National Coming Out Day

[Dance-with-me]

The relevance is only relativ, even in the U.S. - to give some perspective, my rural college just had its first ever meeting of a gay-straight alliance less Han a month ago.

[easygoingfemme]

My best ever was ... 16 years ago? I was hanging out with Leslie Feinberg. It'll never get better than that, but I do still enjoy the day.

Actually it was the night before National Coming Out day that I was with Leslie but still, I count it. It was a pre-party event.

[Abigail Crabby]

Candles
For all our brothers and sisters who live in fear of death for coming out.
We in this nation fought hard for this freedom - I pray everyone everywhere can come out of the closet one day and into the sunshine.

[stepfordfemme]

I will explain to you why days like this matter to me in the form of a story from my life.

I grew up in a very very very small town. Rural. Religious. Where everyone knew your business, your parents and has watched you grow up.

I met R in high school. R was one of those guys that drove me insane with rage from day one. He was a religious zealot, rude, and a bit of a chauvinist. He would spew off at the mouth with reasons for women to stay at home in the kitchen and why gays were evil. We were like fire and gasoline for arguments. I was feminist queer girl and I had a temper to back it up.

Mind you, R was also effeminate, loved Elton John, and a whole slew of gay stereotypes.

We had one of the weirdest friendships. Mainly formed from being outcasts and a shared off class in our high school schedules. One day R frustrated me so much I said “R, I know what your problem is, you’re so f*cking far in the closet, you can’t even see it.” And he just looked at me, and he got up and walked away with tears in his eyes.

R became one of the most flamboyant gay men that I have ever met. R was Elton John the next Halloween at school. We all knew, but it was never talked about. R and I became closer than ever. Like an odd couple.

R’s family kicked him out later that year (I never knew the exact details). We would have been around 16/17. He moved along between homelessness,living with older men, working three jobs to live in a dive apartment. His family were religious fanatics (they were JW/Baptists or something similar, I can’t remember). They cut off all ties to R. He was shunned completely.

Within a few months of our high school graduation a friend sent me an email saying that she had bad news. R had committed suicide. He couldn’t leave the small town. He couldn’t get away. Coming out/being gay/dealing with all of the repercussions made him feel like he had to take his life.

Not all of us have the privilege to be out and proud in all areas of our lives. Not all of us care to. Not all of us will ever be able to life our authentic lives. The closets still exist. My prayer today is that young people stay strong. Get out of the small towns if you need to. Find others. Be a friend.

I support the “It gets Better” project. I think one thing that we need to do is be there for people when they do come out. Whether they are 14 or 41. Let them all know that there is a happy, fulfilling life out there for them. It just takes being brave.

So today I miss him. I will listen to some Elton in his memory. Maybe you will too.

Rich, I hope there’s a bit more sparkle in heaven because of you.

[Stud_puppy1991]

Well, I know that the group I mentor is having a brunch and we are going to watch videos of other youth and their journey, as well as teach them some of the movements that took place. Then, I myself am thinking of doing a couple of video blogs.

[Little Fish]

I came out in the Fall of 1981--31 years ago now.

I came out to my two best friends at the time--Chris and Patty. I remember sitting with them at a table in our high school library before school started. I didn't plan it--or even really think about it actually. (I had known for years, finally understanding why I felt "different" from about age 4 or so-)

I said simply, "Hey. I wanna tell you guys something--I'm gay." ------
p a u s e...
Chris: "okay" * smiles*
Patty "yeah, okay.....umm, did you do your Social Studies homework?? I need to copy yours..."

And that was it. There was no surprise when I brought a (stunningly handsome) gay boy from my acting class to the Junior Prom--or a year later to the Senior Prom. (and wore a tux with him too lol-)

I came out in the SF Bay Area. Comparatively speaking, it was easy. (I'm thinking of stepfordfemme's post above and the many painful stories we still hear.) But it was still hard enough for 1981.

When I read here that it was National Coming Out Day (thanks alexri)--I thought about Chris and Patty; they remain among my closest friends and I speak with them regularly. I just joint emailed them, thanking them for being so easy and thus paving the way and calibrating my expectations of coming out, for the rest of my life.

