National Coming Out Day : A View From The Closet

October, it seems, is a month of 'special' days. October 11 is designated as National Coming Out Day. As in, coming out of the closet - it's not National Night Out, although that might be an interesting crossover.

LGBTQ people who are keeping their sexualities and/or identities close to the vest, not presenting their core selves to the public, colleagues, friends, families, churches, teachers are said to be in the closet. And when you look at that list of groups, can you blame them? Can you blame them in an environment where you can be fired for being yourself, and when you get fired you lose your health insurance? Can you blame them when you can be evicted for having a lover from the 'disapproved' menu? Who put these people in charge of our lives?

Quite often, being in the closet is all a person can do to survive. 'Discretion is the better part of valor', n'at.

And yet many people find it within them to come out of the closet, to declare themselves, sometimes to declare their loves. These are acts of great courage and I admire them. And each person who comes out, who embraces their true self in the public sphere, makes it better for those still in the closet, maybe wondering if they're the only one, or if they're terribly twisted.

Individuals coming out do a service to the community.

And research shows that when people, voters, the populace realize they know an LGBTQ person then the category is no longer an abstraction; it becomes Aunt Becky or Raplh from Accounting, and this humanization of the abstract category moves the community from being the Other to being Known.

I am not Out of the Closet.