Recently in Coming Out Stories Category

Jaason Simmons has come out publicly as a gay man because the LA-based actor wants to marry his partner - Irish actor John O'Callaghan - and raise his adopted son (a six-year-old boy from Uganda) together. They will marry in Canada since, unlike his "Baywatch" co-star Pamela Anderson who has been married and divorced (or annulled) twice in the past 18 months or so, same-sex marriage is not legal in this state and 48 others.

Here is a quote from Simmons that I got via Towleroad.com: "We're doing it for our family and for my soon-to-be son. Although you don't want to typecast yourself, you have to take responsibility and ownership and move humanity forward, out of bigotry. Our son needs to see we can stand in front of family and loved ones who are going to support our union through the good times and bad."

In this scene from the movie "Get Real," two high school guys are in love. One is the good looking jock, John, who is the big man in campus - and a huge closet case. The other is the cute social misfit Steven (right) who doesn't want to hide their secret love anymore. It's a wonderful film that I saw years ago. It's on DVD and I high recommend watching it - and having a box of tissue handy - just in case.
Anyway, the movie has just one of the ten great coming out scenes spolighted on AfterElton.com today in honor of Coming Out Day.

I don't know how many people actually come out on Oct. 11 but whoever is doing so or plans to, congratulations! I'm damned glad to be out because I suffered so much being in. It's a character builder for sure! You have to come out so many times, and keep coming out, and you have to be strong and brave and know who you are. I admire everyone who has taken that step and not settled on living a secretive life or a life of lies and self-loathing.
I'd like you to check out my Out Heroes page (created a year ago and updated) where I have posted the pictures of many out famous people who are out. I'm grateful to them for being strong and brave, for showing the world who they are with a spotlight shining on them. People like actor B.D. Wong of "Law & Order: SVU" and, of course, "OZ." He hasn't gotten as much attention as say, T.R. or NPH, but he's been out for several years and even wrote a book about becoming his journey to becoming a father.
Here are some people who I plan to add to the gallery who have either come out since my last update or I had not included them before. If you can think of any glaring omissions, lemme know!

Related Items:
- Sharing their coming out stories
- Coming Out Day: DVDs to see
- Coming Out Day thoughts from 10 famous people
- Coming Out Day: Greg's Story

Coming Out Day is Oct. 11. So if you are still in the closet to anybody...COME OUT!!!
But seriously, it's a deeply personal step and everyone should do it in their own time. If you want encouragement from others who have taken the step, I encourage you to read a collection of Coming Out Stories on the L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center's site.
Mine should be up soon but it is mainly a truncatated version of a long-assed version I posted a year ago. To read that, CLICK HERE. Meanwhile, here is sampling of stories from people who i like and admire. Here is a LINK to the site so you can read them all!!!

Jane Lynch, actress: "I have much to be grateful for in those who came before me, the die-hard activists, the loud and angry protesters, and those for whom first names will do: Ellen, Melissa and Rosie. For those who blazed the trail and made my path so much easier, I am forever in their debt. I hope that my story will lighten your load somewhat and allow you to see what is possible for you. I love you and want you to live a full and happy life being all that you are. Find the people in this world who will love you for that. I guarantee you they're out there."

Alec Mapa, actor/comic: "Coming out, standing in my own truth has been the most liberating, life affirming thing Ive ever done, personally or professionally. One of the most ironic things about my life is that I initally worried what effect coming out would have on my career when the truth is, I really didn't have one until I did. Covering up my authentic self to friends, families and co-workers required enormous energy and only fueled my own Filipino Catholic feelings of shame. The minute I stood up for myself, everybody else did too. Now, I can't imagine living any other way."

Kenneth Walsh, blogger, friend: "I came out in college during Thanksgiving break in 1988, and my mom acted as if she was completely shocked. It was kind of hard to believe, though, given the fact that when I was in junior high I heard her washing my little sister's hair in the bathroom sink and she started getting frustrated with the squirmy little girl and slammed her head against the faucet and my sister started to cry. I got concerned and poked my head in and said: "Mom, take it easy. You're hurting her," to which she snarled back at me, "Stay out of this, woman." (Yeah, she had no idea.) It's moments like these that give writers a lifetime of material to draw from!"

