Ash Beckham at TEDxBoulder
Transcript of Coming Out Of Your Closet by Ash Beckham at TEDxBoulder conference.
Listen to the MP3 Audio here: MP3 – Coming out of your closet by Ash Beckham at TEDxBoulder
TRANSCRIPT:
I am going to talk to you tonight about coming out of the closet. And not in the traditional sense, not just the gay closet. I think we all have closets. Your closet may be telling someone you love her for the first time. Or telling someone that you’re pregnant. Or telling someone you have cancer. Or any of the other hard conversations we have throughout our lives. All the closet is, is a hard conversation.
And although our topics may vary tremendously, the experience of being in and coming out of the closet is universal. It is scary, and we hate it, and it needs to be done.
Several years ago, I was working at the Southside Walnut Café, a local diner in town, and during my time there, I would go through phases of militant, lesbian, intensity. Not shaving my armpits, quoting Ani DiFranco lyrics as gospel, and depending on the bagginess of my cargo shorts, and how recently I’d shaved my head, the question would often be sprung on me, usually by a little kid: “Mmmm, are you a boy, or are you a girl?” And there would be an awkward silence at the table, I’d clench my jaw a little tighter, hold my coffee pot with a little more vengeance, the Dad would awkwardly shuffle his newspaper, and the Mom would shoot a chilling stare at her kid. But I would say nothing, and I would seethe inside.
And it got to the point that every time I walked up to a table that had a kid anywhere between 3 and 10 years old, I was ready to fight. And that is a terrible feeling. So I promised myself the next time, I would say something. I would have that hard conversation.
So within a matter of weeks, it happens again: “Are you a boy, or are you a girl?” Familiar silence. But this time, I am ready. And I am about to go all Woman Studies 101 on this table. I’ve got my Betty Friedan quotes, I’ve got my Gloria Steinem quotes, I even got this little bit from Vagina Monologues I’m going to do, so I take a deep breath, and I look down, and staring back at me is a 4-year old girl in a pink dress. Not a challenge to a feminist duel, just a kid, with a question: “Are you a boy, or are you a girl?”
So I take another deep breath, squat down next to her and say: “Hey, I know it’s kind of confusing, my hair is short like a boy’s, and I wear boys’ clothes, but I’m a girl and you know how sometimes you like to wear a pink dress, and sometimes you like to wear your comfie jammies, well, I’m more of a comfie jammies kind of a girl.”
And this kid looks me dead in the eye without missing a beat and says: “My favorite pajamas are purple with fish, can I get a pancake please?”
And that was it, just: “Oh, Okay, you’re a girl. How about that pancake?”
It was the easiest hard conversation I have ever had. And why? Because Pancake Girl and I, we were both real with each other. So, like many of us, I’ve lived in a few closets in my life, and yeah, most often, my walls happen to be rainbow. But inside, in the dark, you can’t tell what color the walls are. You just know what it feels like to live in a closet. So really, my closet is no different than yours, or yours, or yours.
Sure, I can give you 100 reasons why coming out of my closet was harder than coming out of yours, but here’s the thing, hard is not relative, hard is hard. Who can tell me that explaining to someone you’ve just declared bankruptcy is harder than telling someone you just cheated on them. Who can tell me that his coming out story is harder than telling your 5-year old you’re getting a divorce. There is no “harder”, there is just “hard.” We need to stop ranking our “hard” against everybody else’s “hard” to make us feel better or worse about our closet and just commiserate on the fact that we all have “hard.”
At some point in our lives, we all live in closets, and they may feel safe. Or at least, safer than what lies on the other side of that door. But I’m here to tell you, no matter what your walls are made of, a closet is no place for a person to live. Thanks.
So why is coming out of any closet, why is having that conversation, why is it so hard? Because they’re stressful. We’re so concerned about the reaction of the other person, and understandably. Will they be angry? Sad? Disappointed? Will we lose a friend? A parent? A lover? These conversations cause stress.
So let’s kick out on stress for a minute. Stress is a natural reaction in your body. When you encounter a perceived threat, — keyword, perceived — your hypothalamus sounds the alarm, and adrenaline and cortisol start coursing through your veins. This is known as Fight or Flight. Sometimes you rumble, sometimes you run. And this is a totally normal reaction. And, comes from a time when that threat was being chased by a wooly mammoth. The problem is your hypothalamus has no idea if you’re being chased by a wooly mammoth, or if your computer just crashed, or if your in-laws just showed up on your doorsteps, or if you’re about to jump out of a plane, or if you need to tell someone you love that you have a brain tumor. The difference is the wooly mammoth chases you for, what, maybe 10 minutes. Not having those hard conversations, that can go on for years, and your body just can’t handle that.
Chronic exposure to adrenaline and cortisol disrupts almost every system in your body and can lead to anxiety, depression, heart disease, just to name a few. When you do not have hard conversations, when you keep the truth about yourself a secret, you’re essentially holding a grenade.
Pages: First |1 | ... | Next → | Last | View Full Transcript