Dec 18th, 2006
The Well-Known Secret
From an interview in Salon with second gen queerspawn Alison Bechdel:
Salon: Have any more notable facts or documents about your father’s life come to light since you finished the book [Fun Home]?
Bechdel: No, but I’ve heard from a bunch of people who knew my dad — students, friends, family members — that they either knew or suspected his homosexuality as well as his suicide. That surprised me. I thought I was revealing these big secrets.
Alison is not alone in this experience. I hear from many adult children who spent years weighing the ethics of coming out about their closeted (or semi-closeted) parent, and finally find the courage to speak their truth, only to discover that most everyone around them “already knew.”
There is a sadness to this realization of so many people participating in the suppression of truth — it’s a retroactive re-framing of the childhood isolation. It is one thing to grow up feeling like you are on your own in the silence and secrets because the people around you are clueless about you family situation. It’s quite another thing to learn after-the-fact that your aunt, or neighbor, or teacher, or fill-in-the-blank knew all along, but chose the comfortable option of “not getting involved” over being your ally.
The complexity of losing a not-exactly-out loved one to suicide is huge, too. When my partner died in 2000, he was on his way out of the closet, in tiny steps, in his mid-40s. So, the year we were together was mostly invisible to his family and friends, and yet open to mine, and it wasn’t my place to set his secrets free after he died.
Depression, secrets, orientation, religion, family dynamics, suicide… just too many layers to count!