An event over the weekend raising money for The Trevor Project, which operates a suicide prevention hotline for gay youth, drew recently out actors Neil Patrick Harris and T.R. Knight. Both actors breezed past press on the red carpet with Harris explaining to USA Today that his "highly paid PR firm" had advised him to "lay low for awhile." But Harris did show up with boyfriend, actor David Burtka but they did not pose for photos together unlike Lance and Reichen no doubt during their limelight-loving relationship.

At the cocktail party after, Knight explained that "Life was good before [coming out] and life is good after."
But their decision to lie low at the event did not sit well with the transgendered Alexis Arquette (pictured below with sisters Rosanna and Patricia earlier this year) who was outraged by the refusal to give interviews and that neither actor acknowledged their comings out during their remarks on stage: "People like that are weak; it's pathetic." Arquette then wished for a world "where people didn't have that fear."
I think Arquette, out as a gay actor ("Grief," "I Think I Do for Now") long before he began to publicly transition to becoming a woman, is being too harsh on these two actors who actually have handled their coming out in a very classy way and by being there at the Trevor Project event, they aren't hiding.
His sister, Patricia Arquette, was more understanding: "It's never easy to come out. It's a very brave thing. I was terrified for Alexis, with all the cruelty in the world, that he would be taunted, teased or beaten."

My great friend Danny Sullivan (the world's foremost search engine expert, not the race car driver) is among the many I heard from today in regards to my own coming out story. Danny, who now likes in the UK with his family, has some clarifications as to exactly what happened on that sailboat in Newport Harbor when I sprung the "Yep, I'm gay!" news on him more than a decade ago. He blogs about it at: http://daggle.com/061011-142318.html.

Here's a taste of it:

"Every gay person has their coming out stories. I've always wanted to start a site for the opposite, friends of gays to share how they learned. There's probably a site like that out there somewhere. I think we have fun or interesting stories to tell as well.

Greg came out to me an entirely different way. First we were coworkers, and soon after he moved in with me and another friend to share an apartment in Newport Beach. For two years we lived together, me never knowing he was gay. He kept it well hid...

Several years later -- me now living still in Newport but with my wife -- I had a day off from work. Greg was meeting me to hang out, and I suggested we go sailing. I rented a small 14 foot boot to tool around Newport Harbor in... Greg had mentioned he wanted to talk about something, but he hadn't gotten to that. So in the small talk, I asked him what was going on with another friend and joked I thought he might be gay. He was, Greg said -- and so was he, he told me.

I was completely shocked. Not upset -- just shocked that I hadn't seen it coming. I may have even dropped the tiller. In short order, I was trying to get the boat under control. Greg exaggerates it -- we never were going to head out into the Pacific. We barely had any wind. But I did spend an intense 10 minutes tacking as best I could to get past the ferry and back to the dock, so we could talk properly with solid land underfoot!

Greg was transformed when he came out to his friends. He became more confident, happier and something just felt right that I could never put my finger on. That wrong thing, of course, was that he was having to hide is true identity all those years."

***************************************************
Danny does have a way with words. He's just lucky I didn't share other stories like when he lit my Bart Simpson poster on fire or hurled my Mickey Mouse statue (bought in Tijuana for maybe $3) off the second floor balcony followed by a broom for me to sweep up the broken pieces.

Good times.

To read a nice profile of Danny in USA Today, click HERE.

With scandal currently brewing in Washington D.C. surrounding my least-favorite ex-politician who in his disgrace, gave gays everywhere a great big headache. Among his excuses for preying on underage male congressional pages, (the others being he's an alcoholic and was molested by a clergyman), he had his attorney tell the world that he is a "gay man."
National Coming Out Day takes on some added significance in this environment with the scandal still front page news and on the covers of this week's Time and Newsweek. I explore this a bit in a story in today's edition of the Daily News. So check it out!

