Every time a college student comes out to me, I learn more about pride

Essay by Carolyn O’Laughlin, CNN

I am the keeper of countless little love stories. And each student who has entrusted me with their truth over the years has helped me remain brave and out. As Sunday marks the anniversary of the Stonewall uprising, I’m also reminded that their trust has fueled my drive to do and discuss difficult things.

A college student lingers after class after everyone else files out. She asks an inconsequential question, hesitates. Then, eventually she says, “I think I might be gay.”

Someone else asks to meet with me to discuss a missed deadline. She’s awkward and speaks fast: “I’ve been really distracted. I kind of started seeing someone and they’re nonbinary, and now I’m trying to figure out what that means about me. And I need to talk about this, but I am not sure to who.”

No matter how proudly queer a student may become, in this moment they are almost always scared.

I smile. “I am honored that you told me,” I say. “I’m proud to have earned your trust.”

I am a university professor, and I have worked with college students for more than 25 years. I am also an openly queer woman. Each semester, in the first class, I introduce my whole self. My slides about the syllabus and classroom expectations flip, and a few photos appear: a camping trip, a baseball game, somebody’s graduation.

For some students, my “boring” and “ordinary” middle-aged life with a wife and two teenage sons is extraordinary. That’s because I am the first openly queer educator many of them have ever known.

Every time a student confides in me, I am reminded that the pride that drives me isn’t just personal; it’s collective and it’s fuel. It is this pride that sustains the courage to stand up for yourself or your child or your community — especially in times of uncertainty.

My coming-out story

What my students don’t know is that my own coming-out story is similar to theirs. As a college student in the late ’90s, my anxieties centered on my identity, while the rest of the world seemed to worry about Y2K. I knew that I was attracted to women. I wanted to meet others with similar experiences, and I was terrified of being found out. I needed to process my thoughts and feelings, but I wasn’t sure how or where or with whom.

My Midwestern Catholic college did not have a booming queer community in the ’90s. The one gay and lesbian support group was confidential, and you had to meet with a member of the campus ministry team to get the meeting time and location. I couldn’t google “Does this mean I am gay?” or find the “nearest LGBT bar to me.”

I, too, came out to one of my professors. Or, more accurately, I came out to that professor in an academic assignment. A friend quietly shared a novel with a closeted queer protagonist. Reading this novel was the first time my own thoughts and experiences were reflected back to me in a book. I read it in its entirety in one morning.

That afternoon, I decided to use that same novel as the source for a communications class assignment on the concept of self-disclosure. I weaved in examples from my own experience as a closeted queer person on campus into the analysis. I described the weight of my anxiety about being found out and of trying to control what I revealed or concealed through each thing I wore or said or did. It was the hardest I’d ever worked on a paper. I got a D. The professor called the novel “an inappropriate text” and suggested I did not understand the concept of self-disclosure.

The hell I didn’t. The paper itself was self-disclosure.

Writing that paper was a way for me to make sense of myself. It was key to my identity formation, regardless of the professor’s reaction, and I have been out ever since.

Coming out is an act of self-discovery. Before we can tell the truth about ourselves to the world, we often spend a long time wrestling with what that truth is — in our heads, on the page and, eventually, in conversations with those we can trust.

Throughout my career, I have always been out, not as some grand act of bravery or politics, but because hiding is hard work. Constant vigilance and self-editing are exhausting. I’d rather invest my energy in my family, my community and my work than in managing other people’s discomfort with who I am. As a result, college students have always come out to me. The conversations have varied through time and location and popular culture, although, still more often than not, they have the hallmarks of new and nervous love stories.

Pride builds inner strength

These days, I am closer to their parents’ age. The conversations have changed; more students approach me as a kind of parent-proxy. I am the stand-in or understudy for the more important conversation they want to have at home. It’s a role I take very seriously, for the student and for any parent.

And maybe that’s why, when a nervous student tries to be nonchalant and quietly approaches me to say, “Sorry I was late to class. I came from my boyfriend’s house this morning,” I notice his quick glance to gauge my reaction.

I smile and raise one eyebrow. “Is this new?” I ask.

He’s kind of bashful, blushing, nods yes.

I thank him for trusting me. I tell him that I am proud of him.

He releases a breath. Stands a little taller.

“And how’s it all going?” I ask.

“It’s pretty great,” he says, “but also, umm, kind of scary.”

Yes, it can be scary. But we cannot prioritize comfort over growth.

A person hardly has to turn on the news or scroll through their social media feed, and it feels like the country is in a yearslong cage match. Us vs. them. Red vs. blue. Good vs. evil.

My students and young people everywhere are not naive to the ways LGBTQ+ folks have been villainized by political pundits, or that books featuring queer characters or storylines have been pulled from the shelves of their libraries. Gen Zers hear the rhetoric and notice how their loved ones respond (or not). Even as they begin to develop their own sense of pride, they are not immune to the messages of shame and disgust and intolerance.

When my students trust me with their thoughts, I respond in the way I would have hoped for: I thank them, ask caring questions and share some basic resources. I know these young people are looking for acknowledgment, reassurance and community.

I am hospitable and welcoming and celebratory. Sometimes I am among the first they told. Some have already talked to a parent; others are working up the nerve. Usually, they suspect that their parents might already know or will be accepting or will eventually come around. My students aren’t afraid of outright rejection — more, of being a source of anxiety or disappointment.

Many feel shame that the people they love will suddenly be burdened by the messages and hateful rhetoric. My students don’t want anyone to worry about their future, their safety or their happiness. They want their parents to really know them; they want to be honest and share their authentic stories with their loved ones. They want to be seen and understood.

Which is why we still need pride, even beyond the month of June. Pride is bigger than a parade float or a drag show — though those are certainly central, celebratory elements. Pride is also a foundational element to a feeling of belonging. It’s knowing that people care about you. That you are valuable and have worth. Pride is also about developing confidence and self-assuredness to do hard things.

Shame shrinks us and silences our stories. Pride lets us grow. And after years of collecting these small acts of courage, I know this much: The world can always use more love stories, today, during Pride Month and every day.

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