On being closeted
and coming out
They asked, "How long have the two of you been together?" That's the first time anyone had ever asked us that question, so that made it safe. It was never the same afterward for me.
We had purges back in those days. Kids would leave campus on weekends. And on Monday morning, when everyone should be there, we'd discover all of these people who should be there were not. On the weekend, they would have been packed up, moved out and sent home. Because somebody said that somebody said… It didn't take documentation or proof. All it took was somebody that said somebody had done something. As many as 50 women disappeared in one weekend my freshman year. You had to be so careful.
She didn't want her family or anybody to know.… I was so in love with her, but there was not satisfaction in the relationship at all. When we would go off someplace, she would never go anyplace that was strictly lesbian, so it would always be some place, and if it were a party or a dance or anything, she would always have a man there with her, escorting her, and I was there also.
I knew I belonged to this group of these girls that were very fond of each other. But you couldn't express it, you're in the Army. You don't breathe it.
I had tried several times over the years to feel both my mother and my father out about homosexuality. Both were very adamant about identifying lesbians and blacks and that they should not be associated with. I did not feel it was worth the struggle to fight that battle with either of them.
The only conversation we had was after my mom died. And he couldn't say I was a lesbian or anything like that. All he said was, "I know you're different, and there won't be anybody to take care of you, so you'll have to take care of yourself." He thought I was so ill-prepared for that.
Talking about living with another woman who chose to stay in the closet: I loved her dearly and I loved things that we did together.… She had a zest for life and it was wonderful but I always had this sense of loneliness.
There were six or eight of us. You knew no other lesbians. You never mentioned it, even with these people. You didn't know their last names, you didn't know their careers. You didn't know anything about them. You didn't dare know.
Coming out was probably the best thing that happened because I realized why I never fit.
I came out at age 69 in 1988 and have been doing so ever since.
All my life I had been trying to get my mother's approval, so I certainly wasn't going to be a homosexual.
I just always assumed my family knew and this is just probably from basic cowardice. That was just making it easy on myself, I'm sure. I thought they might wonder, over a period of 20, 30, 40 years, why I never had a fellow. But if so, they never questioned it.
It was quite evident to the community what was going on and what my lifestyle was at that point so there was no hiding it. Everyone knew.
I broke my silence and shared my former closeted life with my daughter. Just doing that much released me from some of my self-imposed bondage.
When she was in the hospital, the night before the surgery, some young, somewhat snippy nurse came in wanting to know my relationship to her. I was fixing my bed and I said, "She's my partner and my companion of 29 years and I have her power of attorney in my purse. Do you need to see it right now?" She said, "No, ma'am." That was the first time I had ever come out publicly. Business was a breeze from then on. I have come out to the doctor, lawyer, financial advisor, CPA and any body else that wants or needs to know. It's the greatest gift I could have ever given myself.
I'm a very open person and was in every other way. It was really crippling to have this part of me that I had to hide.
I would not deny it if someone came to me and asked, depending on the circumstances. I don't put a flag on me and walk down the street saying who I am. It still happens on an individual basis.
It was 22 years of the closet. Ten of which we didn't live together and twelve we did. Whenever I would get closer to thinking we should be more open, it was so threatening to her, and this was partly because she was still working in the city in which she grew up. We were both working there. She had a very large extended Jewish Orthodox family and was very fearful of what her reputation would be. So the impact on our relationship was tremendous stress because everything had to come from the relationship because we knew we wouldn't have community. We had friends, many of whom were also in closeted relationships so we never talked about that.
I went to my mother's apartment and I told her that I had something to tell her. I told her that I was a lesbian. Mother sat there and then she said, "I've suspected as much for about 4 months." I was 55 years old at the time and had been in a relationship for 33 years and Mother had lived in our home often!
When I first told her she said, "Oh my God. Why did God do this to me?" And I said, "Well, Mama. God didn't do anything to you."
Back in those days we were all hidden. We were never "out". We were frightened because they were raiding bars and publishing names.
So we sat and talked and I said, "I wanted you to know I was a lesbian…" It was really funny because the first thing she said to me was, "That's just fine. Let me call Patsy" I said, "Why?" "They think you're dying of cancer!"
Back in those days, I wouldn't have said anything because I would have lost my job. Talk about blackball. I had two friends. They were divorced women who I think fell in love with each other. But what they went through! They had to take lie detector tests.There was never any evidence but not only did they lose their jobs, they never had a teaching job in the State of Texas again.
My second year at college, a young woman was asked to leave school because it was suspected that she was a lesbian. The word was never used but a finger had been pointed and she was asked not to return.
I was always closeted at work. Always, always, always. Because I was so afraid that it wouldn't work. I'm still that way. I still cannot… you know, I hear people telling about coming out to people they work with or that they do social things with. I have never been able to do that.
I came out to myself when I was 64. It was like everything that I had denied or repressed for the past 60 years burst forth.
I believe that my mother knew. I think both my sister and my mother figured it out before I did.
It's hard to want to put your foot out here in town. In a town only 40 miles away, there was a young man who came back to his ancestral home with his lover and they burned him out. That's the neighbors who burned them out. He was absolutely no threat to them at all. The men moved away. It's not encouraging. I have no doubt, if we were out [in our home town], there would be repercussions. It's not safe.