A gay cop has talked about the time he was outed and what happened afterward. It’s one of the latest video stories to be posted to I’m From Driftwood, the unique, online archive of LGBTI voices and experiences.
Mike Crumrine is from San Antonio, Texas. In the mid-90s, Texas still enforced its “homosexual conduct law”, outlawing gay sex. Gay people could, and were, dismissed from their jobs if their employer found out about their sexuality.
Crumrine was in the closet. He had married a woman and they had a daughter together. However, he and his wife had split up, had filed for divorce and, in 1995, were engaged in a legal custody battle over the little girl.
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He says his ex-wife and her new, then-husband decided to tell a local media outlet about Crumrine being gay, and it had subsequently run a story about the gay cop fighting for custody of his daughter. Although his close family already knew about his sexuality, he was outed to everyone else.
Crumrine didn’t know how he was going to face the world or how others would react. However, it was a colleague that showed him things wouldn’t be as bad as he may have imagined.
A fellow San Antonio police officer who Crumrine admired and ran calls with sent him a message saying he wanted to meet up for a coffee.
“And I’m thinking, Aw, heck. What is this going to be about?” recalled Crumrine. “Because I’d sat for days and weeks and months with this particular officer who was very right-wing, former military, talked about how women shouldn’t be in the military … And he was anti-gay and certainly very, very right-wing.
“I dreaded going and meeting him because I’d already had so much happen to me, the last thing I wanted was to get kicked one more time.
“So we met local coffee shop. I got out of the car. He’d already been waiting on me and I was about to walk in and he says, ‘Hang on a minute.’ I’m like, ‘Here, it’s going to come.’
“He, all of a sudden, looked at me square in the eye and he said, ‘Mike, I was wrong.’ And I was taken aback.
“And I’m like, ‘What… what do you mean?’
“And he goes, ‘My whole life, in my whole upbringing, I had never thought that people who are gay should ever serve in law enforcement, should serve in the military.’
“And he says, ‘Because I got to know you, because I know who you are – the calls we’ve gone on, the things we’ve done, that changed my perspective. So when all this stuff came out, I knew I had to see you and I knew I had to tell you thanks to you, I’ve changed my perspective. Because I can see value in gay individuals being in law enforcement.”
“He said, ‘Mike, I want you to know I will forever be proud to walk through a door with you.’ That meant so much because prior to this, I had thought my sexuality was a detriment. His words were so empowering to me.”
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The encounter was a turning point for Crumrine and he hasn’t looked back since. He subsequently relocated to Austin, Texas, where he says he feels open to be himself. He’s been with his husband for the past 18 years, and he subsequently got custody of his daughter.
“Now I’m the president of the Lesbian Gay Peace Officers Association, which is the first and only Lesbian Gay Peace Officers Association in the state of Texas. We’ve been around for 10 years. I don’t walk around with my sexuality in my sleeve, but I damn sure don’t hide it anymore.”
Hear Crumrine’s story below.
Cam
Got custody of his daughter. In other words, the mother was such a piece of work that even in Texas a court awarded the child to a gay father. Karma for her behavior.
Cato
What a heartwarming story. My cop experience happened when I was walking across Washington State in 1991 to celebrate the opening of the LGBT youth center in Seattle, A small group of us were slogging past wheat fields as they were being harvested. It was hot and dusty and we’d been getting some threats from a radio show that was making a fuss about the “homosexual invasion”.
A county sheriff’s car pulled up as we were leaving the tiny village of Wilson’s Creek (population 200). A young sheriff got out and began talking to us. We were a bit uncertain at first, but then he completely floored us by saying, “You know, gay people and cops have a lot in common.”
“What do you mean?”, we asked.
He replied, “People hold us to a higher standard than they would ever live up to themselves. And it’s just not fair.” It’s been nearly 30 years and it’s still my most vivid memory of that 250 mile walk from Spokane to Seattle.
Jenniferp412
Great story. To bad Austin is now a shit-hole city destroyed by stupid California people that moved there and changed it. You can no longer go to parks or walk around downtown Austin without the fear of stepping on needles from homeless drug users.
pharaon.em.joe
Jennifer, aren’t you the perfect human?
Kangol2
@Jenniferp412, you are such a tale-teller. I was just in Austin a few months ago, and did a LOT of walking around. A lot. Austin is booming (gentrifying really, including the formerly working-class neighborhoods on the other side the freeway), and I saw no needles on the ground.
Scooters? Yes. (I almost got run over by someone on one.) The big homeless encampment downtown? Yes. New restaurants? Yes. All kinds of new construction? Yes. But needles? Nope.
Turn of FoxNews, stop mainlining on Breitbart, and actually open your eyes when you walk around.
Den
Ah, “jennifer”, the blowhard who does not seem to know much about anything beyond what “her” imagination tells her.
The actual facts about homelessness are that the majority of homeless in urban settings became homeless there.
And I’ll explain that because you are not too smart: They live in a city…they lose their job there, or fall on hard times for whatever reason, and stay there with no place to live.
Why does a hetero-regressive like you even come tho this site? It is for gay men, which you clearly are not. Just some dullard with a chip on its shoulder so big it has crippled them.
fur_hunter
This is a terrific story. It made me smile. Stories like this need to be spread out. I will say. The morons in the religious fundamentalist groups will NEVER change. They don’t know the real facts and they will continue to refuse to know them. They continue to listen to ass holes like Franklin Graham, Robert Jeffress, Tony Perkins, Jerry Falwell, Jr. and Pat Robertson, thinking they speak for God. IMBECILES. It is sad.
radiooutmike
Yeh, did you all catch to the “new them-husband” quote?
A real beaut she must have been. It’s always a classy thing to do when you throw your ex’s sexuality in their face.
sillyme
I’m not sure I would call that a “beauty” but I got engaged once and almost made that mistake myself not going there again if I can help it almost married an massive alkie. Don’t ever do that it will kill your life faster than anything that way same can happen if you want to marry a religious freak. This man has my vote for he really did deserve better treatment from his ex twat wife.
Kangol2
This is a positive story. I’m glad he’s in a place where he feels even more comfortable. There are many politicians in Texas, though, who are actively working to strip away his rights and equality under the law.
petej
wow!