October 11th was Coming Out Day! If you came out for the first time this year or chose to highlight your identity for others to see, congrats and I'm so stoked for you! Coming out is such a personal process, and I feel these days there's a ton of added pressure from social media to have one big coming out "moment" for the entire world.
The History
The tradition itself originated in 1988 during the height of the AIDS crisis, during which President Reagan and the US government largely ignored the catastrophic effects the disease was having on the queer community.
The date October 11th, 1988, was chosen by activists Robert Eichberg and Jean O’Lear to commemorate the 1987 March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights. In 1995, Eichberg himself died of complications from AIDS, and his New York Times obituary contains this quote from a 1993 interview:
““Most people think they don’t know anyone gay or lesbian, and in fact everybody does. It is imperative that we come out and let people know who we are and disabuse them of their fears and stereotypes.””
On that very first Coming Out Day, people received a white envelope in the mail with giant purple lettering: "National Coming Out Day - Take Your Next Step". The envelope contained a bumper sticker, a pamphlet of ideas on how to come out, and a commitment card.
People would sign their name on the card declaring they were LGBTQIA+, send one back to the National Coming Out Day headquarters, and give one to a trusted friend. The NCOD HQ would compile a commemorative journal of everyone who sent in a submission that year.
The hope was to cultivate more compassion towards the queer community during the Reagan era. Tens of thousands of people were dying from AIDS, openly gay people could easily be fired or denied housing, and the U.S. government wasn't doing much of anything about it.
The idea was that if people realized how many people close to them were secretly queer, how many of us were actually around them, the government would approach stereotyping and harmful legislation from a different angle and the AIDS crisis would maybe get the attention it deserved.
Personal Notes
Coming Out Day feels complex to me. On one hand, our visibility is more important than ever with new anti-trans legislation being introduced and passed in the US every day. On the other, coming out is simply too dangerous for many people.
This essay by black queer activist Preston Mitchum does a beautiful job of summarizing the complexities of the coming out process, acknowledging its importance while also creating space for those who are not able to, especially for people who belong to multiple marginalized communities. Mitchum also addresses the pressure many celebrities are put under to vocalize their queer identities before they're ready, not being granted the freedom of making a personal decision about when to reveal something so deeply personal to the world. This year marks 10 years since this article was written, and while I read it far more recently than that, I still find it incredibly valuable. (Anyway, you should follow him on social media--he's incredibly cool, and for the Ohioans on this newsletter, he's originally from Youngstown and went to Kent State.)
There's also the idea that being cisgender and heterosexual is somehow the norm among humans, and anyone who falls outside of these two categories has the daunting task of informing everyone around them that they somehow "deviate".
Coming out is also often referred to as a single, momentous occasion in which you reveal your true self to everyone you know, after which you are finally able to live completely authentically. As a non-binary trans person, this has never been true for me. I've come out numerous times, at school, at work, to family, to family again when they forgot, to friends.
The majority of the world around me unfortunately does not see my gender the same way I do, and most day-to-day interactions become shaped by the thought "is it worth it to come out to this person right now"? Being referred to as ma'am or miss in any public setting immediately stops me in my tracks and forces me to go through a number of mental gymnastics. Do I really look like a woman still? If they think I'm a woman, am I safe to tell them I'm not? Will they understand? Will I have to give them a gender 101 explanation? Do I have the energy to do that right now?
I continue to be as visible as possible on the internet and with people who matter to me. I want kids to see the books I illustrate and write and feel hope upon seeing that there are queer adults who are thriving and fighting to make the world a better place for them. Maybe one day I will feel safe enough to tell the person at the store that I am in fact not a ma'am, but for now I'll keep trying to do my part to create a world where that's possible for all of us.
Sources
Today.com - What Is National Coming Out Day?
HRC - The History of Coming Out
Washington Post - The First National Coming Out Day
HRC - Coming Out Resources