How Coming Out Is (and Isn’t) Like a Haircut
In 1998, I sat down in my stylist’s chair with a picture of Gwyneth Paltrow with the pixie cut she made popular in the film Sliding Doors. You may remember the film; in it, Paltrow’s character’s life splits in two. In one version, she makes the subway as the doors are closing; in the other, she does not. In the version where she makes the subway, she arrives home early, certainly earlier than her boyfriend expects, to find him in bed with someone else. She leaves him, cuts her hair short, begins a new life. In the other version, she returns home as planned, keeping her long hair and her illusions.
My stylist first staged a mini-intervention. She told me that while she could give me that haircut, it would not look exactly like Gwyneth Paltrow because I did not have Gwyneth Paltrow’s hair. I did it anyway. She was right.
Anytime I get my hair cut, then and now, no small part of me believes that a new me is about to emerge. Then the next day, I realize it’s just me… with a hair cut. It’s a hard lesson: You can improve and change. But you are still you. With highlights. A new job. A bolder lip.
Last year, I ended a four-year relationship with a man, a NYC police officer. It was the longest relationship I’d ever had. And that was long enough. I’d lived alone for 25 years and guarded my time and independence. And so I was honest with him from the jump: I had never lived with a man and had no intentions of living with one now. But he had beliefs, too, about how love would change a person, and if not, that a gradual and predictable merging of lives was inevitable. But the truth was, I was still me… with a boyfriend. I called it off, perhaps later than I should have.
They say you can’t just flip a switch and decide to be gay. And to be fair that’s not exactly what happened: I’d had strong feelings for different women over the years — kissed my best friend in college, developed a crush on a folk singer in my 20s, even slept with a few bored, bisexual wives in my 30s — but considered them occasional feverish exceptions at best.
After all, I’d dated men all my life and never questioned it in any real way. Nor did anyone else. And this is how the idea of who you are can set in: zero evidence to the contrary. Even the women I did find appealing for reasons I couldn’t articulate seemed to reinforce my heterosexuality: I was so straight, I was even attracted to women who look like men.
Yeah, that’s not what that means.
A month after my breakup, and interestingly, a week after I officiated my friends’ gay wedding — coincidence? — I flipped my dating search to women. Just to see.
Most of the profiles did not appeal to me. And then I saw her: a woman with a bleached pixie cut, a wing of blue hair over her eyes. She looked less like a woman and more like a nymph, a fairy who’d seduce you in a yellow wood and keep you as her lover in the belly of an old elm for a hundred years.
We matched. I gave her fair warning that I was the very last person she should meet. First off, I was not gay — and what’s worse, I had just broken up with a long-term boyfriend.
“If I were one of your friends,” I wrote, “I’d tell you to run.”
We met for coffee anyway. Then a week later, for brunch. I felt like I was applying for a job I was not qualified for. We kissed shyly on the corner of 72nd and Broadway, and I trembled the whole way home.
“Do you like her?” my friend asked. “I mean, do you want to date her or go shopping with her?”
I didn’t know. Part of me believed there was no lesbian on the planet who would take me seriously. How could they? When I had so many years of men to account for?
The blue fairy texted me the next day and said I’d been on her mind. “I was thinking of your hair,” she said. “I like it.”
“Why don’t I come over tonight?” she said.
“Sure,” I replied. “Should I make dinner?”
“Let’s skip dinner,” she said.
SOS, I messaged my friends: “She’s coming over in an hour and we’re not having dinner. All caps. THERE IS NO DINNER.”
“You’ll be fine!” they told me. “Have fun!”
She arrived at 6 p.m. I had to climb down from the ceiling to answer the door. I know you don’t drink, I said, but I’m going to need one.
I shook a dirty martini nearly to death in the kitchen and then sat beside her on the couch. It felt like swinging both legs over a fence and preparing to jump.
And then she kissed me. I’m going to try to resist all hyperbole when I say that it felt like I had just surfaced from ten leagues under the sea. As if I’d never breathed before, and would never get enough air.
The next day was April 8th, and I remember that because it was the day of the solar eclipse. And while Manhattan wasn’t in the path of totality, the light went down like a dimmer switch, the colors flattening to sepia tone. My friend Kim and I were sitting on a wall in the park, taking turns peeking at the sun through those flimsy glasses as it waned to a bright cuticle.
