Coming out.

Kyle Ross Contributor

I lived all over western Canada, due to many transfers in foster care, Winnipeg, Brandon, Edmonton, and eventually settling in Opaskwayak Cree Nation with my older brother, when my biological mother received full custody of us.

I was nine years old when my mother received full custody of my older brother and I. The transition of living in Opaskwayak Cree Nation from Edmonton was more than I could handle. My whole way of life changed. I went from being a worry-free foster child in Edmonton to a lost soul in Opaskwayak Cree Nation.

On top of that, the love my mother once showed my brother and I, slowly diminished over a short period of time to the point where my mother was only interested in her love life and raising my older siblings. I’m the youngest out of six. My sisters and brothers were constantly running into problems with the law. One of them is serving life in prison for a first-degree murder that she and her boyfriend committed back in 2004.  

I had to grow up fast. So fast that I didn’t really get to enjoy my adolescent years as a teenager. I always had to be the best in order to survive, be it at work or in school. I do admit, it’s always a major blow to my self-esteem when I don’t achieve the goals I’d set for myself, but it’s always a major uplift when I do.

There’s another word I’ve been trying to do without and that’s “Comparison.” Comparison determines who’s ahead and who’s behind, a winner and a loser if you will. I know that kind of mentality is wrong, that’s why I’m trying to delete that word out of my vocabulary. That is just some of the issues that I was faced with while growing up in O.C.N. and the worst part of it: I was about to go through puberty.

Volleyball practice was over and it was my turn to take down the nets. It took me longer than I expected because I had under estimated the weight of the poles. My teammates laughed at me when they left the gymnasium. Once I was finally done, I headed to the locker room.

As I pushed opened the door, the steam immediately fogged up my glasses. I wiped them with my fingers to find my locker. After I struggled to open my lock, I took my pack sack to the only bench in the locker room and began to change.

As I pulled up my jeans, I felt a presence come up beside me. I turned around and it was my one of my teammates, his naked body was drenched in beads of water. He asked me to hand him his towel. I suddenly got this adrenaline rush, which made me excited and clumsy at the same time. I reached over to the bench and grabbed his towel for him. I stumbled and dropped his towel on the floor. I immediately knelt down in front of him to pick it up, but my eyes zeroed in on a water bead that was running down his leg and I was transfixed on it.

Then, startled out of my reverie, I looked up at him and mumbled “He-here you go.” He raised his eyebrow and paused for a second. I twitched my head to the side as I squinted at him. He smiled, thanked me, and carried on with the business of drying himself off. I continued with what I had been doing too.

After I was done changing, I left.  

On the way home, my head was spinning so fast, so fast I wanted to lay down in the snow and take a minute to absorb everything that had just happened. The best way I could describe it: it was as if I was in a dream and on the Zipper (an amusement park ride) at the same time. I knew what happened in the locker room and what I am now. That Clifford Kyle Ross is a homosexual.

For the next year, I kept to myself, at home and at school. When I was at school, I discreetly observed the other homosexuals - well I never heard them call themselves gay, but everyone just knew - on how they interacted with people, how they addressed themselves, and how the people treated them. After a couple months, I came to the conclusion that I would not announce my sexuality to the world.

I came to this conclusion strictly out of fear, fear of being ridiculed and/or assaulted because I witnessed what the other homosexuals in my school were experiencing on a daily basis. How did I keep my secret contained? I got a job.

I was 14, about to start Grade 9, working at Tim Horton’s, staying at my sister’s house and “living in the closet.”

The first six months of High school proved to be relatively easy for me. For I had a very simple schedule to follow: go to school, go to work, go to bed. I got my mandatory courses I needed for Grade 9 in the first semester and received the option of being enrolled in my Grade 10 courses in the second semester. Being the ambitious guy I am, I accepted.

Second semester proved to be rather challenging for me. Work, School and my secret were too much for me to handle at the time and to make things worse, I didn’t have anybody to talk to. But I persisted. I knew things would get better. It just had to.

It wasn’t until the first time I laid eyes on him in Woodshop class, that I discovered I had a “gaydar.”

It was the beginning of a new school semester in 2001 when I first met “him.” He was the most attractive male classmate I’d ever seen, at that time. He was in Grade 10, 15 years old and an exchange student (from a reserve north of O.C.N.). I was repeating most of my Grade 10 courses, 16 years old and still working at Tim Horton’s. Whenever he was in my presence, I would get the same adrenaline rush as I did when I was alone in the locker room with my teammate.

I later found out that these overwhelming emotions and chiseling do not mix, for I had sliced open my thumbnail one day. It was nothing a band-aid can’t fix.

I eventually came out to my best friends when I was 17 - they didn’t mind because all the symptoms were there, i.e. limp wrist, nasal voice, etc. – and I came out to my mother when I was 19.

My mother didn’t respond as I thought she would. She was very accepting and actually encouraged me to be the most flamboyantly gay I could be. People to this day are still confused about my sexuality because I’m so straight-acting. It’s not intentional. It’s just that I’m comfortable acting like myself opposed to saying “that’s hawt” to everything.

Opaskwayak Cree Nation, in my perspective, is a good place to “come out” in. I say that because everyone I associated with or knew about me was and is all right with it. I never got threatened or assaulted during my the time I was living in O.C.N.

My story of coming out is pretty tame, compared to other stories because there’s usually negatively that others have suffered. I did not. It goes to show, that society in the North is becoming more accepting of homosexuality and I am very grateful for my up bringing.

Kyle Ross