audience to put themselves first when considering their identities and coming out.
“The most important person in this world is you,” said Dishman. “If you are scared to come out or do something, or be yourself because it may cause friction in your you need to realize that you are number one, your feelings matter, your life matters, be who you are. You cannot live your life through other people.”
PRIDE will have another Fearless Foursome next semester with the date to be determined.
Oct. 23, 2017, 2:18 p.m. - The original version of this article misspelled Marzwolf as Marzworld.