“So, this is happening,” she said. “Right?”
It seemed a gross understatement to say yes. Of course, yes. I had never felt more yes.
A few minutes later, the sun waxed to fullness, the colors returned, but nothing looked the same.
When I say I “came out,” it’s not like I’d been harboring a secret. More like I’d stumbled upon something unbelievable, like a unicorn in my kitchen. How did that get there? What do I do with it? And then wanting to tell every single person I ever knew about it.
I can’t speak for all late-in-life lesbians, but I think I had it pretty easy. When I told my friends I was dating women now, it was like I’d shown up to brunch with bangs. They’re like, Whoa wasn’t expecting that, but what’s important is that you like them.
People were also quick to give me an out — saying things like, “You may not be gay, you may just be in love with this person.” But I didn’t need to be protected from it. Gay felt right. It’s like saying, maybe you just like this omelette; it may not mean anything else.
No, pretty sure I like eggs. Period.
I fell so head over heels for this blue fairy, it shocked me and everyone else. Me, who’d always been historically slow to claim the girlfriend mantle and loath to let go of my single status. Yes, I wanted to be her girlfriend. Right now. When she mentioned possibly moving out of her apartment 10 blocks from mine, all the way to Brooklyn, I was inconsolable.
I was different with my girlfriend than I’d been with any man: gentle and accommodating, treated her like glass. I told her she was the only one for me, and I believed it.
Maybe this was my problem! I wasn’t aloof and commitment phobic — maybe I was just gay. And now that I was embracing who I was, surely this would fix everything.
But deep down, that part of me who’d always worried I wasn’t smart enough, good enough, pretty enough, simply had a new fear: That I was not gay enough. That I was only gay because of her, that I was simply… gay by association.
It didn’t take long, a month or two, for red flags to emerge and for the blue fairy to reveal herself as a master manipulator. In July, things built to a frenzied state: She accused me of having the “wrong attachment style”; I accused her of asking for more than any person could give. We were probably both right.
You know where this is going. It ended as fast and furiously as it began. It was the most excruciating breakup of my life.
My whole life, my fear of commitment had boiled down to the belief that I would disappear into a relationship with a man and cease to exist. And what was causing me anguish now was that I thought if I let her go, this gay version of me would go along with it.
It took me a while to recognize that I could and would still be gay without this person. That what I was really crying about was the loss of something I could not actually lose: myself.
I didn’t need a girlfriend to be gay, and I also didn’t have to change. In short, I was still just me… with a new sexual identity.
A year later and I’m happy to report that I’m still here. I’m still gay. Same hair; new day.
Terri (right) with her sisters.
Happy Pride Month!
Terri Trespicio is the author of Unfollow Your Passion: How to Create a Life that Matters to You. Her TEDx talk, Stop Searching for Your Passion, has been viewed more than eight million times. She is also the founder of The New Rules Studio, a live, real-time writing workshop for getting work done. She earned her MFA in creative writing from Emerson College and lives in Manhattan.
P.S. “What nine movies and shows with gay characters meant to me,” and the “little gay house” in Portland, Oregon.
(Illustration by Julia Rothman for Cup of Jo.)
Comments
92 commentsI’m 38 and came out as bi to my husband and some friends earlier this year. Coming out 16 years into a straight, monogamous relationship is a hell of a thing to do. Thank you for sharing your story.
This was wonderful. Thanks for sharing. Happy Pride!
Thank you so much for sharing this beautiful story, Terri! I related to it so much — the questioning after falling hard for a close friend (am I just gay for HER?) to realizing that almost all of my previous relationships (with men) felt strangely flat once I’d secured that ever-elusive commitment, to then mentally scrolling back through a series of memories from my late teens and twenties and thirties and realizing, Wait — I had that crush … and that crush … and THAT crush. So many crushes and attractions that I’d stuffed down or dismissed because they scared the crap out of me. My first and only (so far) sapphic relationship is over now and I’ve been gutted in a way I never knew possible (and that’s including my divorce from my husband of 15+ years). Now I’m facing being single at midlife and wondering whether I’m queer enough to go to girl bars and identify as queer/bi on dating apps, etc. Your essay made me feel a little bit braver to do just that — like maybe whatever amount or brand of queer I am is just queer enough. Thank you <3
„…maybe whatever amount or brand of queer I am is just queer enough.“ Thank you, K.T. Yes. Yes it is.
