After speaking with a friend earlier this year about their experience as gay teenagers, Nate Warden realized there was a serious lack of accessible coming out stories in the LGBT community. An online search yielded few responses and he immediately saw a void that could easily be filled.
Less than six months later, 25-year-old Warden launched ComingOut.space, a Web site devoted to sharing coming out stories with a new generation of young LGBT people.
“I think a lot of LGBTQ people turn to the Internet as their first resource for learning about the coming out process and consequently, I think there should be better resources online to facilitate that process,” Warden said.
Warden recalled spending time during his teenage years browsing the Internet in search of people with similar stories. He would seek answers in chat rooms and hook-up sites, which he deemed “not a healthy environment.”
Since the Web site’s launch June 26, it’s steadily drawn a collection of coming out stories from people around the world and Warden is hopeful that it will continue to reach more people who are willing to share their story.
While many of the first posts on the site were written by Warden’s friends, about a third of the first 18 posts were from strangers who happened upon the site.
“The response has been overwhelmingly positive,” Warden said. “So many friends and family members have been amazingly supportive and we’re getting to the point that total strangers from around the world are viewing the site and even contacting me to submit their stories.”
To get the ball rolling, Warden shared his own coming out story in the Web site’s initial post. After growing up in a conservative small town in Ohio, he waited until college to begin to tell his friends that he was gay. Eventually he worked up the courage to tell his family, which consists of a “man’s man” father, “devout Christian” mother and “quintessential Midwestern” younger brother.
“It was an emotional experience the night I came out to my family, but those painful few hours were nothing compared to the decade of denial and exhausting deceit I had endured up until then,” he wrote in the post.
Although his family initially needed some time to process the news, Warden’s relationship with his parents and brother is now stronger than ever.
“As is the case with most of the many LGBTQ people I know, coming out allowed me to close a dark chapter in my life and begin a bright future, full of confidence, happiness and the excitement of knowing that I was finally becoming the person I have always wanted to be,” concluded Warden’s post.
So far, the site mainly features an assortment of stories by gay men but the goal is to accumulate a wide range of stories from other members of the LGBT community as well.
According to Warden, one of the most compelling stories is of Cecilio, a transsexual man in Ontario, and his struggle to convince people that he’s a straight man and not a butch lesbian.
“My last coming out has been the hardest for sure; coming out as a straight man sucks,” Cecilio wrote in his post. “The whole world sees me as a lesbian and always has. This is probably why coming out as queer was super easy. I’ve always looked like a dyke, but never felt like a dyke. Maybe that’s why I pushed away from my queerness for so long; I didn’t start accepting my love for women until I was 19. It took me even longer to realize I wasn’t a woman who loves women; I’m a man who loves women.”
Another section of the Web site, Coming Out in Reverse, welcomes straight people to share the story of how their friend or family member came out to them. The site’s first post from this angle was shared by an anonymous man about his gay brother.
“Since the day my brother came out, my perspectives on life and people in general have changed tremendously,” wrote the anonymous poster. “I have learned to be more accepting and look more toward the qualities in people that make them genuine and nice. Having an older brother who is gay has made me a better person.”
Since starting the project in January, Warden has paid several hundred dollars out of pocket for the entire process of starting the Web site, including registering the domain and paying for the web hosting. In addition to his day job as a marketing optimization consultant, he also devotes about five to fifteen hours a week working on the site. To cut costs, he was able to find a web developer, Jessica Duarte, and graphic designer, Johnathan Fong, to volunteer their time to the project.
Eventually, he plans to register as a non-profit organization so he can receive sponsorships or generate revenue through advertising to help cover operating costs and upgrade his volunteers to paid freelancers. Before he can apply to become a non-profit, however, he will have to appoint a board of directors, which will come after attracting more press and building a reputable site.
“I want to fulfill our mission of creating a Web site with truly diverse content that any reader can visit and find stories they can relate to,” said Warden. “To do that, we need stories from folks of all cultural backgrounds and from across the entire LGBTQA spectrum.”
Anyone can submit a story by visiting ComingOut.space. The guidelines are simple: keep your story to 700 words or less as anything longer will need to be abridged, be honest and make it as relatable as possible to help others cope with a similar situation.
The Web site is also designed with handy filters that categorize your post to make it easier for people to find. For instance, you can use one of the popular tags, such as college, Midwest or gay. You can also create your own tag to express your specific story.
After a story is submitted, Warden edits and reviews it to make sure that it’s appropriate for the site.
“I do this to ensure quality content on the site but also to avoid any hateful posts being automatically uploaded,” Warden explained.
In an effort to help spread the word about the Web site, Warden has teamed up with the Huffington Post to be a regular contributor in its Gay Voices section. Starting by the end of July, he’ll be writing blogs about the Web site and sharing some of the coming out stories.
“If I had found a site like this when I was a teenager, I think my experience of coming to accept myself would have been totally different,” Warden said. “Much healthier, much less painful and much faster.”
“Everyone has unique stories about coming out to friends and family,” added Warden. “Some of us were very young, some older, and most of us were very alone. Imagine if we could see how others did it – to use their stories as a guide or to help find the strength to go through a difficult time.”
See more at http://comingout.space