I used to dread October 11 because it is National Coming Out Day. There were years when I thought, "I'm just gonna tell everyone!" Then I wouldn't and I'd feel like a failure and a coward. Mostly, I'd feel like a liar. I had lied through high school, college and the first 10 years or so of my professional life. I did all the horrible things: having a girlfriend publicly and a boyfriend privately; going to gay bars wearing a baseball cap and looking over my shoulder, hiding any clues to my sexuality (pictures of guys, magazines etc) any time my family was coming over for a visit; and even hung up the cover of the "Sports Illustrated" swimsuit issue to REALLY throw 'em off the scent.
Oh, brother.

But the truth is, I now have an incredible amount of compassion for the closeted person that I was. It was A LOT of pressure and I'd be lying if I didn't admit to almost cracking many times. It was often a nightmare in my teens and early 20s. I was trying to make my mark in the world and didn't want that pesky gay thing getting in the way of my dreams. I was kind of a laser-beamed focused maniac in high achiever mode: student government leader, yearbook editor, tennis team in high school, then newspaper and magazine editor in college. I wanted to be liked and accepted by everybody and pretty much was. I remember one day in SDSU's Zura Hall, where I lived, one of the guys on our floor looked at me and said, 'You are the most normal guy in this dorm.' He meant it as a compliment and I took it as one. But it was a big lie.

Then, two years out of college, I found myself somehow at the Los Angeles Times and stayed for 11 years, most of them in the closet. But, unlike the Jim McGreeveys of the world, I stopped the whole straight charade in my mid-20s when I, once and for all, came out to myself, and admitted that the girlfriend thing wasn't really my bag and that the boyfriend thing absolutely was.

Still, I built a nice, big wall around myself to keep folks from sniffing around my private life which was having its share of turbulence on the guy front. I was all business in the newsroom and out in the field and matters of the heart were not to be discussed. I gave off the vibe of "I'm here to work and my personal life is none of your beeswax!"

I started to come out to my college friends, one by one. First to know was my first SDSU roomie who I told during a drunken phone call in which I slurred something like, "I like someone and it's a GUY!" Smooth. Anyway, I proceeded to tell a core group of straight male friends since I had no gay friends at the time! At first, I assumed they would react badly and each time, I had to down several beers (burp!) before I could manage to share the news. And boy, do I have good friends. They had questions, good ones. One of them, a cute blonde said, "Well. have you ever been attracted to ME?" I answered honestly: "Not really." He frowned and said, "Why not!?!" Told an ex-girlfriend which was really tough and emotional but she forgave me and we got to be really good friends with no secrets. When I told one of my roomates from my early years at The Times, I did it when we were sailing in Newport Harbor. He was so stunned that he basically lost control of the boat and we were soon headed for the Pacific Ocean. Another friend, a female, was pregnant when I popped the news and she said, "Are you trying to induce my labor!" All of them seemed to be so concerned about this burden I had been carrying and let me know that it was definitely OK. It gave me confidence to go on and I will always love those first friends I confided in for their sweetness and support.

Then it started to get fun. I started telling more casual friends and acquaintances just for kicks and as a warm-up if I had a major coming out scheduled in the days ahead. It was fascinating and exhilarating. To study reactions, to know who REALLY was OK with it, to know who you'd probably never see again...nor would you WANT to.
It was all going well until I ran out of people to tell. Well, there were plenty of people I hadn't told, like my co-workers (at least the ones I hadn't secretly dated or slept with) as well as my entire, huge, Hispanic family. I started telling other reporters in time. When I decided to leave The Times in 2000 to take a film reporting job at the Hollywood Reporter, I was pretty out to my new co-workers, even put a picture on my desk of the guy I loved at the time, and started covering movies. With that job a GRIND, I left after a year and hooked up with the Daily News. I think I am the gayest person a lot of my co-workers have ever met and now here I am doing this blog for the paper. Life. Is. Good.

