Today is National Coming Out Day.
National Coming Out Day is celebrated every year on October 11. It was created by Robert Eichberg and Jean O’Leary, pivotal early figures of the LGBTQ+ equality movement, and is today celebrated as a moment to honor the courage people show in the act of coming out as gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, or queer. It’s an opportunity for the LGBTQ+ community to demonstrate that everyone knows someone who’s LGBTQ+, and to break down negative stereotypes about our community perpetuated by people convinced they don’t know anyone who will be directly impacted by them.
Every year, thousands of people use National Coming Out Day as a chance to talk about the triumphant act of coming out, or, in many cases, actually come out themselves. For those of us who have been out for a long time, it’s a chance to remember the experience of coming out and how it empowered us, how it provided us with our first breath of fresh air outside the closet.
But for some of us, myself included, National Coming Out Day (painfully) reminds us of the fact that we have never had the opportunity to come out.
Thirteen years ago, I was a freshman in high school. I went to Arizona School for the Arts, the magnet arts charter school in Phoenix, Arizona, and, from the moment I set foot at that school in 7th grade, people assumed I was gay. People constantly told me that I would come out in a few years and that things would make more sense. What they said with such authority terrified me, and it made me feel like they knew me better than I knew myself. I was so afraid that they might be right, and that them being right about me would give them ammunition. I was already pretty isolated, and, if they were right, surely they’d use that knowledge to dictate the rest of my existence to me.
Then the unthinkable happened. I fell in love for the first time in my life. I fell head over heels for a trumpet player and choir boy with the prettiest eyes and an infectious level of confidence. I had never had someone who inspired me so much. I felt safe with him, like I could be myself, whoever that could be. I remember the first time I kissed him, and it felt so right, like things just fell into place. It was my first kiss.
I loved him (and probably always will) - and I despised myself for it. My classmates were right about me. I was gay. Or something. I didn’t really ever figure it out. I never got the chance.
What happened next is blur. It was traumatic, and I can’t really remember a lot of things in my life that are so traumatic. I think I broke up with him because of fear, and he started dating someone else. I think we got back together, and I think we had a big falling out. All I really know is how much I regretted losing him, and how much of a mistake it was.
A month or so later, one of my classmates berated me again, asking me when I was going to come out. It broke me, and I finally did, and, if I had expected to be congratulated or consoled or thanked for being so open about myself, I was going to be disappointed, because there was only one thing my classmates ever said in response.
“We know. We told you so.”
What was worse was the teachers. There was a rumor that had gone around that the faculty had a betting pool on when I was going to come out. When I came out to them, I always watched in horror as their faces twisted into knowing smiles, and they each validated my classmates in each icy statement.
“We know. It wasn’t hard to guess.”
I tried to start a Pride Alliance at my school, and everyone - students and faculty - rejected the idea. They would ask, “Do you really think ASA is homophobic? Do you really feel discriminated against here?” And for a long time, I didn’t have language to describe how much that answer was yes.
So I hope that rumor about the Arizona School for the Arts faculty having the betting pool going around the revelation of my sexuality was just a rumor, but I’ll never know.
A few years later, I was at a church event with our youth group, including my sister and a number of her friends. It was an all-night event, and some of the people my age were making some sexually-explicit homophobic jokes at my expense. After years of emotional neglect from people my age, I was delighted by the jokes - at least I could feel included, even if it was people subjecting me to derogatory jokes made about my assumed sexuality. I laughed, and confirmed their suspicions.
“We know, Kincaid. That’s why this is funny.”
And it went on for hours, providing them with all the entertainment they needed. The next day, my parents asked to talk to me in their bedroom. They told me that my sister had overheard some of the homophobic jokes and that the jokes had made her friends uncomfortable. My sister had told them about the jokes and how I had responded to them, and they asked me if I was gay. I felt cornered, powerless to resist, so I said yes.
“We knew. We’ve known for years.”
A few years later, and I was preparing for my undergraduate composition recital at the University of Arizona. I told my mom that two of the pieces on my recital were about the experience of queerness and how it had shaped my life. One of them was about coming out - something I had never actually done - and the other was about heartbreak - something with which I had a lot of experience.
My mother gave me an ultimatum - either come out to my conservative extended family or don’t invite them. She said that it wasn’t fair not to give them fair warning about what they were going to see at my recital. So, a month or so later, over a family dinner, I did it. Not because I wanted to, but because I was given an impossible, terrible choice.
“We know, and we don’t know why you feel the need to bring it up with us.”
I will probably never, ever write music about my experience as a queer person again.
Coming out is hard. Harder than a lot of people think, but it’s even harder when it’s not necessary, when people have already made the assumption about your sexuality the moment you walk through the door or open your mouth and say anything.
