COMMUNITY
“Out” As In…What Exactly? As is to be expected for a community represented by a rainbow flag, things aren’t exactly black and white By Jesse Boland
JULY / AUGUST 2022
Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash
Take a minute and ask yourself, What does a person have to do to become considered “out”? Is it a quantitative matter, where a certain number of people need to know that this person is queer; or is it more a qualitative matter, where it’s more significant as to who in that person’s life is aware of their queerness?
relationship, is he being dishonest? When considering the visual analogy of the magical closet of sexual identity, where people hide before being ready to announce their truth to the world, just how much of yourself do you need to bring out of the closet before you are officially considered “out”?
By the logic of those two arguments, would a kid be considered out if his entire school and friend group knows he’s gay but his parents don’t? If a happily married lesbian keeps her personal and work life separate by not discussing her wife or even sexuality in the office, is she considered closeted? When a trans woman successfully “passes” and allows people in her new life to assume she is cisgender without correcting them, has she in a sense abandoned her queerness? If a bisexual man is in a monogamous relationship with a woman and does not inform his girlfriend about his sexual orientation because he finds it irrelevant to the
The importance of outness is less a matter of positive representation and more an issue of safety and security. To be out is to declare that you are aware of the risks entailed with the public knowing your truth, and are willing to accept that burden. Moreover, being clear about your outness is important so others are aware of your standing and know if it is safe to discuss details about you without potentially outing you by accident. Tedious as it may be for queer people, it is partially our responsibility to be upfront about how we wish others to address us; you can’t be mad at someone for sharing your secret if you never told them it was a secret.
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