Spring Break
Symposium film explores coming out to family, peers
Hillary Brady
Issue date: 4/3/09 Section: News
04/03/09 - For individuals questioning their sexuality, coming out to their loved ones can be a life-changing event-and each of their experiences is unique.
The third day of the 15th Annual University of Rhode Island Symposium on Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, Intersex, Queer and Questioning (GLBTIQQ) Issues highlighted this experience.
"Coming Out Stories: Why We Tell Them, What They Mean," a combination film presentation and discussion, shared a group of older women's feelings concerning coming out in their communities.
"These are stories that haven't been covered and examined," Alexia Kosmider, academic adviser at the Feinstein Providence URI campus, said yesterday during her presentation.
She said many of her students struggle to understand the hardship of coming out. Today, with teenagers coming out earlier in their lives, as well as exposure to gay-alternative proms and parades, heterosexual students may underestimate the struggle of that decision, she explained.
"It's very important for younger people to know. I'm worried they don't know the history and the legacy," Kosmider said.
Her presentation aimed to change that. The approximately 20-minute long video showed a group of women in the Older Lesbian Energy (OLE) group, openly sharing their stories about revealing their sexuality. The women pictured were not named for confidentiality purposes.
For many of the women, the decision to come out was a long process.
One woman had come to terms with her own sexuality at the age of 52, after she had been married for more than 20 years.
"I was facing coming out to my children, my family, my congregation," the woman said.
After joining a support group for married lesbian women, she was able to come out to her husband, whom she divorced soon after.
Another contributor, a matronly woman with glasses, met her first partner while in the Air Force Nurse Corps in Vietnam. Before joining the military, she had been closeted, growing up in a Catholic household.
The third day of the 15th Annual University of Rhode Island Symposium on Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, Intersex, Queer and Questioning (GLBTIQQ) Issues highlighted this experience.
"Coming Out Stories: Why We Tell Them, What They Mean," a combination film presentation and discussion, shared a group of older women's feelings concerning coming out in their communities.
"These are stories that haven't been covered and examined," Alexia Kosmider, academic adviser at the Feinstein Providence URI campus, said yesterday during her presentation.
She said many of her students struggle to understand the hardship of coming out. Today, with teenagers coming out earlier in their lives, as well as exposure to gay-alternative proms and parades, heterosexual students may underestimate the struggle of that decision, she explained.
"It's very important for younger people to know. I'm worried they don't know the history and the legacy," Kosmider said.
Her presentation aimed to change that. The approximately 20-minute long video showed a group of women in the Older Lesbian Energy (OLE) group, openly sharing their stories about revealing their sexuality. The women pictured were not named for confidentiality purposes.
For many of the women, the decision to come out was a long process.
One woman had come to terms with her own sexuality at the age of 52, after she had been married for more than 20 years.
"I was facing coming out to my children, my family, my congregation," the woman said.
After joining a support group for married lesbian women, she was able to come out to her husband, whom she divorced soon after.
Another contributor, a matronly woman with glasses, met her first partner while in the Air Force Nurse Corps in Vietnam. Before joining the military, she had been closeted, growing up in a Catholic household.
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