VQ Comes Out: Casey Carey-Brown

Next up for  third-class VQ Comes Out – our week-long series honoring National Coming Out Day and LGBT History month – is Casey’s story.  Her voyage out of the closet involves a Christian college and tofu curry.  And, ultimately, her wife and kid. ~ The Editors
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When did you come out (or how many times, if it’s been a multilayered process)?

I never wondered if I was gay. It never crossed my mind. Until it did. Then, all at once, I knew. And was terrified.

What got you out?

It was 1999 when I said it out loud for the first time. On my way to Nashville to visit friends from the Christian college I had just transferred out of, I stopped in Virginia to stay with a friend from home who was living there going to an all-girls’ college. She was out. She was the only one I knew that was out at the time. When I got to the house I realized quickly that all her friends we out too. They were making tofu curry for someone’s birthday party. Of course they were. It was the first time I had seen out lesbians together. It was the first time I realized it was going to be okay. That night I came out to myself. And the cute girl upstairs who called herself a humanist.

How long did the process take ‘til you were out to family/ friends/ world?

It took another five years before I was completely out to my friends and family. I waited until my wife and I were engaged. It was easier to tell people when I had something to tell. By then, most knew already, so it wasn’t as bad as I had anticipated. I had also built a community around myself by then online, so I had the support I needed in case things went really wrong.

What’s easier about your life now that you’re out? What’s harder?

I don’t know that I can say that anything got easier or harder now that I’m out. I’ve been out for nearly all of my adult life, so I guess adult life got harder, but being gay in the world has certainly become easier especially here in Massachusetts where same sex marriage has been legal for nine years.

How are you out in a whole new way with kids?

With more acceptance around being gay, I’ve found that I need to come out less and less. It’s just assumed. Especially now that I have a daughter announcing “Mommy and Mama!” everywhere we go. That helps. Good job, Roozle. A few times we’ve had to explain to other kids that we are a two mom family, but they haven’t really been that interested for the most part. Around here, we’re just a regular family.

Back in 1999, this certainly isn’t the life I thought I could have. Coming out has brought me my wife, my family, and the opportunity to be a part of a greater community. Often the greatest things are born from struggle. Life rules.