{"id":2442,"date":"2021-06-14T14:25:27","date_gmt":"2021-06-14T13:25:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thorpebird.com\/?p=2442"},"modified":"2021-12-02T12:42:23","modified_gmt":"2021-12-02T12:42:23","slug":"i-came-out-and-then-i-went-back-in","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thorpebird.com\/i-came-out-and-then-i-went-back-in\/","title":{"rendered":"I came out – and then I went back in"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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It\u2019s Pride Month. I\u2019ve not told this story before \u2013 so\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I came out when I was 14 \u2013 well, I got found out really.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But then I went back in\u2026.I said it was a phase. I fell in love with a girl. That ended eventually.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And then I kind of came out again\u2026.it was all pretty awful to be honest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But then I began slowly to get to grips with who I was, and what that might mean. I went to university quietly \u2018out\u2019 \u2013 i.e. if anyone asked me a direct question, I wouldn\u2019t lie. I fell in love again with someone else \u2013 and continued to grow towards who I am today – which is married to Jon, who I met 20 years ago, where his first words to me were, \u201cwhere\u2019s the toilet?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But as my career developed in parallel, I realised I wouldn\u2019t quite hide, but I wouldn\u2019t volunteer the fact my partner was the same gender as me \u2013 part of a silent minority. Lots of people assumed I was married to a woman \u2013 as I wear a wedding ring, and unless they asked me a direct question (that old chestnut), I avoided talking about myself at work. I\u2019m very good at getting other people to talk about themselves \u2013 and I have wondered if that skill partly developed so I wouldn\u2019t get asked about my own personal life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then a couple of years ago, I was running an opening workshop for a development programme, and I was speaking about who I was and before I could catch them, the words, \u201cI live in London with Jon, my husband\u2026\u201d were in the air in front of me. I felt hot as I realised what I\u2019d said \u2013 it was like coming out again. Or so it felt to me. But what happened was that in everybody else\u2019s introductions that followed, two other people talked openly about their own identities and one of them came to me afterwards to thank me for using the word \u2018husband\u2019 as it made him feel comfortable about doing the same thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It had never really occurred to me the influence I had as a leader of the group in that moment, and the significance of owning who I was \u2013 and making it OK for other people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, almost every time I\u2019m in that situation, I make an effort to identify outwardly because of the powerful signalling impact it has, which I hadn\u2019t seen before. Poor Jon\u2026..getting mentioned everywhere!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This feels slightly self-indulgent, but I wanted to share this story to encourage others to represent where they can \u2013 and letting them know that the positive impact you can have on someone else can be far greater than you can imagine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Happy Pride<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s Pride Month. I\u2019ve not told this story before \u2013 so\u2026 I came out when I was 14 \u2013 well, I got found out really. But then I went back in\u2026.I said it was a phase. I fell in love with a girl. That ended eventually. And then I kind of came out again\u2026.it was…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4299,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[175,176,177],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thorpebird.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2442"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thorpebird.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thorpebird.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thorpebird.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thorpebird.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2442"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thorpebird.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2442\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thorpebird.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4299"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thorpebird.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2442"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thorpebird.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2442"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thorpebird.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2442"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}