But I had put off the family "outing" year after year after year. I read books on how to do it and even attended a Coming Out group at the Long Beach Gay and Lesbian Center every Friday night for a year in the mid-90s. It was/is complicated and difficult for reasons I can't go into here (I'll save those for the book!) but culture and religion have been two of the big divides. It wasn't until I was well into my 30s that I flat-out told my family who I really was. There was the shock to deal with (I thought for sure they knew!) and just that entire adult life you have led that they know nothing about. How do you fill them in? How do you stop compartmentalizing and start being the same integrated person with your family that you are with your friends and co-workers? I'm still figuring that one out but I have nothing but optimism that the truth will continue to set me free.

After all those years in the closet (and in therapy!), I think the biggest gift I've given to myself is gradually carving out a life that is honest and authentic and putting my energies, both personally and professionally, only into what or who I believe in and love. Everything else just feels like a waste of time.

Thanks for reading...
- greg

Kenneth Anger, pioneer queer filmmaker: 'I love making films and I've always been out. My grandmother accepted me, my father did not...I was the black sheep. But I wouldn't be anything else."

JenRo, hip hop artist: "I feel that being queer, being young and woman of color and actually being out, it's a really good thing for me and the people I'm representing in the queer community. I just focus on making music that comes from the heart and me talking about liking girls is what comes out. If I write a love song, I will include a chick's
name. Hip Hop is about keeping it real."

Lance Bass, singer: "The thing is, I’m not ashamed – that’s the one thing I want to say," he explains of his decision to come out. "I don't think it's wrong, I'm not devastated going through this. I'm more liberated and happy than I’ve been my whole life. I'm just happy."

Wilson Cruz, actor: (On his decision at 19 to be professionally out when he landed the role of a gay character on "My So Called Life" opposite Claire Danes: "I felt that because of the role I was playing and what we were trying to say with the role, that acceptance is a journey, and that I was going to take that journey on the show, that in the end, the character was going to find acceptance and love for himself. For me as a gay man, to play the role and not own those values in myself was hypocritical. I thought anyone who played that role needed to stand up with him."
Thomas Roberts, CNN anchor: "I wasted way too much time worrying about this and I didn't want to do it anymore. There's no more time to lie. My personal life is much more important to me than the professional. It switched for me in my late 20s. When you hold something back, that's all anybody wants to know...and it becomes bigger than it is."

Martina Navratilova, icon: "Everything that I’ve done, I’ve known what the consequences will be but I’m willing to accept them," she says. "If I didn’t come out and pretended I was someone else, what are those consequences? I would not be who I am. Not being accepted by Madison Avenue because I was a lesbian, I could accept those consequences. My guidelines are totally philosophical and what’s morally right to me. I was never guided by
financial gain."

Alec Mapa, actor: "I really didn't come out professionally but you'd have to be deaf dumb and blind to not know I'm gay. Then I discovered that it wouldn't make a difference. What? I was going to lose out on all the great roles for Asian males under 5 foot 5? The minute I came out it was the first authentic thing I had to offer, the only authentic voice I had."

Tony Tripoli, actor: "I’m an actual gay guy on a show and I’m actually gay! A practicing homosexual who’s not ashamed of it. It’s huge to think about these gay and questioning youths flipping through the dial and to be able to see themselves in television shows. That’s great and profoundly impactful."

Miss Cleo, infomercial star: "The reason it’s scary is because in my personal experience, black cultures throughout the world have a more difficult time accepting homosexuality in their family. I have family members who will be
shocked, they don’t know. I have some family members who are very, very close to me and they do know. But I’ve been afraid of the wrath, of the exiling. When I came out to a number of friends in the late 80s, I had a number of friends who turned their back on me and walked away. That was really intense. I really believed they were my
friends."

