National Coming Out Day Celebrated annually on October 11th, National Coming Out Day has become one of the most liberating and beneficial awareness days closely associated with the LGBTQ community in the western world for over half a century. Originating in America back in 1987 on the anniversary of the ‘Second National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights’, it was hailed as an unprecedented success and its importance gained it the nickname ‘The Great March’. Lesbian political leader Jean O’Leary and gay rights activist Robert Eichberg founded the day as a means by which to celebrate and establish a fixed attitude of love and positivity for members of the LGBTQ community. It was created in order to help members of the community to feel comfortable in coming out and openly accepting their sexual or gender identity. What might be shocking to some is the fact that the only countries which are currently following the U.S in recognising this awareness day are Ireland, Switzerland and the UK. This in itself shows us just how far we still have to come in making a universal change in attitudes regarding acceptance and prosperity for all members of the LGBTQ community. Now, don’t get me wrong, these countries themselves still have a long way to go for complete equality. Let it not be forgotten that even here on home soil there are still regular acts of homophobia, transphobia and hatred towards the gay community, something which I highlighted as part of my own research in previous projects on the subject of acceptance of the LGBTQ community. Albeit, some key events in our modernhistory, like the legalisation of gay marriage for example, do show us just how far the UK has come. We all know or have read horror stories of people who have had the hardest of times coming out and coming to terms with who they are. Some of my closest friends have had their parents refuse to accept their sexuality and subsequently they were practically ostracized from normal family life. For me, it’s almost too hard to believe
that a parent could do that to their child. A parent is a figure that we are taught should love their children unconditionally, especially on matters which are involuntary, such as being gay. I was one of the lucky ones in the sense that I am in a happy, same sex longterm relationship and we are both still heavily involved with each others’ family lives. But that doesn’t mean that neither of us had any difficulties coming out as being gay. I was petrified of not being accepted and at the time it seemed like the most important thing in the world. I think that for every member of the community, sometimes the remarks and hurtful things that people say to you can stay with you for the rest of your life. LGBTQ charity Stonewall published on their website that “48% of trans people under 26 said they had attempted suicide”. This statistic begs the question: What more should we be doing to protect members of the LGBTQ community? It is clear that at the moment one of the larger problems we face is to do with the transgender community and these statistics mirror this stigma. To me, the phrase “coming out of the closet” seems to have been used as a phrase to describe gay, lesbian and bisexual people being brave enough for the first time to tell people about their sexuality. People forget that the phrase should also be used to come out as transgender and queer, and people are generally much less accepting or understanding of these sexualities. I have seen it mentioned far too many times on social media accounts, and heard countless passing comments from various straight people that I have met that question the need for gay pride and awareness days such as national coming out day. “If you want equality then why do we not have straight pride as well?” A day for straight celebration suggests that the straight community deserves recognition for its struggles to fight for the right to be who they are and be treated as equals. No, heterosexuality is the norm and days like ‘National coming out day’ are still important in the true struggle for equality. I implore any straight person to recall their memories of sitting in front of their parents…in floods of tears…dropping the emotional bombshell that they are, in fact, straight. To come out and to be who you are is something which we should all take pride in. It takes a lot of courage and we should never forget the people that fought and are still fighting for the equality of the LGBTQ community. There is still a long way to go and there are still parts of the world where to be yourself and to be openly gay is to oppose the law itself. We should never take awareness days for granted because they are clearly still needed to encourage people to be brave and to teach more people about issues which they may not actually be familiar with.