Love, love, love this piece! Perfectly said how we can’t really lose ourselves.. despite how it feels.
I’ve always loved your writing, Terri. I wish you decades of love and happiness. It was fun meeting you all those years ago. Maybe I’ll run into you one day snacks. Stay well.
Terri, I would love to read anything you’ve ever written including to-do lists and post-it notes.
I met a woman yesterday who shaved her head. Before she had hair like mine before. Thick, long, coarse, frizzy, wavy, unruly. She got fed up one day and never looked back. She was telling me as we were walking and it started to drizzle. I was reaching for my rain jacket and she understood why. She told me she was thankful for her short hair because there was a time when the rain would send her in a panic. Immediately she would be doing mental math to figure out when she had to wake up to wash and style her hair. Though I will probably never cut my hair so short, I understood her relief and I was genuinely happy for her newfound peace. This is not a coming out story. I have no idea who this woman likes to date and it did not occur to me to ask. We were just two women chatting about hair. Happy Pride!!!!
Happy Pride! You’re a wonderful writer, Teri. Thanks for sharing!
About the drawing: Please, people, if your stylist ever holds the scissors on their middle finger (should be on the ring finger), or is going to dry-cut a huge section of hair below their fingers, rather than above them, unnecessarily dropping hairs all over your face, or if you feel yourself looking up at what the stylist is doing with the kind of skepticism in that client’s eyes, just say, “Stop! I’m so sorry, but I have diarrhea, and I need to leave immediately.” And then do it. Find someone who knows what they’re doing. (This is not meant to in any way disparage the cut in the photo! Just the drawing.)
Thank you for the warning and the social script. I had a really bad haircut from a stylist friend and this could’ve saved me.
This was beautifully written. Thank you.
I came out in my 40s, too, Terri. It wasn’t just a confirmation of whom I wanted to love, but rather, a deep acknowledgment of who I am. (And the beautiful community I’m now free to create! :-)) So happy you’re a part of it, dear friend!!
OMG Michelle! Thank you! Really! I didn’t know you were a late bloomer too! Thank you for reading!.
That’s a beautiful story, I’m happy for you that you’ve found part of yourself. Why is “Gwyneth Paltrow with a pixie cut” taking me to Amazon and asking me to log in?
I linked to sliding doors, where you can see her haircut moving :)
So good! Happy Pride! 🏳️🌈
Happy pride!
Love the emotional complexity and beautiful prose – and also the haircut!
I love this Terri and feel very seen! I came out as gay after being married to a man at age 40. I think when first coming out I too felt I needed to be in a relationship to validate my queerness to others. That first relationship with a woman sure was affirming and heart expanding, like a lightbulb going off! When it ended a year and a half ago and it was a really difficult heartbreak but since then I have gotten to know myself in such a deeper way and honestly feel even gayer now as a single person😂 People always talk about “coming out” but understanding my queerness felt like coming home to myself and its been lovely to see all the facets of that and now 5 years later feel a solidness in myself. Happy pride! Wishing everyone the safety to be seen and loved for who they are, what magic ❤️🏳️🌈 🏳️⚧️❤️
OMG first gay heartbreak THE WORST THING EVERRRRR. yes, it is a coming home for sure! Congrats!
Happy pride! Thank you for sharing your story with us! x
Fantastic piece!!! “Yeah, that’s not what that means.” – I laughed out loud. And the painful break up, I KNOW that pain and it is awful. Really enjoyed this read, merci.
I love this so much! Thank you ❤️
Welcome!!! Happy pride!
Wow this was really lovely, thank you and Happy Pride everyone.
Ahhh! I love this piece so much. I cannot come close to articulating how it feels to have your world split open by this kind of sexual experience and coming to terms with your identity, but you captured it perfectly. I know so many other commitment phobes who I strongly suspect are also suppressing something similar. The wild shift from not needing and therefore not wanting a partner to being so open to it that you make yourself vulnerable for the first time and then get destroyed by a breakup is so relatable.