Brian Graden, the out president of MTV Network’s Music Entertainment Group says he was "viscerally taken aback" by the reaction to MTV's Loga channel series "Coming Out Stories." He says one of the show's participants ran into him Human Rights Campaign event and showed him pages and pages of printed emails from viewers who said watching the show gave them the courage to come out in their own lives.
"I see the validation in people’s eyes as they talk about the affirmation of seeing themselves in their living room and the power of pictures to humanize all of us," says Graden. "Anything that injects itself into the cultural conversation that says, ‘We count, we are included’ is invaluable."

I'm sure there are plenty of other terrific coming out films out there but my list is limited to the ones that I have seen and impacted me the most. When you are living your life in the closet, it is so powerful to see someone on the screen take the stand that you want to take in your own life.

I'll start with the superb "Doing Time on Maple Drive," a 1992 television movie starring William McNamara as a gay college student who is intent on marrying a girl (Lori Laughlin) despite a three-year relationship with a classmate. Jim Carrey plays his older brother in this Ken Olin-directed drama that illustrates the toll trying to be the best little boy in the world can take on a person, especially a gay person. The performances are great all the way through. The first time I saw "Maple Drive," I bawled because McNamara's character was so similar to a guy I loved at the time who was trying desperately to be straight. That guy and I happen to be great friends today, thankfully, the drama long since played out. And one more thing, on a rainy day in Woodland Hills about two years ago, I was getting some money out of an ATM machine when I came face-to-face with William McNamara whose other credits include Showtime's "Beggars and Choosers" and such feature films as "Copycat," "Stealing Home" and "Chasers." I told him how much "Maple Drive" had meant to me and he remarked how often he hears that. I think it remains his best work ever!
Just as good in different ways are a pair of British films that are very powerful and have great heroes who come out in the end as their true loves stay closeted: "Get Real" and "Maurice."
Rupert Graves and James Wilby in "Maurice" (left) After Maurice (James Wilby) Graves' character is emotionally-tortured for so long by his repressed and closeted love (Hugh Grant) who enters into a sexless marriage with a woman, he falls for the gardener on Grant's family estate (Rupert Graves) and they even end up together in the end!
Ben Silverstone and Brad Gorton star in "Get Real" (pictured, left). Gorton's character is a popular and closeted high school jock, who falls in love with Silverstone's character who writes for the school magazine and is more in touch with his feelings. One of them boldly comes out in front of the entire school in the finale.

The masterpiece "Brokeback Mountain" makes the list not just because it was so beautifully acted by Oscar nominees Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal, but for how this Ang Lee film portrayed true love. In the end, Jake's character, although married with a child, is willing to give it all up to make a life with Heath. He has come to terms with who he really is and is ready to follow his heart. His heartbreak is so real and any gay man who has deeply loved a closet case can feel his pain. And for those gays who have chosen a closeted life, Ledger's pain is deeply felt when he realizes, too late, how he had given up the love of his life.

Then there is 1982's "Making Love" which may seem a little dated by now (it was made more than 25 years ago) but still rings true in so many ways. Michael Ontkean's character married Kate Jackson in an effort to be straight. He loves her and they have a wonderful life everywhere except in bed. She's clueless as he starts cruising bus stations and bars then falls in love with an author (Harry Hamlin). He confesses, Kate feels betrayed and slams a piece of china onto the floor then Ontkean moves out. Hamlin, enjoying the single life, blows Ontkean off but in the end, both he and Kate end up with pretty nice guys to spend their lives with.

The rest of my top 10 coming out DVDs:
6. Edge of Seventeen
7. The Incredibly True Adventures of Two Girls in Love
8. Kissing Jessica Stein
9. The Truth About Jane
10. (tie) Big Eden
10. Get Real

I would have included one of the more well-known movies, "In & Out" but I watched it again and it pretty much sucked. Kevin Kline is a middle-aged man (and I'm fairly certain is a virgin in every way) about to be married and doesn't realize he's gay until Tom Selleck gives him a big, long kiss on the side of the road. Suddenly he's dancing to the Village People in the next scene. Just silly but kinda worth it just for Joan Cusack's performance alone. Her Oscar-nominated turn is a hoot with such lines as "Is EVERYBODY gay?" and "I've got a heterosexual code red!"

