Hello I'm Alexander Banks and it is
LGBTQ+ pride month 2019, which means that
every video I released this month is
going to be LGBT themed. In this video
I'm going to be doing something that
hasn't really been done by many other
YouTubers. Because I think it's important
to be unique, and original. So today, I'll
be telling my coming out story.
Cue opening sequence.
Just in case it wasn't abundantly
obvious based on how happy, kind, and
generally attractive I am, I identify as
gay. But I wasn't always okay with that.
For a big chunk of my childhood and
early teens, I didn't want to accept that
I was gay. I knew that I was attracted to
men, but if anyone even suggested I was
gay, I would freak out. I would just
flat-out remove myself from whatever
social situation I was in because I
didn't want to deal with it. And I wasn't
ashamed or scared, it was just this
really complicated, personal part of who
I was that I hadn't figured out yet. And
because I didn't know how I felt about
it, I didn't want other people to see,
because it made me feel incredibly
vulnerable. I was probably around 15 or
16 when that started to change. At the
time I was living in a very small, very
conservative, very religious town, and I
had heard from someone who; I now know
misused me quite badly, that a parent had
told them to be careful of me. Because,
and I quote; 'I had a bad past.'
So essentially people that I barely knew
were advising other people to avoid me,
or to not associate with me, just because
there were rumours I was gay. Not because
I had done anything wrong, not because
something bad had happened,
purely because I was gay. And I wasn't
even out yet. Hearing that, especially
from someone who I had become
emotionally involved with, was the worst
kind of shock. It felt like everyone was
talking behind my back. It felt like I
couldn't trust anyone, that I had to
reevaluate everyone that I knew. It was
horrible. To try and stop anything like
that happening again, I immediately
started hiding everything about myself. I
shaved off all of my hair, I changed the
way I sat, I changed the way I stood, the
way I walked. I even changed the way that
I expressed emotion. I didn't know what
about me was giving people the
impression that I was gay, so I changed
or got rid of everything. I completely
stopped going out socially because I
didn't feel that I could trust anyone,
and I also stopped talking. Unless it was
a yes or no answer, I refused to speak to
anyone, because I didn't want to give
anything away. I kept this up for about
four months.
And there were so many days when I would
get home from school
close my door lie on my bed and just
weep. And people noticed, they would ask
if I was okay and I would say yes. Because I
was choosing to do this. Them noticing
a quiet, unhappy, withdrawn person, was far
better than any alternative. I think the
thing that got me out of that space was
exhaustion. Hiding everything about
yourself is exhausting and you can only
do it for so long before you just burn
out. It was at that extreme low point,
when I was just done with everything,
that I started to rebuild myself in a
way that I was happy with and that,
thankfully, included being gay. I realised
that by pretending to be something else
for other people's sake, hadn't made me
any happier. And it took a really long
time to fully open up to people again,
but this time I was doing so with a
growing acceptance for my own sexual
orientation. And by accepting it myself
and owning it as mine, it was okay, and it
was good, and if anyone had an issue with
it, I didn't anymore so it didn't really matter.
Next I started coming out to my
friends, and it was pretty much all
positive. Some were even a little
disappointing. One of my friends, I told
her, and without even looking at me she
went; 'Yip'. So I stopped her and I said;
'Could you at least pretend to be
surprised?' So I told her again, and this
time she went; '(gasp) No!' I chose my friends
pretty carefully so there really wasn't
any drama when I came out to them.
I then came out to my immediate family. Back
then I wasn't particularly close with
any of them.
They had definitely heard the rumours, and
at one point they had asked me whether I
was gay. I had said no at the time. And
it's not really something that we would
have spoken about or been open about. I
told my sister first, she was 14 or 15. I
think at the time, the only real concepts
she had about gay men were based on what
she had seen in film and on television.
So when I told her, the first thing she
said was; '(gasp) We can go shopping!' I
think that was her way of being as open
and supportive as possible, because she
assumed that was what I wanted to hear.
It was, it was sweet. I came out to my
mother and my father separately. When I
told my mom, she looked away and she
looked really sad for a couple of
minutes. And the first thing she said was;
'Are you sure?' And I told her that I was.
There wasn't really any other questions, and we didn't really talk about anything.
She told me that she loved me, and we
both walked away. I did ask her
whether she had suspected, and she said
no. Which in a way, explains her reaction.