[aishah]

we aren't doing anything special here that i know of. our youth group meetings have been kinda sporadic since school started back up.

for me i find that i don't feel as strongly (or in the same way) about coming out as a lot of people i've talked to because of cultural differences. i did a lot of safe space panels in college and i always felt out of place because i didn't have the quintessential "really great" or "really awful" coming out experience and nothing has ever tied up neatly in my life. i had a really mediocre and painful and unresolved coming out experience. and i found that being from a rural, poor, mixed-race background, honestly - being queer was not always the biggest struggle or priority for me. i know a lot of people for whom it is, especially folks who are also from the rural south, specifically because of the isolation, etc. but that wasn't my experience.

i do think it can be really helpful to talk about coming out (not just about being queer, but about all kinds of struggles and identities) because i don't think anyone should ever feel isolated or alone or like they are the only one. i do think people should know that it can get better and you can have community and you can be accepted for who you are. but i also think that that needs to be wedded to a better sensitivity to cultural differences and needs that people have around coming out/not coming out/not prioritizing coming out. and it needs to be wedded to a deeper sense of commitment to (practically and materially) supporting people who face violence, homelessness, etc. for coming out.

so...i like national coming out day. i think it can be good to tell our stories and some of the complex feelings i (and others i know) have about national coming out day can be a good starting off point for deeper discussions about the multiplicity of experiences we have or the changes we want to create.

[Dance-with-me]

I first said out loud that I was interested in women in the spring of '78 - to my best friend who had just told me that he was bisexual, who became my lover within that month and who I married later that year because despite what I knew about myself, I still could not fathom not following the path that was laid out for me - I come from a culture where 16 year old girls get cedar chests from their Granny and household gifts from their other kin, to put the pressure to marry into perspective.

I came out as a lesbian in the fall of 1980. I have been blessed since then with the economic and personal privilege that has made it possible to be mostly out since then at work, in my neighborhoods, within my extended family, and in my personal life.

However, I acknowledge that there are different levels of being out. I really struggled on many levels when I have dated transmen or TG male-ID'd butches. If I referred to them as males in conversation, and allowed others to presume I was straight, I felt as if I were hiding behind that assumption of heterosexuality, and yet it was rarely appropriate to clarify. If I referred to them by pronouns that reflected their biology instead of who they really were, I was sacrificing their identity so that I could be more easily out.

I also am not widely out with regard to my primary identify as a queer femme, and instead allow the default assumption to be that I identify as a lesbian. Even lesbian is hard enough to explain at time - and queer femme is a struggle to explain even within the LGBT community and our allies (which is why this community feels so much like "home" to me - you get me, you really really get me! ).

Originally Posted by Dance-with-me

The relevance is only relativ, even in the U.S. - to give some perspective, my rural college just had its first ever meeting of a gay-straight alliance less Han a month ago.

I don't understand.

"...relative, even in the U.S.."?

Sorry if I'm being dense.

[Dance-with-me]

Originally Posted by Daktari

I don't understand.

"...relative, even in the U.S.."?

Sorry if I'm being dense.

Sorry - was posting in haste.

Some folks questioned if Coming Out day was even still relevant.

It may seem irrelevant in larger cities where it appears that coming out is no big deal, but in some areas of the US (as in, not just highly discriminatory countries overseas) it's still a really big deal to come out and to publicly identify yourself as part of the LGBT community. As one of the faculty advisors for the GSA (and the first openly gay employee on this campus) it broke my heart to have to discuss - in 2012, 35 years after I first walked into the women's center on my college campus and picked up a Lesbians United newsletter - things like choosing meeting spaces where outsiders couldn't see who was in the room, what photography policy was needed, and the issues we're having with our fliers disappearing from or being defaced or turned around on the bulletin boards around campus.

Not only that, but even in cities with a large queer population, it's still very relevant for those who come from cultures and communities where being gay is decidedly not ok. Kids are still kicked out of their homes, and people of all ages are still disowned by their families, ostracized from their communities, made unwelcome in their houses of worship, bullied at work or school, harassed in their homes, and fired from their jobs. Until those things diminish, Coming Out Day will continue to be highly relevant.