I'm sure there are plenty of other terrific coming out films out there but my list is limited to the ones that I have seen and impacted me the most. When you are living your life in the closet, it is so powerful to see someone on the screen take the stand that you want to take in your own life.

I'll start with the superb "Doing Time on Maple Drive," a 1992 television movie starring William McNamara as a gay college student who is intent on marrying a girl (Lori Laughlin) despite a three-year relationship with a classmate. Jim Carrey plays his older brother in this Ken Olin-directed drama that illustrates the toll trying to be the best little boy in the world can take on a person, especially a gay person. The performances are great all the way through. The first time I saw "Maple Drive," I bawled because McNamara's character was so similar to a guy I loved at the time who was trying desperately to be straight. That guy and I happen to be great friends today, thankfully, the drama long since played out. And one more thing, on a rainy day in Woodland Hills about two years ago, I was getting some money out of an ATM machine when I came face-to-face with William McNamara whose other credits include Showtime's "Beggars and Choosers" and such feature films as "Copycat," "Stealing Home" and "Chasers." I told him how much "Maple Drive" had meant to me and he remarked how often he hears that. I think it remains his best work ever!
Just as good in different ways are a pair of British films that are very powerful and have great heroes who come out in the end as their true loves stay closeted: "Get Real" and "Maurice."
Rupert Graves and James Wilby in "Maurice" (left) After Maurice (James Wilby) Graves' character is emotionally-tortured for so long by his repressed and closeted love (Hugh Grant) who enters into a sexless marriage with a woman, he falls for the gardener on Grant's family estate (Rupert Graves) and they even end up together in the end!
Ben Silverstone and Brad Gorton star in "Get Real" (pictured, left). Gorton's character is a popular and closeted high school jock, who falls in love with Silverstone's character who writes for the school magazine and is more in touch with his feelings. One of them boldly comes out in front of the entire school in the finale.

The masterpiece "Brokeback Mountain" makes the list not just because it was so beautifully acted by Oscar nominees Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal, but for how this Ang Lee film portrayed true love. In the end, Jake's character, although married with a child, is willing to give it all up to make a life with Heath. He has come to terms with who he really is and is ready to follow his heart. His heartbreak is so real and any gay man who has deeply loved a closet case can feel his pain. And for those gays who have chosen a closeted life, Ledger's pain is deeply felt when he realizes, too late, how he had given up the love of his life.

Then there is 1982's "Making Love" which may seem a little dated by now (it was made more than 25 years ago) but still rings true in so many ways. Michael Ontkean's character married Kate Jackson in an effort to be straight. He loves her and they have a wonderful life everywhere except in bed. She's clueless as he starts cruising bus stations and bars then falls in love with an author (Harry Hamlin). He confesses, Kate feels betrayed and slams a piece of china onto the floor then Ontkean moves out. Hamlin, enjoying the single life, blows Ontkean off but in the end, both he and Kate end up with pretty nice guys to spend their lives with.

The rest of my top 10 coming out DVDs:
6. Edge of Seventeen
7. The Incredibly True Adventures of Two Girls in Love
8. Kissing Jessica Stein
9. The Truth About Jane
10. (tie) Big Eden
10. Get Real

I would have included one of the more well-known movies, "In & Out" but I watched it again and it pretty much sucked. Kevin Kline is a middle-aged man (and I'm fairly certain is a virgin in every way) about to be married and doesn't realize he's gay until Tom Selleck gives him a big, long kiss on the side of the road. Suddenly he's dancing to the Village People in the next scene. Just silly but kinda worth it just for Joan Cusack's performance alone. Her Oscar-nominated turn is a hoot with such lines as "Is EVERYBODY gay?" and "I've got a heterosexual code red!"