OMG right? Yes. I mean, trust, I still love my independence, but the fact that that breakup destroyed me so fully was a big sign, and a good one.
I love how universal it is not to understand one’s own feelings and emotions. We all seem to spend our lives trying to figure out what we are really feeling. Part of being human, I guess; regardless of age, gender, race, religion, or orientation. Happy humanity!
That made my heart flutter, Libbynan. Thanks 💗
Such an excellent point, the search for understanding rolls on and on. Cheers to that. Happy humanity!
Bravo!
Lovely sentiment and beautifully written. So good that I read it twice. Thanks for sharing, Terri!
This is one of those days when someone you once knew as “student” shows up on one of your favorite venues as “expert badass writer” — speaking truth. It is like a whole new holiday. Hooray!
Happy Holiday! That is really just so cool!!
OMG Dawn from Emerson?! Helloooo! yes–you were and are such a badass to me! Such a wonderful mentor. Happy to do you proud. Happy pride!
I came out as gay in my thirties, dated women, and then fell in love with a man who I now plan to marry. I don’t know what I am but I really liked reading this and related to a lot of it even though I don’t feel very gay at all and certainly look very, very straight (I’m coupled with a man, after all). Anyways, thanks for sharing this!
You’re you, Jo. And I love that for you.
Isn’t that what bisexuality is? I just read an interesting article about it.
You are you! And you seem great. I personally do not need to put a label on it. Bi or pan or gay or whatever. I‘m happily married to a man. Never dated a woman. I‘ve always liked women but really just understood this later in life. I also like non-binary people. Guess I just find all kinds of humans sexy. But I love my husband and our relationship so I don’t worry about it. I‘m aware that this might be easier as I‘m living with straight privilege.
sounds like what you are is happy, and that is the best way to be.
Katha, could have written this exact comment! xo
YES! Humans are sexy. well put. And yes, doesn’t matter who you are or how you refer to it–at all. The only reason I have embraced gay is because it felt good to ME, not because, say, I passed the blood test LOL. Happy pride!
Wonderful essay! Love the haircut and the TED talk too.
Beautiful and moving…
Thank you to COJ for making me feel safe here- really adore all of the queer content, particularly this article <3
Same same same
This is a fantastic story and INCREDIBLE writing! Thank you!! Happy Pride!!
You made my day!
Hard-earned self-awareness + magnificent writing = phreeow, happy Pride, I love this so much!
What a wonderful piece – thank you for sharing!
Beautifully written. Happy pride everybody!!!!!
Wow, this writing is just phenomenal. 🏳️🌈
My husband has said for years that for the entire human species, sexuality and gender is on a spectrum. It took me awhile to understand what he meant, especially before lgbtq+ was fully discussed in the mainstream. This lovely essay is a beautiful and personable explanation.
I could not agree more. About the spectrum of humans and the beauty of this narrative. Thank you for sharing your story.
I’m glad you saw your way out of a manipulative situation, but I’m sorry you had to go through it. Happy pride, and honestly you looked cute as hell with that haircut!
I agree!! It really works!
This post is everything that I love so much about CoJ posts and the community–endearing, soulful, insightful, relatable, chortle-inducing. A perfect piece–thank you Terri. Happy Pride!!
Oh how this made me smile. I believed for years I was ~emotionally evolved~ because I never felt jealousy, and breakups always felt like moments of growth rather than reasons to cry. Then I began dating women in my 30s. A waiter flirted with my first girlfriend and I thought my chest might explode. I remember thinking “this is what all those poems are about!” Then that sweet relationship ended and I realized, “oh, wait, no…THIS is what all those poems are about.” Strangely beautiful to learn in your 30s that your capacity for love is greater than you ever understood. Sometimes it feels like those videos of color blind people putting on special glasses that enable them to see the full miraculous spectrum of colors. Except I can’t take the glasses off, so maybe that is an evolution.
