I think there is a lot of truth in all of these post, and I honor everyone chiming in. I wanna give my perspective, that I think might help in some of it. So, I'm 60 (ugh, how did that happen!?!); and being so, like so many of us, being gay was an anathema. The shame and intolerance that my own parents reserved for homosexuals made me think that what I felt marked me as a criminal-- I believe that they would have rather had a murderer as a son than a 'damn faggot.' Culture at large always reinforced this as well: in the media, if a gay or trans person was ever portrayed, it was always as the butt of a joke, something deserving of being laughed at and belittled. And being a crossdresser? Good night. Mentally ill. So. We all lived through this (those of my and adjacent ages, which I feel might be most of us), and we all suffered this and to varying degrees internalized this socialization. Remember how you thought that you must be sick and insane, and the only one, before the internet? All of that shit was part of our development as individuals, all the bad wiring and moral outrage based on a codex about what it was the be a "good and contributing member of society." Turns out, obviously, that it was all bullshit and full of hypocrisy. But it was put into us, at a young age, and was, and is, a part of how we were taught to fundamentally see the world. That is no small thing. Culture has changed, for the most part, and opened up to be somewhat more tolerant, and less hypocritical, and being gay is no longer an undefendable position nor a crime (It still was for half of my life). Yet we all still have all of this developmental shit in our psyches, the codex that was given to us foundationally to build our identities upon. It's deep and slippery and emotionally resonant, and is hard to deconstruct. It is. You cannot just say "I don't want that anymore," like you could if you no longer like pop-tarts. It takes a lot of courage and self searching and struggling with all of the constructs that we all have created to be able to feel safe and survive against what the world was telling us, against how we felt inside.
This is how I view "Comming Out." Fundamentally, it is not about the rest of the world, but about yourself. In our prosaic lives, we are constantly face with decisions that we make that might be at odds with the way our family, friends, co-workers, see us, but we give it little thought. Said decisions are about us, and have little consequence to others in our lives. They are them, and have their own agendas, and we are we, and the same. Coming out is, absolutely, about one's self. It is about having the courage to, with no bush inside your self to hide behind, to say "I Am Gay'" or "I Am Queer," or "I Am A Crossdresser," our however you need to. It is about confronting the torment that the structures that you were raised in created in you, and saying "Enough. I am done with your lies and judgement and I want to live as a whole person now." It's about being honest with yourself, finally, after years of obfuscation, and guilt, and self loathing, and denial, to finally allow yourself to be yourself. Some may balk, or be weirded out, or whatever; but they are also busy living their own lives full of messed-up problems and self denial ('cause we all do it in some form or another).
I guess what I really mean to say is this: for the most part, it is culturally safe to come out. For the most part. But coming out is fundamentally about your own self cohesion, about being real to yourself, and no longer being filled with shadows of self-reprehension. Nothing about being gay or queer or trans is new; it has always been a part of the human experience. Anthropologically this is absolutely true. It is, and has always been part of 'us.' It is not an aberration; it is as natural as the green of the grass and the blue sky. Shout it out from the mountain top, if that is what will make it real for you, but also, quietly, tell it to your self, and find comfort in no longer being hijacked by someone else's close minded agenda.
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