Coming Out

As of this afternoon, I am officially out to one person in Morocco. It’s quite a relief, really. I’d been thinking that I would burst, keeping the weight of it inside. There were days when I wanted to run down the streets, screaming “I’m a lesbian!” to the disapproving world. I realized, of course, that that would be a bad idea. But that didn’t stop me from thinking about it.

This afternoon, I had lunch with a friend at Café des Épices, overlooking the spice souks of Marrakech, near djema al fna square. We sat there and chatted for hours, about any number of things. She’d told me in the past of her ill-fated relationship with a Moroccan man. I told her about my long-distance relationship with my girlfriend of two years. She, being an American and an anthropologist and a generally cool person, was fine with it, as I knew she would be. And it’s such a relief to come out.

I realized, after my recent visit to the States, just how tense I’d been over here. And I’ve decided to be more relaxed about a lot of things. I'm not necessarily planning to come out at work or to wear rainbows and pink triangles everywhere. But it's nice to know that there's at least one person in this country that I can talk to without worrying about always keeping gender-neutral language when I talk about the person I love.