It’s October, which means people’s minds are focused on everything orange, spooky, and pumpkin spice. For the most part, people love to be scared by all things supernatural, haunting, or phobia-filled this month, and the hype about horror has unsurprisingly made October 31st the 2nd scariest day of the year for so many people. I say 2nd scariest because, for 4.5% of Americans, the most terrifying, panic-inducing day of the year comes three weeks prior on October 11th: National Coming Out Day. That’s over 1 million people living in America who feel the pressures of heteronormativity in their daily lives.
Let’s talk about heteronormativity for a second. The word itself is pretty self-explanatory: the social and cultural understanding that heterosexuality is considered “normal.” The nuances of heteronormativity, however, go a lot deeper than many people understand and are the primary reason why “coming out” is inherently oppressive to the LGBTQ+ community. Coming out is when an LGBTQ+ person has to tell someone else, typically someone outside the community, that they are, in fact, not straight after all. Now, in many cases, coming out can be a liberating experience under safe and supportive circumstances, and there are plenty of LGBTQ+ people who take pride in coming out to their friends, families, peers, and the world. Many people have taken coming out as an opportunity to show their unbridled pride and self-acceptance in dramatic, exciting ways and use it as a celebration of their identity. While these instances should not be overlooked, and are a wonderful reflection of the way the LGBTQ+ community takes control over its oppression and turns it on its head, the whole idea of “coming out of the closet” directly implies the problematic existence of a “closet” in the first place, and this is the root of a vast majority of culturally ingrained and institutionalized homophobia in America.
Take a minute to imagine a certain specific, but all-too-common scenario: you’re the parent of a young teenager. Your child comes to you one day, fear in their eyes, and all the nervous habits you’ve watched them develop over their childhood are presenting themselves. They sit you down, saying there’s something they need to tell you, that it’s urgent and they just can’t keep it inside any longer. It takes them a while before they can finally utter a confession, “I’m straight.”
Immediately, those last two words change the tone of the entire scenario you just envisioned. What was a tense, emotional scene becomes one that’s almost comical. No straight person would ever need to come out, that’s ridiculous. It’s only ridiculous, however, because of this concept of heteronormativity. Our subconscious social understanding has already assumed that everyone is heterosexual until proven otherwise; innocent until proven guilty. Straight has been set as the default sexuality, but it’s not, and therein lies the issue. For many Americans, this scenario doesn’t end in a chuckle or feeling of relief. Many adolescents that come out to their families are kicked out of their homes, and as much as that seems like an over-dramatized end result, around one-third of all homeless youth in America identify as LGBTQ+, despite the fact that all LGBTQ+ people make up only that 4.5% of the American population.
So not only is coming out oppressive because it’s arbitrary, but it’s also statistically proven to be a life-threatening experience. The idea that LGBTQ+ individuals are expected to announce their sexuality in order to be seen or acknowledged is toxic and gives power to the oppressive forces that control the sociopolitical climate. Coming out takes away the sense of security and acceptance that non-LGBTQ+ people are privileged with and creates a major rift between so many groups of people. Unfortunately, the process of coming out has become so ingrained in society that we have made it into a necessary event. We’ve created a version of our culture that draws a thick black line between straight/cisgender and LGBTQ+, and that line is coming out. Before coming out, the life of an LGBTQ+ person usually consists of hiding, lying, and pretending, and many people are forced to come out just to be able to take off the hetero mask they’ve been stuck under their entire life. After coming out, your sexual identity becomes the defining characteristic that most people will come to associate you with, and these two before-and-after extremes leave no room in the middle for people who are still questioning or don’t feel like labeling themselves. Coming out has become a device for labeling people as one type of person or another, and is ultimately harmful to the idea of freedom of expression and personal liberty.
Coming out is a fallacious expectation that is ultimately an unfortunate consequence of taking steps towards equality. Even though October is a month for celebration and liberation when it all comes down to it, there are so many different ways to be a person, and no one should have to worry about whether or not their sexuality will determine their validity. So, if you have someone in your life who’s thinking of coming out this month or ever, do the world a favor and make it as easy and painless as possible, because if people are going to have to be called out and spotlighted for their sexual preferences or gender identity, the least they deserve is to have it met with love, compassion, and the most colorful of rainbows.