revieloutionne (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
revieloutionne) wrote2011-10-11 10:05 pm
revieloutionne) wrote2011-10-11 10:05 pm
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Take my icon. Replace "sex life" with "coming out."
That is why I have mixed feelings about National Coming Out Day.
Because you don't just come out and it's over. It's never over. You can only come out to the people you have met. Every time you run into new people, the "Is it worth it? Its it safe? Is it okay if they tell the people they know? [ad nauseam]" cycle starts all over again.
Or it's someone you know you will only see the once, and they make a heteronormative assumption, and you have to judge if a stranger's unknown response is worth correcting them.
Or people forget (or, more often, "forget").
So while I acknowledge the value of a day in recognition of the fact that coming out is still a Thing, and a thing that many people want to do and are comfortable doing, and might even, by existing, be the nudge someone who has been hesitant-but-not-afraid needs to just do it...
One day?
It's a pretty big lie.
Because you don't just come out and it's over. It's never over. You can only come out to the people you have met. Every time you run into new people, the "Is it worth it? Its it safe? Is it okay if they tell the people they know? [ad nauseam]" cycle starts all over again.
Or it's someone you know you will only see the once, and they make a heteronormative assumption, and you have to judge if a stranger's unknown response is worth correcting them.
Or people forget (or, more often, "forget").
So while I acknowledge the value of a day in recognition of the fact that coming out is still a Thing, and a thing that many people want to do and are comfortable doing, and might even, by existing, be the nudge someone who has been hesitant-but-not-afraid needs to just do it...
One day?
It's a pretty big lie.
no subject
I mean, sure, I was "out" in college, where no one cared either way, but then I moved back home and being "out" to my parents just was not going to happen, and everyone I get to know requires a decision of "If I tell you this, will you tell my parents? Or someone who might take away my job?"
It wasn't like I did anything specifically to end up "back in the closet", I just moved!