But the surprises keep coming.

Time magazine, in its schizophrenic--half scientific, half manic paranoid--cover story on gay life in America (September 8, 1975), referred to coming out as a "rite of passage." So it seemed to me--until I began to come out.

I now realize that coming out is a continuing process. Even though I am fairly openly gay, almost every person who meets me, perhaps for the rest of my life, will assume until told otherwise that I am straight--and will impose his or her straight expectations upon me. For the rest of my life, I will be surprising people--shocking some people, dismaying some people--for the simple fact of who I am.

I also realize that coming out is a state of mind--a toughness and a wariness: a readiness to risk certain social discomforts in order to alleviate straight ignorance, in order to fight straight bigotry; a readiness to constantly attack the obnoxious "presumption of heterosexuality."

Finally, I realize that coming out is a way of life--a new honesty, a source of strength with which to face coming surprises.

Chuck Fraser '78, a Government major from Lancaster. Pennsylvania, lives in Mather House.