“Strangely beautiful to learn in your 30s that your capacity for love is greater than you ever understood.” :,) what a gift
Ooof Lynea, I was not ready to be so seen this afternoon. Relate enormously to the feeling emotionally evolved b/c no jealousy thing… I’ve been on a bit of a precipice recently and you’ve pushed me just a little bit further to the place I know I need to go. Really hard, life-imploding decisions, but I know what I need to do.
What a beautiful piece of writing. Happy for your journey! Happy you ate free to be you. Happy pride month everyone. 🌈
Beautiful essay…”And then I saw her: a woman with a bleached pixie cut, a wing of blue hair over her eyes. She looked less like a woman and more like a nymph, a fairy who’d seduce you in a yellow wood and keep you as her lover in the belly of an old elm for a hundred years.”
Yes!! This part! I could just envision the blue pixie!
Thank you for sharing your story, Terri! A reminder that no matter the external pressure or events around us, we are still just ourselves pixie haircut or not.
Omg your sister is Lori from the Real World!! I loved her!! Also, this was a beautiful piece, thanks for sharing!! Happy Pride Month 🏳️🌈
thank god i was like… where do I know that woman from?
hahaha CORRECT! That’s her!
Wow, I love this story and she is an amazing writer. So vivid. Thanks for sharing. ❤️
I am not gay but this essay made me think of my own hair evolution saga. I am 30 , and until very recently I never thought too much about my hair. I wash it , let it dry and live its best life without my intervention. I have thick , wavy brown hair with too much volume and probably had the same haircut for 25 years. My family members used to tease me about how much hair I have which made me want to spend zero time taking care of my hair. I couldn’t care less . Until I met my now boyfriend who happens to be crazy about my hair. In the early stages of our relationship , he couldn’t believe that this was zero effort . He is always finding silly excuses to touch my hair . I realised that he made me aware of how blessed I am to have good hair genes. I still don”t take much care of it but bought some hair products and a good brush but more importantly I now enjoy having beautiful hair . It took me 30 years to start loving this part of my body . Grateful and humbled .
Aww, thanks for resurfacing the link to my little gay house! Such beautiful memories. I so deeply relate to this article and the journey of coming out late in life, and how who your partnered with is only a part of that journey. The partner I was with at the time of the article was not the right person for me, and we broke up soon after it was published. (In the classic queer community way, we’re not only good friends, she also works for my wife!) Now, I’m happily married to my beautiful wife, after a magical, DIY, Alice in Wonderland themed, incredibly queer wedding that was deeply personal and family focused. Would love to share about our wedding if anyone is interested in a hit of queer joy right now.
YES PLEASE!!
That’s awesome! I read your first story ages ago and I’m really happy for you. An Alice in Wonderland wedding sounds amazing—I’d love to see it. I could really use some queer joy right now.
Yes, please!
YESSSSSSSS
Yes please! Let’s amplify queer joy any chance we get!
Yes to queer joy please! Kat, I loved reading your story all those years ago, I was really in the thick of it then and thought I was the only one to figure out I was gay later in life, after kids/husband etc. Your story was a real light on my way ❤️ Thank you
Yes!!! I am so glad it worked out well for you. ✨
Another +1 for queer joy!
Yes please!!!!
This is so beautifully written! I’m working on writing a personal narrative essay and the craft here is just *chef’s kiss*. Thank you.
So brave and lovely. I can relate to some parts so deeply – being afraid of what you might lose (including yourself) in a relationship, and the ways some moments/people/revelations can change everything. xo
I like the use of a great illustration instead of a photo. Well done!
This made me literally laugh out loud – so relatable: SOS, I messaged my friends: “She’s coming over in an hour and we’re not having dinner. All caps. THERE IS NO DINNER.” <3 this examination of self / process / journey – thank you for sharing!
Love the friends responses too.
I first read this as “How combing out is and isn’t like a haircut” and was like what is “combing out” is this a new hair trend I know nothing about? Instead, I need to get my eyes examined and read this beautiful, thoughtful, delightful essay. Happy Pride everyone!!
This is so beautifully written. I cried.
Happy Pride. Interested to view this Ted Talk.
Happy Pride, COJ community!
happy pride!!
Related to so many parts of this piece, thank you and happy Pride :)
A brave and beautiful column today. Thank you.