When people talk about coming out, it’s often framed as this empowering experience that gave them the ability to be more fully themselves. All I’ve gotten out of coming out is the ability to hear that people already know who I am, and the permission to be the person they already assumed I was.
By assuming my sexuality, people in my life never gave the opportunity to figure out who I was, and because people continue to assume my sexuality upon meeting me, I have never really had the chance to explore what it means to be myself. I might not be gay. And I will never have the chance to express that.
When you make assumptions about people and their sexual orientation, you rob them of a little bit of their humanity, and you make it impossible for you to ever get to know the real them. You make it impossible for them to feel comfortable talking about their sexuality with you, and you immediately alienate them. You rob them of the chance to explore who they are, who they want to be, and how they want their sexuality to play a role in their life. And for what? So you can assign them a label that you understand? So you can make it so you’re comfortable with who they are? Is that really want you want? Are you really that selfish?
I’m not asking for sympathy or empathy, or for the space to explore who I am and come out as such. That has already been taken from me, and it can’t be returned. That damage is done, and no amount of apology can ever repair my experience. What I’m asking you to do, if you have ever judged someone to be LGBTQ+ without them having come out, pressured someone out of the closet, or outed someone, is to never, ever do that to someone again.
Sometimes, the best apology you can give is changed behavior. If you find yourself identifying with this as a perpetrator, you can’t undo what you did to me or whatever you did to another traumatized queer person, but you can do everything in your power to make sure it never happens again.
I’m also not going to forgive you.
Because the irreparable damage you did to me in making me feel powerless when I have come out to you has shaped the way I have navigated my life, I’m not interested in forgiving you. I am the victim, and what you did was monstrous. You cannot earn my forgiveness and it’s insulting for you to try to do so.
Because I’m not going to forgive you, you have to live with what you did to me. You can choose to ignore it and pretend the shame isn’t there, or you can be angry enough with yourself that you decided to change. Regardless of what reaction you have, you have to learn how to live with the fact that, while you may not be a lifelong homophobic bigot, what you did was homophobic.
Forgiveness does not inspire change.
When people come out to you, if you care about them, you have to think about your impact on them, and you have to think about how what you say may change their life. I’d like to think that my peers and mentors in high school never intended on making me hate myself for being gay, but instead wanted to help me explore what it meant to be out as a queer person. If that was their intention, it has not been how I have been impacted.
I want to believe that my peers in my church group wanted to include me, and so they included me in the terrible jokes they were already making about each other, not thinking about how much it would hurt. If that was their intention, it has not been how I have been impacted.
I hope that my family wants to support every part of me, and I hope they intended to make me feel loved and welcome in their space. I hope they can see and hear me when I talk about my experience, not pretend it isn’t there or isn’t real or it isn’t valid. I honestly hope they wanted me to know that they loved me, not regardless of the gender of people I fall in love with, but because the fact that I am gay is part of what makes me myself. If that was their intention, it has not been how I have been impacted.
If celebrating National Coming Out Day brings you joy, and your experience of coming out was empowering, I am so happy for you. I am proud of you, and I am happy that you avoided people telling you that they already know. I am glad that you came out without experiencing something like my trauma, and that you were allowed the space to figure out who you are without judgment. One of my greatest, most private wishes is that my experience was like yours. I envy you terribly.
For those of you who have never had to come out because you are straight: you don’t know what it’s like, and you can’t understand how important it is for us. You have to be more careful around the LGBTQ+ people in your life, and you have to honor our privacy. You have to give us the right and the space to choose for ourselves what kind of life we want to lead. If you choose instead to force us into situations in which we feel powerless except to reveal to you a glimpse into our innermost lives, you committing an act of homophobia (or transphobia). You have engaged in act of leveraging your power and privilege you have claimed in the world that was built by you and built for you against the powerless and the unprivileged. If you feel ashamed after reading this because you have done this to someone, I’m sorry, but you deserve to feel uncomfortable and you should examine why you feel that way. You need to take responsibility for the act of evil you have committed against them, and you need to recognize the way that you treated them will affect the way the will navigate the world from that point on. I hope you can move through your shame to a place where you choose instead to advocate for the humanity of my community, the same humanity you once stole from someone who made the mistake of trusting you.
Give people the chance to come out. Instead of assigning the coming out narrative to people you do not know in that way, give people the space they deserve. If you suspect that someone is LGBTQ+ but they haven’t said anything about it, say nothing. And when they come out to you, never, ever, say that you already knew.
Thank them for their courage and their trust, smile, and be proud that they have chosen to include you in the knowledge of this part of them. Let us know that you are an ally, and we will trust you forever. We’ll know that we are safe with you.
And I bet that feeling would be - is - amazing. But because you knew about me before I knew about me, I’ll never - I can’t - know.