Imaging living in a world where homosexuality or bisexuality 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 for advocating 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 gender equality completely. As a result, coming out seems to be the best way to voice out their requests for gender equality and protest against people’s stereotypes on LGBTQIA+. However, this kind of self-disclosure can result in a potential threat of being discriminated when they do so.
The act of confessing one’s gender identity to others seems to be unnecessary if the purpose is to advocate gender equality. Since people can not change the default gender identity in most societies on Earth, what matters to LGBTQIA+ is the gender equality they haven’t reached yet but not the categorization between gender identities. Gender equality requires people’s mutual understanding and respect which result from recognizing there’s no gender identity being superior to others. However, the act of coming out seems to be exclusive to LGBTQIA+ and doesn’t correspond to the idea uphold for equality. If the coming out process is the best way to reach equality, heterosexual people would also have to consider if they need to come out.
“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
Darren Langdridge, professor of psychology and sexuality at the Open University, argues about the necessity of coming out. Because gender identity is still something to discuss about oneself, just like other personal characteristics and traits we describe ourselves, trying hard to come out about our personal traits is an unnecessary behavior. After all, the priority of reaching equality is to first accept who one truly is and embrace the difference as a common personal trait, and 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 confuses people about the equality LGBTQIA+ are pursuing. The fact is that one’s personal traits vary from individual to individual and that means each person is unique but still has the same right in a way.
To specifically examine the necessity of coming out, we have to take all of social and personal factors into consideration to explain the difficulty and complexity of coming out. Among LGBTQIA+ community, Some would consider coming out is necessary to earn them sense of security and accomplishment. Still others hold open-minded attitudes and choose not to come out due to family’s opposition on LGBTQIA+. First of all, 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. Secondly, even though many people have been sharing their experiences and informations to provide others tips of coming out, not every one is able to build a strong sense of self in the first place. In Keiynan Lonsdale’s case, his words revealed his joy and confidence of being a gay. However, not every can be confident of every part of self and achieve the ideal one, and so does the LGBTQIA+ who can not be confident of being LGBTQIA+. So, why bother to consider coming out is a necessary process of LGBTQIA+ to become who they already are? Thirdly, the process is still full of uncertainties in various situations. 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. Most people can hardly change or switch between different gender identities so the sense of inferiority resulting from other’s comments and self-doubting is harder to remove.
Coming out at work brings more troubles to LGBTQIA+ and even result in more discriminations compared to staying in the closet. 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 to avoid 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 gender 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, a workplace, as a simulated society, would consider heterosexual the normal and attempt to have regulation partial to heterosexual since forming a LGBTQIA+ friendly workplace calls for comprehensive consensus beyond gender identities. As a result, most LGBTQIA+ may give priority to conceal gender identity in workplaces to avoid unnecessary discrimination.
However, most people consider coming out is a necessary process toward gender equality. This act of self-disclosure seems to represent the way how LGBTQIA+ directly takes action to be recognized and advocate equality. Since coming out encourages people to notice the differences between gender identities and the importance to pursue equality, the US has been holding the National Coming Out Day to celebrate the freedom of coming out openly since 1988. Every year on 11 October, LGBTQIA+ would stand out and celebrate this day as the reminder that coming out plays an important role to voice out their request for equality.
The purpose of this day is to advocate equality but it seems to celebrate and emphasize their differences from the heterosexual otherwise. This act of self-disclosure raises the majority’s awareness of other gender identities by receiving different experiences and feelings of coming out. However, since heterosexual may never experience having other gender identities and sexual orientation, these experiences shared by other gender identities would probably build up the boundary between heterosexual and other gender identities instead of removing stereotypes on LGBTQIA+. As a result, setting a special day to advocate coming out as an act to show one’s courage and confidence of being uniqu doesn’t seem meaningful to fight against inequality. On the contrary, coming out turns out to become an iconic behavior of LGBTQIA+ that is labelling the whole LGBTQIA+ community.
Despite the contradiction of coming out, still many people consider this process matters to each LGBTQIA+person and can turn one’s life around. People who come out expand their influences, changes more hearts and minds in the society, and become more confident of who they truly are. They believe the decision to unveil their gender identity earn LGBTQIA+ people a long-term sense of security and confidence to explore further in their own careers and a solution to their psychological trauma they may have been suffering. However, it’s not easy to achieve the long-term sense of security and a peaceful consequences because of the stereotyped perspectives on LGBTQIA+. As a result, there’s no easier and more effective way to completely avoid failures and disputes of coming out because it still takes time for the majority to adapt to a new perspective on LGBTQIA+ and eliminate the stereotypes. Nowadays 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 intimate acquaintances, family and friends. These ideas may be helpful to those who are struggling in the process of coming out or are still doubtful about their decisions but may also be a threat to them. Because these ideas and tips about coming out would probably become the new stereotype on LGBTQIA+ and have them lablled.
Eventually, coming out requires way too much efforts and courage, or even luck, to some LGBTQIA+. The necessity of coming out worth reconsideration about its function in the pursuing of gender equality. What they deserve is the gender 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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