Today is October 11, 2014. It's National Coming Out Day. Happy day to everyone. There's been quite a lot of good advancement in the cause of equality this past week, and one of the most important things that has helped us get here is that we came out. We dared to tell people that we exist. As we refused to hide ourselves, people have gotten to know us. They see how we're just folk who want to live our lives and try to find some measure of happiness. Fewer people are scared of us. Fewer people hate us. And it took our having courage to identify ourselves.
I've actually seen some ask if coming out is still necessary. Duh, of course it is. One, the cause of equality is not over. Two, even if full legal equality had been achieved, we would still have to come out, if for nothing else than we're a less-obvious minority. That it can be possible that we can hide this aspect about ourselves will always necessitate that we come out in some form or another. In our society, being straight is the default, so if we're not straight, we dispel that assumption by coming out. Now, hopefully in the future coming out will be a far less scary, stressful process, but we'll still have to come out. But also, coming out is not a one-time event. Every time you meet someone new, we face that question again: do I tell them or not? The ultimate challenge is allowing ourselves to live as open around others, in public, around strangers, as we would if we were around people whom we know won't reject us or attack us. So, we constantly evaluate new people, and thus we come out again and again.
Today, we celebrate coming out. We celebrate being who we are and being unashamed of it. We celebrate courage and strength and openness.
So, how did I come out? Back when I was 19 (I'm 35 now), I had a girlfriend, whom I loved deeply. We were together for a total of 2.5 years. About 1.5 years into our relationship, I told her that I thought I might be gay, but in the same breath I said it, I then swore that I knew that I wasn't. I was raised in a conservative sect of Christianity. I grew up hearing being gay equated with being a murderer and a rapist. I also had heard it said that all gay people had to do was pray to Jesus and he'd make them straight. So, for the next year after that, I prayed every single day to be straight. Of course it didn't work. I started to think that I was so evil that God wouldn't help me. One day I was visiting my girlfriend, and she could tell my mind was elsewhere. She asked me what was wrong, but I said nothing was. Later that night when I had gotten home after visiting her, we were talking on the phone, and she pushed the issue. She again asked me what was wrong. I had previously sworn to myself that if I ever did come out to her, that I would do it in person and not on the phone; I thought I owed her that much at least. But there I was on the phone, and all I could say was, "I can't tell you." Eventually, she says, "I think I know what it is." And I ask, "What?" And she says, "It's what you told me a year ago, isn't it?" And I broke down; I was crying all over the place, and I said, "Yeah." It was in the resulting conversation that she told me that she believed if I was gay that God made me that way. Until that moment, I didn't even know that there were Christians who didn't think homosexuality was a sin. Her acceptance caused me to reevaluate everything I thought and believed. I had been at the point of suicide, so I truly would never have made it if I hadn't had someone as loving and accepting in my life as she.
That was the first time I came out. Every time I choose to tell someone else, I come out again. And it's still difficult. Recently, I had to write a short essay reacting to reading a piece about audism for my American Sign Language class; I had to make a choice: do I just write generically, or do I write with greater understanding since I personally know what being discriminated against feels like. I chose to come out to my professor in that essay. Another example, while on my own, I might like to have a picture of a good looking guy as my laptop's background image, but if I'm going to be in a public place using my computer, I'll often change the image to something else. Sixteen years later, and I'm still coming out; I'll most likely still be coming out sixteen years from now, but maybe by then it'll be a far more casual occurrence.
So, on this National Coming Out Day, how did you first come out? How did you most recently come out again? Have you never come out to anyone and want to use the anonymity of this forum to do so today? If you're straight, has anyone special to you ever come out to you? Feel free to share your stories today, and celebrate openness.
And just for fun, this is my current desktop image on my computer. Those jeans fit him very well.