Coming Out Through Reading

I came out to myself the summer in between my freshman and sophomore years of high school and began coming out to my friends and family the following fall. Before that, however, I felt lost and confused. I did not really find myself attracted to anybody of any sex, but I knew that I was not like the other guys I was encountering in my classes and in the halls.

During my freshman year, I remember reading The Epic of Gilgamesh and Siddhartha — both books that are largely centered on male friendships. These relationships fascinated me, and I could not help but to see them as queer — even before I knew that I was queer myself. I saw reflected in these books something that I was having trouble understanding about myself.

I spent a great deal of the following summer reading. I did not have the novels that I talk about on this website, and did not even know they existed. Instead, I had online stories and communities of queer individuals and allies that I could turn to. These online stories may not have been the most well written, or had the best narrative logic, but they helped me understand who I am.

My newfound sense of self did not diminish my desire for queer texts in the classroom, however. If anything, it made the desire grow. During my junior year, we read The Great Gatsby. The more I read of the novel, the more I became convinced that Nick is in love with Gatsby. He spends a paragraph describing Gatsby’s smile, spends more time with Gatsby than with Jordan, and seems to be the only one to truly mourn Gatsby’s death. And then there is the whole scene in which Nick gets drunk and blacks out and ends up half naked in another man’s bed.

Even now, exposed to more queer books than I can even count, I maintain my argument that Nick is queer, and as an academic I have learned that I am not the only one to read the novel in that way. Yet, this is not a reading that is taught, or even condoned, in most schools. In fact, little to no queer content makes it into school curriculums at all. Years later, these experiences have paved the way for this website and for the hope that queer students will have an experience unlike my own.