Pride post #4 My coming out story

I feel like my coming out story isn't finished, and sometimes I wish I could have understood and listened to my own inner voice and let them out of the closet sooner, but I also know that my path and process had to go through all these twists and turns to get out of the closet. This is part four of my pride series and my last one at this point in time. I first wrote all these posts in Pride month-June and I'm sharing them here. Enjoy and let me know what you connect to and any questions.


Driving down the straight road to the lake for rowing practice in Orlando My regular taxi driver told me I was gay. He said that id never marry a man,  “you’re too strong for them, and you dont like them that way” he said. I awkwardly asked him why he thought so, while in the same breath saying no way, we were like five minutes away and my mind was sort of already at practice, so I didn’t really listen to the second response, but the comment stuck with me. When getting on the boat I mentioned it to my coach and she said dont worry you dont have to figure everything out right away, I said what do I have to figure out, she just smiled. I tried to file it away but I was finally in a safe space mentally and physically and I could start to dig into this. I never officially came out in Florida and honestly, I wasn’t ready to, but that comment in the car from my driver, started unlocking emotional doors deep inside I had committed to not remembering or believing about myself. That started a process of discovery of what that community even was mostly online, I think I might have spoken to a few people on the community college campus I studied at as well. Not all moments on my journey were objectively huge and had immediate viewable results but this story is probably one of the favorites along my journey and that’s because of the people around me, so thank you, Coach Katie, for those words and holding that space even when I had no idea what that space was, and to my driver whose name I can’t remember of course for being honest and being a messenger on my journey.

 My coming out story- I see other peoples posts about their seemingly straightforward coming out stories,and I search to put into a few succinct sentences my process of a lifetime. When I finally pause and stop searching for an elevator pitch for my coming out story and realize that this month of posts, is actually part of the process of putting my internal story into words . This month has been such a process of self introspection,seeing and understanding all the moments,clues and pieces to my puzzle. Its interesting to see that once I finally came to the conclusion that I’m lesbian. Thanks to a wonderful friend who told me “oh you haven’t come out yet?” And of course I was like come out of what? As what? That conversation led to a lot of self introspection and really did give me that aha moment of “oh wow that's what was missing that piece of knowing,and that way of being told in this clear fashion gave me the internal ability to click and understand myself in this new deep way. I didn’t figure all the pieces out then but it was like putting together the corner pieces and a border to the puzzle of a huge part of my identity. The process is still going on so I still don't have an elevator pitch of my coming out story but this month and filling out the puzzle this month with these different stories has been self validating while building up my internal identity.

Gender Identity- I haven't figured this out yet but I do know when I and others use the pronouns they I feel deeply seen and not like I want to grate my skin off. Only after I came out as lesbian did my good friend who helped me see what was already there about me being gay,said one Shabbat afternoon are you comfortable with your gender because you don't fully feel in yourself to me. By this point I knew a bit about myself but this was another key to my soul someone just helped me fit in the lock,unlocking more of my authentic self. This has been much harder process with accepting and sharing this part of myself. I got much more pushback from people who are supposed to be close to me then when I came out,and people who I had misjudged and expected to understand. I have kind of given up a bit on people getting it,which has led to me disappointing myself and kind of giving up on owning it and processing it more. It's so easy to just allow people to keep saying girl/ she etc and I feel like my sexuality takes up so much space and like people are doing me a favor of accepting it that I shouldn't push for people to "get" my gender and pronouns. Yet all this leads to me is having a harder time with myself,like I should just keep dressing like a girl,and respond to she,her etc. But enough of that if you love me enough that you are a part of my life then here I am Samantha Menuha and my pronouns are they/them and I'm proud and love my non-binary self.