Something a little lighter this week:
I like to take note of National Coming Out Day when I can, even when it occurs during the most critical and fraught election season since 1860.
It's a holiday only a few decades old, offering an impetus, or at least an excuse, for LGBTQ+ people of any age who have been in the closet, or just realizing who they are, to celebrate themselves in public. To be honest with the people they love, they work with, or they meet. To be unashamed of the ones they love.
In some ways, there is less to lose by coming out now than there was on the first NCOD in 1988. Being out is not going to get you dishonorably discharged from military service. You can still be a big Hollywood star, or a highly paid athlete, or Senator, or cabinet secretary, or Ambassador to Luxembourg. Or pastor, doctor, nurse, school teacher, truck driver, or Tik Tok influencer.
Or parent.
True, there is still the possibility that coming out could leave you estranged from family, church, or friends. But it's a possibility that has become more remote for more and more of us, thanks to the brave men and women who have come out before you.
And your coming out will make that possibility even more remote for those who come after you, believe it or not.
If the fireworks surrounding your coming out experience are rough, take heart. I promise you that you will find new family, church, or friends. Your old family, church or friends might even come around someday.
Or they might surprise you and keep loving you for who you are... just like they did before.
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