Today is National Coming Out Day

For some reason I am looking back at some old things today that relate to coming out.

It’s not the same, but parents and straight allies come out to.

In Everyday Out (originally published in GayPlace Online in 1997) I wrote with Catherine’s help:

Public speaking does not come natural and easy for me, and it took a lot of preparation and energy from me and from my family. I am happy to say that the bill died in committee.

For me, that kind of being “out” is the company-coming-to-dinner kind with time to prepare and put on my best, like the “company china” my mom kept that she only used on special occasions. And then there are the “everyday dishes” — those opportunities that pop up in our lives unplanned and unexpected. The kind that if you stop to think too long, the opportunity will be lost.

And the last line in Encircled By My Heritage, which I wrote in 1988 when I was a senior in college, is:

In some ways, that experience (the whole time in the deep south) has been the closest I have come to a personal understanding of what it feels like to live in the closet, and how very hard that can be on the soul.

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