Do I Really Have to Come Out?

Image via Unsplash

There’s nothing more liberating than being able to scream “I’M GAY!!!!” from a rooftop and throw rainbow confetti into the air – but in reality, most people probably come out in slightly subtler ways (although if you do want to throw confetti and shout from a rooftop, slay). Coming out can be a happy, thrilling, and ultimately freeing experience, no matter how you do it, and days like National Coming Out Day earlier this month deserve to be celebrated. But as happy as coming out is, there are some complexities surrounding this concept. 

Coming out is an incredibly brave and wonderful thing, no matter how it’s done. It can be as simple as telling your best friend over the phone at 2 am, or as big as announcing it in your graduation speech in front of thousands of people. For some, deciding to come out is an obvious decision to make. Maybe you’ve known you were lesbian ever since you googled ‘two girls kissing’ in elementary school, and have been in a glass closet ever since. So it was a no-brainer decision to sit down with your parents one day and officially come out. 

But for others, it’s not as simple as that. 

We all live intricately unique lives. Unfortunately, this means that there are countless factors that could deter someone from coming out, like financial instability, difficult family relationships, internalized homophobia – the list goes on. Another reason some don’t come out is because maybe they just don’t feel like making their sexuality and gender a public service announcement. And that’s just as valid. 

The bigger issue here is that the concept of coming out implies that being LGBTQ+ is still abnormal. We never see straight people come out, do we? Our culture demands that we slap a label on anything that’s not cis or heterosexual, and pressures us to announce it to everyone, but here’s the truth: you don’t owe anyone any explanation. Your sexuality and gender is no one’s business but yours, and only you get to choose if you want to share it or not. 

So if coming out feels like the right choice for you, by all means, go for it! But if you can’t come out, don’t want to, or are just trying to figure things out, that is equally okay as well. We at Jerk love you, no matter what you decide.