I think she was quite shocked, and she
didn't really know how to respond or
what to do, and she was worried she would
do something that might hurt me or our
relationship so she just didn't do
anything at all. At the time, although it
hurt that my coming up to her wasn't
received positively, I was also thankful
that it hadn't gone wrong, and although
it was unclear whether she accepted that
part of me, at least she hadn't rejected
it. My father and I were not close at all
when I was growing up, and I very much
tried to limit his involvement in my
life as much as possible. I actually
wasn't ever planning on coming out to
him. I knew he would eventually find out,
but I was never planning on having that
sit-down conversation with him. So I had
driven to the neighbouring town on my
moped for a Valentine's Day dinner with
the guy that I was seeing. It was a
double date, my friend and her boyfriend
also came along, and my dad thought that I
was going with the girl. My moped had
broken down as I arrived so I arranged
for my dad to pick me up at the end of the
evening. My date had decided to wait with
me until my dad arrived so obviously my
dad saw him. I lied, and said that it was
my friend's boyfriend
that had decided to wait with me.
Admittedly, this was a pretty paper-thin
excuse because, I mean, who does that
right? But the thing that definitely gave
it away was as we were driving off, this
guy waved goodbye.
It was the campest wave I have ever seen.
Like, a proper kind of 'ta ta darling',
royal wave. Straight men don't wave like
that. So we're sitting in the car and my dad
starts asking me questions about this
guy, and at a certain point it was just
so obvious that he knew, that I switched
the radio off, turned to him and said;
'It's about time I told you, I'm gay.' At
the time it was rare for us to talk for
any extended period of time without
arguing, so I don't think either of us
knew how to talk to the other. The whole
conversation after mainly consisted of us
listing things that we thought were
relevant to the situation. It wasn't
aggressive, but it definitely wasn't a
positive conversation. Two other members
of my family identify as LGBTQ, and we
all happen to be first born
children. I remember my father pointing
this out and calling it a generational
curse, which is a semi religious idea
that misfortune and bad habits happen to
an entire generation of a family, as a
continuation of the sins inherited from
the previous generation. In a very broad
sense, it's a pseudo-scientific way of
explaining how there may be a genetic
predisposition towards alcoholism or
addiction, based on religious ideology. So
within moments of finding out that I was
gay, my father had categorised that part of me, as something incredibly negative. I
didn't get angry, and although the
conversation definitely wasn't a
supportive one, it ended in much the same
way as the one that I had had with my
mother. We got home and we just carried
on. The coming out experiences I had with
my parents weren't great, but people are
allowed to change. I think that most
religious, conservative parents will need
time to adjust, because of their faith
and because of their perspective on life.
I hold no resentment or anger toward my
parents because I know that how they
reacted came from various things. One was
preconceived ideas that they had about
the LGBT community, that stemmed from a
lack of knowledge and experience. The
other was a concern that because of that
lack of knowledge, if I needed help or
support they wouldn't have known how to
give it to me. Their reactions came from
a lack of understanding and preparedness,
not a lack of compassion or empathy. As I've
grown up and as I've shared more of the
LGBT aspects of my life with them,
their acceptance and support has grown.
I think over the past month alone, both of
them have asked on separate occasions
about my love life, over the past year
they've each asked me separately about
gay sex, and I tell them, everything, in
detail. My parents have a genuine
interest in all of my life, including the
LGBT aspects of it. And although there
are still things that we disagree on, and
still things we're learning about, they
do fully love support and accept me.
So, to finish this video I'm going to
pass on some advice. If you are a parent,
and your kid has just told you that they
are LGBTQ+, or you think they're about to,
please show them love and kindness and
acceptance, and be open to change. Even if
you don't want it for them, even if you
don't understand it, tell them it's okay.
Tell them that you love them, and you
support them, and that you want them to
be happy, and allow them to show you that
being a part of that community, does make
them happy. If you are LGBTQ+,
and you're thinking of coming out, do it.
Make sure that you're safe, make sure
that you have a network of support if
things go wrong, and come out. It gets so
much better, and there is so much love,
and so much support, and so much kindness
and goodness and life out there, just for
you, and it would be heartbreaking for
you to miss it. This has been my final
LGBTQ+ themed video for Pride Month 2019,
and it has been a fantastically colourful
June. Thank you so much for watching, if
you like this video and want to see more,
don't forget to leave a like and
subscribe. I'm Alexander Banks and I'll
see you next time.
