Imaging living in a world where homosexual is the default in societies and most of your friends have same-sex couples, what would you do if you realize you’re born as a heterosexual?
In this generation, with more and more people coming out for their gender identities, LGBTQIA+ community has been struggling advocating for equality between different gender identities and sexual orientations. Even though people’s awareness of different gender identities has been greatly raised compared to the last century, the majority still take it with a grain of salt. Other gender identities apart from heterosexual seems hardly to cross the boundary of stereotype and reach completely equality. As a result, coming out seems to be the best way within reach to voice out their requests and arguments against people’s stereotypes on gender identity. However, this kind of self-disclosure can be a potential threat of being discriminated when LGBTQIA+ people try to emphasize the importance of coming out but not the equality they are pursuing.
Coming out encourages people who stand out to expand their influences and changes more hearts and minds in the society, not to speak of giving LGBTQIA+ more power to be confident of who they truly are. In general recognition, coming out requires one’s courage and strong willpower to make a first step out of the closet into the public spotlight. Once LGBTQIA+ people made the decision to unveil their gender identity, it not only means to earn them a long-term sense of security and confidence to explore further in their own careers but also means the solution to their psychological trauma they may have been suffering. On the other hand, self-disclosure of LGBTQIA+ people can help raise the majority’s awareness of different gender identities by sharing their own processes of coming out and feelings. To those who may never experience having other gender identities and sexual orientation, these actual cases would probably remove their stereotypes on LGBTQIA+. In 1988, the US started to hold the National Coming Out Day to celebrate the freedom of coming out openly as an LGBTQIA+ person. Every year on 11 October, LGBTQIA+ would stand out and celebrate this day as the reminder that one of their advantages to pursue for equality is the power of coming out. Even people who are not LGBTQIA+ would stand out as well in support of their equality if they have acquaintance who is LGBTQIA+.
Since people can not change the default gender identity in most societies on Earth, the significance of coming out is to pursue for equality but not to stress on categorizing gender identities. The act of confessing one’s gender identity to others seems to be unnecessary in the purpose of advocating equality. What equality requires are people’s mutual understanding and respect but not simply overemphasizing certain gender identity one has. Gender identity is one natural trait of human beings and sexual orientation is the behavior pattern of showing one’s personal trait. Therefore, each person would have one’s own gender identity either born this way or by acquired influence which is not necessary to be unveiled by a coming out process. If the coming out process is the best way to reach equality, people would need to reconsider about the necessity of coming out as a heterosexual.
“The majority of people are heterosexual and that’s not going to go away,…There’s always going to come to a point of recognizing you’re different.”
— Darren Landridge
Claimed by Darren Langdridge, professor of psychology and sexuality at the Open University, arguments about coming out won’t ever disappear because it’s still something to discuss about oneself. However, the priority of reaching equality is to first accept who one truly is and embrace the difference as a common personal trait. That’s the better way to replace coming out and avoid potential discrimination. Besides, the act of coming out is attempting to normalize one’s gender identity which indicates that heterosexual is the only “Normal” and in the mean while labelling themselves with different gender identities by coming out. Paradoxically, the more coming-out is celebrated, the more it reinforces a normative ideal to confuse people about the equality they are pursuing. The fact is that one’s personal traits are determined to vary from individual to individual and that means each person is unique but still has the same right in a way.
Nowadays social media has helped many public figures to control their own narratives to come out. The movie ‘Love, Simon’ actor Keiynan Lonsdale come out on the Instagram,
“I like to change my hair, I like to take risks with how I dress, I like girls, & I like guys (yes), I like growing, I like learning, I like who I am and I really like who I’m becoming.”
By coming out to the public, Lonsdale not only stepped out his closet and earn people’s support to be the person he wants to become but also provide others an example of voicing out his inner thoughts on gender identity. In the same way, by sharing experiences with different gender identities, people can get know more about distinct processes of coming out each LGBTQIA+ person underwent. Whether the consequence turns out good or bad, the experience is valuable in aid of giving opportunities to those who need advices or sympathy to stay true to themselves and find the best way to come out. One importance of coming out is to gain the acceptance and support from one’s intimate acquaintances, family and friends. On YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, or any other social platforms, more and more people start to post their own stories and feelings about the ways and processes of coming out to their families. One example is provided below. The influences of sharing experiences of coming out on the internet is powerful. This way captures attention of a big crowd of people who are struggling in the process of coming out or are still doubtful about their decisions, most people may figure out the best way depend on different situation to come out thanks to the experiences and informative contents in the posts or videos.
Nevertheless, Among LGBTQIA+ community, there are different opinions on whether to come out or not. Some of them would consider coming out is necessary. By authentic confession to others, it seems to represent a sense of security and accomplishment to them. Still others hold open-minded attitudes and choose not to come out due to family’s opposition on LGBTQIA+ instead of insist on coming out and expecting for people’s acceptance. Coming out to one’s family or not depends on one’s willingness to disclose the true side to the most intimate person. Oftentimes, we may keep some secrets from our parents. Likewise, gender identity is still secret to part of the LGBTQIA+. Coming out may seem naked to reveal their deepest inner thoughts rather than a way to reach a sense of security. From another perspective, even though many people have been sharing their experiences and informations to provide others tips of coming out, the process still differs in one’s family background and different situations. It is hard to standardize the ways with high possibilities of success to come out. Most of time, we can not control variables such as a liberal parent’s double standard between their own children and others. For people who failed to earn acceptance from their families, coming out brings even heavier burden to face family crisis or silent treatment. Moreover, failing to come out may lower one’s self-esteem and lead to the vicious circle of feeling inferior. We can’t easily change our gender identities so this sense of inferiority resulting from other’s comments and self-doubting is harder to remove.
Some people choose to come out to their family and friends but stay in the closet at work. Based on the survey from the Employment Environment for Chinese LGBT Employees as showed in the chart, there are almost half of the LGBT people do not come out to anyone at work in case of being discriminated and humiliated. Gender discrimination between male and female in the workplace has long been discussed about, female is oftentimes regarded inferior to male and get a lower pay. Undoubtedly, it’s even harder to build a LGBTQIA+ friendly workplace than simply advocating the equality between male and female, let alone female LGBTQIA+ people, who are likely taking up heavier burden. To avoid being discriminated, most LGBTQIA+ people would choose to stay silent about their gender identities and this consequence depends on one’s situation since such discrimination could derive from sexist, racist, and anti-LGBTQIA+ bias. Once coming out in workplace, LGBTQIA+ people would have to deal with potential problems derived from the above bias, such as offensive comments about their subcultural identities or appearance and challenges to convince people skeptical about their working performance by going the extra mile. Besides, workplace, as a simulated society, would consider heterosexual the normal and attempt to have regulation partial to heterosexual to avoid any unnecessary disputes and discrimination since forming a LGBTQIA+ friendly workplace calls for comprehensive consensus beyond gender identities. Even though LGBTQIA+ people may give priority to conceal gender identity in workplace, it doesn’t mean to stop pursing for equality and one’s self-identification.
Eventually, coming out requires a lot effort and courage to some of the LGBTQIA+. The necessity of coming out worth reconsideration about its function in the pursuing of gender equality. What they deserve is the equality that eliminate bias but not endless labelling. Since each gender identity simply represents different role in the history of sexuality, coming-out seems to be superfluous after all.
Reference
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