Coming Out Of The Closet

Many of you reading this blog knows what that phrase means but many also do not understand what it really means. For many non-LGBT people they think it happens only once, but for us in the community we know it is a never ending process.

Awhile back my primary care doctor’s office called with my lab results and the nurse asked for me and I replied “speaking” and she replied “No I have to speak to Diana.” Then we got into an argument on whether or not I was Diana and I hung up on her. I called the office back and got a different nurse who knew who I was and she gave me my lab results. Or you may have to call your credit card company about a fraudulent charge and you have to argue with them that you are really you – now tell me what crook is going to call the card company up to report they just fraudulently changed a credit card?

For some of us, we traded one closet for another. Many trans people who transitioned and can integrate into society chose not to disclose their former life, so in a way what they have really done is to trade closets and if that is what they want that is okay. But sometimes it does come back and bite you. Maybe when you apply for a loan or an old life insurance policy surfaces, when my father died I never knew he had a life insurance policy with me as beneficiary so I had to go back to the Probate Court to get a notarized copy of my name change order.

Some LGB people claim that they have nothing in common with the “T” but one thing that we do have in common is coming out. One time in Provincetown on the last weekend of Women’s Week and the beginning of Trans Week at the B & B where I was staying they put out wine and cheese at five for their guests, I was sitting there with some friends and a group of lesbians came down and sat on the other side of us. Both sides were quiet and talking among themselves when one of the lesbians asked us a question which is lost in the fog of time but I remember I mentioned about coming out, several bottles of wine later we were telling our coming out stories.

Going back “Into the Closet:” for many LGBT as they get older and need to depend upon healthcare services they go back into hiding for fear of not getting proper medical care. Many lesbians and gays keep their sexual orientation a secret and some trans people detransition because of fear of harassment or discrimination.

So where did the phrase “coming out of the closet” come from? One of the blogs that I read had a posting about the phrase and he has a link to “What is the Origin of the Phrase ‘Come Out of the Closet’?” on the Mental Floss website.

According to George Chauncey's comprehensive history of modern gay culture, Gay New York, the closet metaphor was not used by gay people until the 1960s. Before then, it doesn't appear anywhere "in the records of the gay movement or in the novels, diaries, or letters of gay men and lesbians."

"Coming out," however, has long been used in the gay community, but it first meant something different than it does now. "A gay man's coming out originally referred to his being formally presented to the largest collective manifestation of prewar gay society, the enormous drag balls that were patterned on the debutante and masquerade balls of the dominant culture and were regularly held in New York, Chicago, New Orleans, Baltimore, and other cities." The phrase "coming out" did not refer to coming out of hiding, but to joining into a society of peers. The phrase was borrowed from the world of debutante balls, where young women "came out" in being officially introduced to society.

Balls are still quite common, I don’t know if they are still used for “coming out” but there are probably a lot of LGBT people who come out at them not on purpose but rather… “Bob was that you in the newspaper picture at that gay ball?” (True story, I know someone who that happened to. “Her” picture was in the newspaper about Hartford Pride and fellow employees questioned “Him” about it. Opps!)

There is a good website that I found that has some good tips on coming out... How to Come Out