Yesterday — October 11, 2023 — was National Coming Out Day. Given that the first one was in 1988, I guess that means this was the 35th anniversary of the first National Coming Out Day. Momentous!
I did not do anything for National Coming Out Day, not even my usual snarky social media post, because, let’s be honest, the violence and death in Israel and Gaza has me pretty on edge and unmoored. And also, everyone knows I’m bisexual. So what is there to say?
I’ll be honest here: I struggle a bit with National Coming Out Day. It’s not that I’m against “coming out” — certainly not in the sense of “being honest and unashamed about who you are” — but something about it eats at me all the same.
I mean, first and least importantly, there is something kind of dated and hokey feeling about the whole affair? I suppose this is unavoidable, what with it being an occasion with roots in the 1980s, a dated and hokey era if there ever was one. But there is this kinda corny camp counselor vibe to the whole affair — which is, I suppose, why I have long been snarky about it to begin with.
But, setting aside my whole aesthetic objection to earnestness: I struggle, I think, with the way that “coming out” suggests this one and done thing. You come out, and then you are knowable and contained.
But wait, I hear you saying, you can come out multiple times! Plenty of people do! Indeed, the fact that National Coming Out Day is an annual affair means people have recurring opportunities to come out again and again and again, constantly releasing updates like a popular iPhone app (oh, if only we could include version notes with our comings out).
And it’s true, but it’s also unsatisfying, I think? The idea of the repeated coming out still arcs towards this idea of knowability, this idea that we can — nay, that we should — be legible to the public at large. The more complicated our understanding of human sexuality becomes — the more we move away from the gay/straight binary that was so prevalent in the late 1980s towards something more nuanced and complex, the stranger it all begins to seem. If sexuality is fluid, if we understand that it is perpetually shifting and unpredictable, then what exactly are we “coming out” of, you know? Does coming out upend the primacy of hetero identity by showing how many non-heteros exist — or does it instead reaffirm it, by continually asserting anything beyond being hetero and cis as abnormal and in need of public announcement?
Much food for thought, I guess. Maybe I’ll have figured it out by next year’s National Coming Out Day, which hopefully will not take place in the midst of a rapidly escalating massacre.
* No need to be ashamed if you didn’t know that, I didn’t either until I opened the Wikipedia page for National Coming Out Day
On the “dated and hokey” front, the first image that ALWAYS pops into my head when I hear “coming out day” is the Ellen “Yep, I’m Gay” magazine cover.
Might be a little more fun if cis- and hetero- people also started coming out. Or maybe that would feel like an invasion. 🤷🏽♀️
On an unrelated note, I'm conflicted about that shrug emoji. I can either match my skin tone or my hair color... but not both. 🦄