- When I visited my son in college for the first time, his voice sounded different — higher.
- I realized my son had been lowering his voice to fit in with the conservative South.
My son, Caleb, was thrilled when he was accepted into the musical-theater program at the University of Michigan in April 2020, but I wasn't sure it was the right place for him. Both the out-of-state tuition and the long winters seemed less than ideal for a boy who'd spent his whole life in Georgia.
He was adamant, though, that attending one of the top programs in the country would be life-changing. I'd never been to Ann Arbor, but once he committed, I was a mom on a mission to find winter gear that would keep him warm and safe. I bought him a huge insulated down parka and prayed he wouldn't freeze to death.
I tried to anticipate the challenges Caleb would face as he started college, but I wasn't expecting him to change.
I noticed a surprising change in Caleb when I first visited him at college
The first time I visited my son in Michigan, two months after he started classes, I offered to take some of his friends out for dinner. He'd recently been paired with a senior buddy named Jack to help guide him during his freshman year. Caleb texted Jack, and we met for dinner downtown at a local pub. It was cold, windy, and dark outside.
As we waited for our drinks, I asked Jack about himself, though I'd already mildly stalked him on Instagram. He was a smart and generous young man who knew a lot about the industry and the program. He was also more out than most gay men we knew in the South.
As they were discussing a new instructor in the music department, Caleb said, "She seems really lovely." I turned and stared at him. I didn't think I'd ever heard Caleb use the word "lovely." He said it so softly and without self-consciousness — I wasn't sure I'd heard him correctly.
Why did his voice sound weird? It wasn't his accent; I could still hear Georgia. I realized his voice sounded slightly higher than I remembered, but why would his voice change in college?
What I was hearing was my son's real voice
He'd been lowering his voice throughout high school, booming from the stage as John Proctor and with his friends as they debated college football.
Caleb came out when he was a sophomore in high school. I doubt he ever consciously thought, "If I lower my voice, I'll be less obviously gay. I'll be safer that way." But a deeper voice helped him blend in, kept him safe, and made it possible for him to pass as straight when necessary. A deeper voice gave him some cover.
I did my best to anticipate what he might need by enrolling him in a high school with a good fine-arts program, but it was still in the middle of cotton fields in rural Georgia.
Now that Caleb wasn't the only boy in dance classes or the only gay kid at church, the bass in his voice had faded. He'd shed it like a winter coat in spring. There was a new lightness to him.
It wasn't that Caleb's voice had suddenly changed — it was that I was hearing his real, unguarded voice for the first time. His "let's talk about Broadway shows all day long" voice. His "this is me" voice. His "I'm safe now" voice. His "I got out of the South" voice. His "I'm not going back there" voice.
I hadn't realized the ways he'd been shape-shifting to fit in where we lived.
Caleb found his people quickly in college
I was so happy for Caleb that he'd found his people. But they weren't us, his little family back in Georgia. His place wasn't where we lived.
There's so much to love about the South: the fireflies and the peaches and the brilliant night sky; the daily rhythm of family, festivals, and small-town living; the wide-open spaces and accents that sound like honey. None of that matters, though, if it isn't safe for you to be your full self at home.
Over the next few years at college, Caleb's confidence grew. His clothes got tighter, and his shorts got shorter. He participated in Pride parades and dated cute guys. His voice was the change that started it all.
I'm haunted still that I didn't hear my son's true voice until he left home.