Senator Portman's son tells what it's like being a national news item. An excerpt:
I came to Yale as a freshman in the fall of 2010 with two big uncertainties hanging over my head: whether my dad would get elected to the Senate in November, and whether I’d ever work up the courage to come out of the closet.
I made some good friends that first semester, took a couple of interesting classes and got involved in a few rewarding activities. My dad won his election. On the surface, things looked like they were going well. But the truth was, I wasn’t happy.
I’d make stuff up when my suitemates and I would talk about our personal lives. I remember going to a dance in the Trumbull dining hall with a girl in my class and feeling guilty about pretending to be somebody I wasn’t. One night, I snuck up to the stacks in Sterling Library and did some research on coming out. The thought of telling people I was gay was pretty terrifying, but I was beginning to realize that coming out, however difficult it seemed, was a lot better than the alternative: staying in, all alone.
I worried about how my friends back home would react when I told them I was gay. Would they stop hanging out with me? Would they tell me they were supportive, but then slowly distance themselves? And what about my friends at Yale, the “Gay Ivy”? Would they criticize me for not having come out earlier? Would they be able to understand my anxiety about all of this? I felt like I didn’t quite fit in with Yale or Cincinnati, or with gay or straight culture.
In February of freshman year, I decided to write a letter to my parents. I’d tried to come out to them in person over winter break but hadn’t been able to. So I found a cubicle in Bass Library one day and went to work. Once I had something I was satisfied with, I overnighted it to my parents and awaited a response.
They called as soon as they got the letter. They were surprised to learn I was gay, and full of questions, but absolutely rock-solid supportive. That was the beginning of the end of feeling ashamed about who I was.
Will Portman's a lucky fella. I tried to come out in person to my parents for twenty years and couldn't. Finally, I found a place and wrote them a letter.
Mr. Portman got a much more gratifying response. Eighteen years later, one of my parents is dead, and the other hasn't budged.
For what it's worth, you have my sympathy, Waldo. Your situation is not something I have had to go through, so I can only imagine how difficult it was, and is. I have six children of my own and could not imagine treating them any differently if one were to announce they were gay.
ReplyDeleteBut, as you noted, it may well be a generational thing. Who knows, my children may follow a path, for lack of a better phrase, that I disapprove of that, and, 20 years down the road society will have evolved to the point where my views are considered archaic.