How Sexual Repression Works and an Answer to ‘When Did You Know?’

The messy and ever-unfolding journey of finding and loving myself. And the question we should be asking instead.

I was thirty when I came out of the closet. Some people judged this as being late. For me, it was right on time.

And even though I have now been out for fifteen years, I am still asked the troublesome question, “When did you know?”

When people ask, the subtext is that surely I knew when I was young but just hid it away all those years, lying to myself and others. What people don’t understand is that sexual self-knowledge isn’t clear cut for everyone.

And a lack of self-knowledge does not imply dishonesty.

There are stories of queer people in mainstream media who knew when they were young and never had a moment of doubt. But for many others, the journey to discovering one’s sexuality is complicated.

Suppression is the conscious or deliberate blocking of thoughts, feelings, or impulses. On the other hand, repression is when this happens unconsciously. One’s experience may involve both suppression and repression. It turns out mine did.

For me, I may have had some questions or curiosities. But, for reasons that will make sense, the idea of being gay was not part of my conscious awareness.

I saw and still see myself as an honest person. Is it dishonest when it happens unconsciously?

I grew up in the 1980s. I remember the AIDS crisis vividly, partly because of the grim-reaper ads launched by the Australian Government and partly because I was made to do a homework assignment on it at age eleven.

The grim-reaper ads firmly established that AIDS equals death. My Catholic education further insisted that AIDS equals gay. I was good enough at mathematics for my eleven-year-old brain to conclude that gay must equal death.

Bullying was a daily reality from the age of nine. I was different to what culture said boys should be like — kind, sensitive, and an easy target.

The bullying would get progressively worse over the following years, making school an unsafe place for me — physically, socially, and emotionally. I wasn’t the only one. Bullying was endemic in the culture of our all-boys Catholic school.

Students bullied students, students bullied teachers, and teachers didn’t do anything meaningful about it.

In primary school, boys were bullied for being different. There wasn’t consciousness at this point around sexuality. In high school this became more prominent.

“Fag” and “homo” were the most common slurs, especially directed towards those who were more effeminate. The lesson was to act and present as straight as possible to not stand out and attract the attack of peers.

I remember one incident where a boy in the year below was hung upside-down by his feet from a two-story building. A group of us started to walk with him and protect him whenever the bullies came close.

This only made me more of a target. I was caught between wanting to defend him and needing to create as much distance as I could from him. There is shame in this self-preservation, as it was counter to everything I stood for.

My senior economics teacher used the supply-and-demand of women as a way of explaining microeconomics. He willingly traded his own integrity and human decency to gain popularity from the football players.

He would openly mock me and other students. Looking back, I felt unsafe in his class, even though at the time I thought of it as normal. He made toxic masculinity the cultural norm and provided fertile ground for homophobia to exist.

In my senior year, a close childhood friend who went to a neighbouring school came out of the closet. It didn’t surprise me that “Simon” was gay. He shared my sensitivity and, like me, didn’t fit in with the culture we were surrounded by.

Through Simon I met his friend Ian. They were eighteen — a year older than I was. Both Simon and Ian came out around the same time. By nineteen, Ian had contracted AIDS and by twenty he passed away.

This was 1994. I was barely an adult and had already come face-to-face with what I was brought up to believe as the grim reality of being gay. At the time, for me, being gay equalled death.

A few years later Matthew Shepard was murdered at age 21. Matthew was my age (born a few weeks after me). And while I was so disconnected from myself and my sexuality at that age, his death hit me.

His is a life I have thought about often over the years. The unthinkable tragedy of being killed for who you are.

I cry as I write this. I cry because I’m not sure I’ve ever cried for these experience. I have been out for fifteen years and I am still uncovering layers of my story. It is important for me to share clearly the truth of my childhood, and this barely scratches the surface.

This article is an act of self-compassion. I need to actively forgive myself for handling life in the best way I knew how at the time.

Free speech isn’t free.

When homophobes share their views under the guise of free speech, they do so without awareness that free speech isn’t free. It comes with a massive cost, most often burdened by the most vulnerable.

Children don’t have the emotional or cognitive capabilities to separate the message from the messenger, or the frame to see one person’s perspective or a single action as isolated.

It is easy for children to amplify emotions, draw false conclusions, and internalise perspectives by attaching them to identity.

I recently watched “Coming Out Colton” on Netflix. I had seen it show up on my feed for several months but initially discounted it as I assumed I would have nothing in common with the experience of an NFL player.

I wept as I watched his story. Despite some big differences in our life journeys, it reflected back to me so much of my own, especially when it came to religion.

In life, the two sources from which a child should expect unconditional love are one’s parents and God. When you feel like God itself doesn’t accept you for who you are, it creates a very shaky foundation upon which to build a life.

Colton spoke openly about the need to suppress his sexuality in order to survive a strongly masculine football culture and be accepted in the eyes of God. It wasn’t safe for him to be himself.

I look back on moments where I consciously suppressed questions and curiosities. But the foundation was already set for some deep repression. My subconscious was already working against me in order to keep me safe.

In my twenties I briefly taught in a high school. Students came up to me asking if I was gay. Now I was on the other side. It was still unsafe at the time for teachers to be out — especially in a Christian school.

With twenty years experience in presenting a false self, I laughed off the inquiries. The denial was so deeply entrenched that I didn’t feel like I was lying. I honestly had no idea who I was.

This is the truth about repression — not only is one’s sexuality repressed, so too is one’s sense of self. I didn’t know who I was. And for someone who deeply valued integrity, this made my personal dilemma even more complex.

It was for this reason I left teaching. It wasn’t because I was gay. It was because felt like a fraud inspiring young people to be themselves when I didn’t even know my own self.

We live in a time where mainstream media suggests it is easier for people to come out of the closet these days. While there may be truth to this, it isn’t true for everyone.

I still meet many people — as a friend and coach — who struggle in making sense of their sexuality and how to move forward. It is still not uncommon for people to discover their sexuality in their thirties, forties, fifties, or later.

And like me, even if one is aware of their sexuality and comes out at a certain point, the coming out experience is not a one-off moment. It is an ever-evolving journey of self-discovery, acceptance, compassion, and love.

I want to say it gets better. And certainly, in my experience, it does. Indeed, these days I spend little time thinking through these experiences. My gay life has been filled with the joyous highs and not-so-joyous lows of life. All in all, it’s a great life.

But it is not easy for those who are still in the closet to hear the it-gets-better message. The fears around coming out feel real. And despite the freedom that is to be gained, the potential or perceived losses can feel just as great.

I wish to rid the world of that troublesome question, “When did you know?” It is not helpful and perhaps not even the right question.

A better question would be, “Who are you today?” Or forget the question and just say, “I love and accept you for you.”

A message of love and gratitude to all those who courageously tell their stories. Special love and thanks to James Finn and all the writers at Prism & Pen. And to Colton Underwood for having the courage to share his story too.

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