In the early days of the LGBTQ+ rights movement, activists realized the importance of coming out. In the days before the Stonewall Rebellion, being identified as having a minority sexual orientation, or being gender-nonconforming, often resulted in being cut off from family and religious community, losing one’s job, facing the threat of violence, and living the rest of one’s life in shame.
The problem is that pernicious myths prevailed about LGBTQ+ people in the general population, and there was no evidence to disprove these myths, because nobody personally knew anyone who was LGBTQ+. Of course, LGBTQ+ people are everywhere, but they are invisible unless they come out. If straight people could recognize the LGBTQ+ people they already know and like, they would support their right to live in the community. That was the theory.
It took decades and a plague, but the goal of equal rights for LGBTQ+ people is slowly becoming reality, and coming out has been the key element. We have marriage rights, and this year’s SCOTUS decision (Bostock v. Clayton) gives us protection against employment discrimination. With the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to Scotus, there is danger of backsliding, but we have these rights for now.
In the more relaxed environment of the present, coming out is not as fraught as it used to be. I remember the panic I endured when I began to come out 25 years ago. (I wrote about my experience 2 years ago.) Being an advisor to my university’s LGBTQ+ student group, I hear the trials and travails of the group members in their own comings out. Sometimes there are conflicts with parents, particularly those who grew up in conservative religions, but more often than not, their families take it all in stride. While there are still multitudes of haters out there, the severe trauma of facing universal condemnation for minority sexual orientation or gender identity is mostly a thing of the past, at least in the U. S.
National Coming Out Day has become so mainstream that even the NFL has released a PSA celebrating NCOD:
This would have been unthinkable even 10 years ago.
So, happy National Coming Out Day, everyone! May it someday become completely superfluous.
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Top Comments (October 11, 2020):
From Denise Oliver Velez:
From userexists:
An outstanding simile from justMike, from Chitown Kev’s APR this morning.
From Holgar:
This comment from Gareth takes the pumpkin pie today. From KM Wehrstein’s recommended post on Trump’s IV treatments.
From dragonwerx:
The discussion in KM Wehrstein’s post wandered over to all things pumpkin, and Sotto Voce posted a photo that just can't be beat. I hope a photo can make it into TC.
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Thanks to jotter!