I came out to my parents when I was 18. First was my mum. We were in London, looking in bookshops. I had been browsing in Silver Moon while my mum was elsewhere. Unbeknown to me, she was outside the window and had clocked me perusing the lesbian books section.
As we carried on down the road, she casually asked: “Liz, are you a lesbian?”
Which, take it from me, is not what you expect your mum to say as you are strolling down Charing Cross Road together.
Once I recovered from the shock, I mumbled something like: “Um. Well, I think I might be.”
“Are you happy?” she asked.
“Yes,” I replied.
“Well, that’s fine, then. Shall we get a coffee?”
And that was about it. We didn’t talk about it much during the following weeks. I was back at university, and communication wasn’t what it is today. So I did worry about what she might be thinking. Was she really as OK as she’d seemed? But mixed in with my concerns was a huge sense of relief that I’d finally told her.
Asking her about it today, she said: “I hadn’t suspected anything before I saw you in the bookshop, but once you told me, everything made sense.” Pushed on this, she confessed that the thing she could finally make sense of was the time when (aged three) I refused to wear a bridesmaid’s dress to a family wedding.
Really? That was what made sense?
But actually, she was right. Not just about the bridesmaid’s dress. About, well, everything. The fact that all my crushes were on female pop stars. The fact that my relationships with my best friends were always so intense. The fact that, frankly, I had never been all that interested in any of my boyfriends. Yes. It all made sense now.
Telling my dad was harder. We argued about all sorts of political issues. How was he going to handle this?
There was a period of a few months when I wanted to tell him, but was too nervous. I suspected he knew, but was waiting for me to be ready to open up. Our communication almost broke down completely for a while. Neither of us knew how to get over the wall of unspoken words.
When I finally told him, he had a lot of questions. He asked if I was sure I would never want to be with a man. In my feisty, uncompromising, teenage way, I replied that the chances were about the same as they were for him.
Asking him about it today, he says: “Yes, I was slightly thrown at the time. But it didn’t make any difference to how I felt about you. Once I’d gone off on my own and processed it all, it quickly became the norm and didn’t change anything.”
So as far as my coming-out process went, I got off lightly. I mean, yes, I was scared of being found out as I skulked around the halls of residence, when I had my first girlfriend. And yeah, my girlfriend’s flatmate threw a pint over me and told me how much I disgusted him. And OK, yes, there was the time when I was accosted by two men shouting abuse at me on a quiet street late at night because I was holding hands with a woman.
But my family have always been beside me. In fact, my coming out brought us closer.
As a youngster, I was often in trouble with my teachers. My school reports are filled with exasperated comments despairing of my behaviour. At home, I was the same. I irritated most of the adults in my life with my behaviour, my need for attention, my desperate search for something I wasn’t quite getting.
Some of this is just how I am. But I also believe much of it was to do with my sexuality. I’m not suggesting we should all have known I was a lesbian just because I wouldn’t wear a dress at the age of three. Most three-year-olds have tantrums about something and we don’t rush to label them. But my mum was right. Coming out made so much sense to me that I could stop fighting the world.
At that time – and things are different today, but not that different – no one was telling us we could be who we wanted. Our sex-education lessons didn’t suggest some of us might be gay – or bi, or trans. The “norm” given out in a thousand ways every day, then and now, is heterosexuality, which is used to sell pretty much everything, from cars to toothpaste. It is assumed on forms that leave a space for the husband and wife’s name. It is casually taken for granted by the couple who hold hands and kiss at a bus stop without worrying that someone might beat them up.
And it is mostly what we assume of ourselves. It doesn’t occur to most of us that we might be anything else.
When I look back to the time before I came out, I see a young person at odds with the world. Fighting against the rules, the norms, the “given” ways of doing things, without really knowing why. I was a square peg trying to bash my way through a round hole that wasn’t intended for me.
When I finally said, “Yes, Mum, I am a lesbian,” I realised I could stop trying to beat my way through that square hole – because another one had opened up that fitted me just fine.
If that conversation taught me anything, it is this: be yourself, be honest with the people around you. Let them love you for who you are, not for who you think they want you to be. A young member of my family is going through something similar today – and I am so proud of him for discovering who he is and not being prepared to lie about it.
These moments are not easy, but what’s the alternative? Live a lie?
The scariest part is often beforehand when you are thinking about doing it and imagining every horrific scenario your brain can conjure. The reality is that opening up that door and saying, “Mum, Dad, this is who I am,” can be one of the most empowering things you will ever do in your life. Once I had come to terms with who I was and decided to be honest with people about it, I could stop running around hiding, out of fear. I could stop fighting against everything, out of frustration. I could just get on with being me.
• Read Me Like a Book by Liz Kessler is published by Indigo on 14 May in hardback, £10.99. To order a copy for £8.79, go to bookshop.theguardian.com or call 0330 333 6846
