A quick reminder that registration is open for my virtual craft class: Every Action is a Spell: Finding the Magic in Our Stories. The class is through Tin house and will be on November 12th, 11am pt-2pm pt.
Today is #NationalComingOutDay, something I am generally skeptical about. Coming out is a complicated concept. On the one hand, it’s been an important part of queer and trans history. (In the 1970s, there was a big push to come out in order to force society to treat us like humans beings.) But as many before me have pointed out coming out is only required because everyone is assumed cis and hetero until proven otherwise. This means the onus to come out rests solely on queer and trans people, proving we still live in a world that centers cis/het desires and needs. Call me when a cis/het person has to come out (lol)!
Sometimes, I wonder if coming out is still necessary. When I look around, I see children with the tools and language to communicate who they are from an early age. Is a four year old really coming out when she says she’s a girl for the first time? Plus, for those of us limp-wristed sissies, fairies, hairy butches, and fierce femmes, there was never a time when we could finally announce who we were. Some of us were born outside the closet. I’ve been picked on for being a queer sissy since I was ten years old, since before I knew what I was. (Bullies always know, don’t they?) Sure, I had a “coming out” moment where I shared my queerness and later, my womanhood with friends and family, but I heard from several friends they’d always known, begging the question if when I came out, no one was surprised, when did I actually come out?
This year, my thoughts on coming out are evolving a little. In general, I’m trying to be less cynical. This is the first Coming Out Day since my novel was published. I’ve received dozens of messages from readers who said my book gave them the confidence they needed to come out. It’s been the absolute, hands-down, best part of publishing the novel, a reaction I’d never fathomed seeing. When you’ve been out for a long time, it’s easy to forget how scary the outside of the closet seems. These messages remind me of the power in saying who we are out loud, a power doubly strong at a time when the media and conservatives are doing everything they can to deny us the right to access the hormones and surgery we need, to fuck who we want to fuck, to use the bathroom, and for teens to be called their correct name in school and play the sports they want to play. Should we have to come out? No, but for now we still live in a world that assumes us straight and cis until proven otherwise. Until the world catches up, there should be waves of us coming out. It should be nonstop, a deluge of queer and trans freaks that don’t give a shit about the comfort of cis-het-patriarchy.
I worry that pretending like the closet doesn’t exist keeps some of us in the closet. This time of year, we always see messages intended for those who are closeted and don’t feel safe coming out. Let me say that if you are in a place where it is not safe to come out because doing so will put you in a violent and dangerous situation, then fuck, I’m sorry. Let’s do everything we can to remove you from that situation and get you safe. If you are unsafe out of the closet, then you are in an unsafe situation, period. I think it is from this place that I see people say things like, “if you need to be in the closet, that does not make you less queer or less trans,” but what gets lost in this messaging is the importance of getting out of the fucking closet. Should everyone come out on their own timeline when they feel safe and supported to do so? Absolutely, but also what can we do to speed that timeline up, because living in the closet sucks and you could never guess how bad it feels until you’re out of it. It’s scary. I get it. You will inevitably lose something when you come out. You might lose family members, friends, or jobs. The world is not built for us in any way, shape, or form. Coming out is a risk, but every single out person you see has taken those risks and is living their best life because of it. I have lost family. I have lost friends. I have absolutely lost employment opportunities, but I don’t care because the other side is bigger and brighter than I ever thought possible.
Happy #NationalComingOutDay. Let’s burn the closet down.
A Spell for Coming Out
Sit with yourself each day and find where your desire lives. Mine is like a stone in my thighs, but sometimes it’s a peach pit or a goddamn boulder. Sit in your desire. Let it crush you. Be overtaken with yearning. Listen to your desire. What does it say? Desire is about travelling across spectrums. That’s all queerness and transness is, travelling. Walk the spectrum. Find the moments where your heart sings. Go be with other people who know how to make their souls sing, too. Kiss some of them if you want. Be like some of them if you want. Tell one person about this new thing that makes you sing, someone you trust. If they react poorly, immediately tell another person, someone else you trust. You can tell me if you want. Tell another person. Keep sitting in desire. Keep walking the spectrum. Leave the spectrum all together and see what it’s like off in distant space, where all the stars live. Tell someone else.