Coming Out Day: Why We Won't Just 'Shut Up' About It
Holly Wrobel
“I believe that telling our stories, first to ourselves and then to one another and the world, is a revolutionary act.” —Janet Mock
The first time anyone ever asked me if I was gay was in 7th grade. Of course, it wasn’t exactly a question posed kindly or discreetly. Instead, half a team of basketball players cornered me in the locker room at one of our away games, aggressively asking me if I was gay. To this day, I still have no idea what it was that made them decide to ask me. We were minutes away from playing a crucial game against a team we knew would likely demolish us. Confused where this was even coming from, I said, “No. I’m dating Blake, like...?” Then, everyone just walked away like nothing ever happened. We went on to the court minutes later to play; that was the end of it.
It made me evaluate myself, and no matter how deep I got into my self-analysis, I still didn’t get what prompted this whole situation. I didn’t think much of it at first, but as the year went on, I would find myself trying to figure out where this was coming from. Was there some rumor circulating at the school that I didn’t know about? Did I do something that gave off that vibe? What was I missing that they thought they had clued in on?
It didn’t make sense to me for a lot of reasons. For one, we had all played on multiple sports teams together for years, and not one of them was co-ed. Why was I being singled out on a team of all girls playing the same sports and wearing the same uniforms? Additionally, I was dating the guy everyone wanted at the time, and I didn’t exactly have to beg him to ask me out. At the time, it never dawned on me that the reason people were asking me this was actually BECAUSE I was gay. I thought I was as straight as everybody else. I figured that if I were gay, I would have to actually be interested in girls for that to be the case, and I wasn’t in the least bit interested in girls until I was... Who knew that after years of not even questioning my sexuality, all it would take was one extremely brilliant, charming lesbian hitting on me in college to make me re-reevaluate my entire oblivious existence? The answer to that was literally everyone but me, apparently.
People ask why we, as members of the LGBTQ+ community, feel the need to come out of the closet in the first place. Often you may hear someone say, “What they do with their life is fine, but I don’t wanna know about it.”
To that, I say, “This is not about you.”
This is for all of the people that came before us and were jailed, assaulted, and murdered because they were a part of the community or even just thought to be part of it. This is for all people who felt different but didn’t know why. This is for the girl being cornered by teammates and beaten for an identity she didn’t even know she would ever claim. This is for Matthew Shepherd. This is for Harvey Milk. This is for Stonewall. This is for all people who fought for us to have the same rights as everyone else. This is for the people in other countries that are still being persecuted for their sexuality, living as second-class citizens. This is for us. This is for those like us.
We have come a long way in just 100 years, but there is still a lot of work left to be done. The more people that are given the courage to be vocal and unapologetic about their identity, maybe the more lives we can change. Perhaps, if we continue to speak about who we are and who we love, there will be a time when everyone will have the freedom to do so.
Until that happens, not only can we not afford to be silent, but we owe it to those of us that are silenced. Every year on October 11, we celebrate National Coming Out Day, so that the silence can be heard.
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