I was fifteen when I realized I was attracted to women. When I was seventeen, I realized the discomfort I felt in my own skin was due to a difference in gender identity. However, I was a redneck, God-serving girl in Oklahoma. My family always said they “didn’t mind the gays,” but there were many jokes and underlying attitudes that led me to believe otherwise. It drove me to hide questions about my sexuality and gender identity for my entire childhood. It didn’t seem safe to have discussions about these topics with my family.
Nonetheless, the first person I came out to was my little sister. I was fifteen. It was Christmas, a few months after I finally labelled my sexuality. I was sitting in my living room surrounded by my parents and four of my siblings. In the midst of the chaos that was opening gifts, I just said it out loud, “I’m bisexual,” to no one in particular. My younger sister, my best friend, was the only one who heard me. She said nothing, just hugged me. In that moment, I felt a weight lifted from my chest. With that small gesture, all the shame that was pushed onto me by those around me dissolved. To this day, of all the people that were in my living room that night, my little sister is the only one I’ve told. I’m sure they all know by now, but their words and actions continue to tell me that they are not safe to be my true self around, despite being the people I love the most.
After that non-conversation with my sister, I messaged my estranged older brother. His response was not entirely unexpected. He simply said he already knew, but that he was glad I was becoming more comfortable with who I was. This was strange to me because he made it seem like such a non-issue, while I felt my whole world falling apart. How could my sexuality be such a trifling matter when it made me feel so unsafe in my own home?
It was even more difficult to accept my gender identity, although I still struggle to label it to this day. I was raised as a tomboy, so gender norms weren’t the most enforced in my childhood, but my brothers still weren’t allowed to wear pink. It astonished me that I could wear boots and play in the mud, but my brothers couldn’t play dress-up with us. Then in high school, I had a friend that came out as transgender. He had a class with my younger brother that year. Every day when the teacher called my friend’s name on the roll sheet, my brother would “correct” him with my friend’s dead name. Despite constant contact from the school, detention, etc., he didn’t stop and my parents didn’t tell him to. They even seemed to encourage it. They justified it as “correcting someone where they were wrong by God’s eyes.” To this day I don’t understand it. I never cared whether or not it was wrong, I just knew it was respectful to call people what they wanted to be called.
Around the time I graduated high school, my parents began attending a new church. I found out later that my friend’s family, who have two transgender children, also attended that church. This church also had a lesbian couple on their leadership team. I finally felt as though I belonged to a church family. I was sadly mistaken. A few months after I began college, I was on a regular phone call with my mother. She was telling me about the annual reassignment of small group leaders. One church member brought up the church’s constitution, citing some line about adhering to “biblical code” or whatever they called it, and stated that the couple could not serve as leadership because their love for each other was “ungodly.” My mother told me she agreed with that person. The couple left the church soon after this happened. I was once again made to feel the need to hide my true self from my family, an urge I continue to be led by.
Between confusion and the closet, I have constantly struggled with my queer identity. It wasn’t until I left my home and came to this university that I was met with the overwhelming support necessary to accept these parts of myself. Despite the hatred I have felt for myself in the past because of my identity, I know it is but a mere shred of what thousands suffered before me. Pride is my reminder that who I am is okay. It is the one time of year I feel completely sure that I am not a mistake. As strange as it seems, Pride has made me firmer in my faith as a Christian. It reminds me each year that I am completely and wonderfully made in His image and that He loves me for who He made me.
As I reflect on my own story every June, I am reminded of those who came before me. I think of those who did not have the opportunity to escape their cage as I have, who still lack the freedom to know that they are human. Every year, I wear the colors of the rainbow, I watch the parades, I shout and I celebrate my freedom to be my true self. I do these things not only for my younger self, but for all those who can’t, who never could, who never will be able to.
That is what Pride means to me.
Jessiekah Cook is a third-year Creative Writing major at the University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma.
