Over October Break I bit the bullet and came out to my parents. I say “bit the bullet” not because I thought they would not accept me, but because I was buying into something I had objected to several times. I can think of multiple reasons why I do not like the idea of coming out. But I still did, so clearly it has merits, or at the very least, society has conditioned coming out to be necessary.
Why was I hesitant to come out? A major reason is that I did not want to deal with follow-up questions. I thought it would be easier to hear my dad rattle off the list of my friends that were girls that he knew about and ask if I like them. It was annoying to constantly be asked if I liked a girl, but at least I could confidently say no without lying. If I came out as gay, then I might actually have to consider whether I liked the people my dad asked about. The main reason I did not want to come out is that I just did not want to talk about it. There are comments that I would rather not receive after such a personal confession, like “How long have you known?” and “You know you can tell us everything.” Despite explicitly saying I did not want to discuss it further, my mom still pressed me on these things. I know she meant well, but I had just been incredibly vulnerable and wanted to move on and watch “The Great British Baking Show.”
However, not wanting to discuss your crushes with your parents is something people of all sexualities can feel. Although, if your parents are homophobic, that can exacerbate the situation. In fact, the possibility of homophobia is another reason why coming out should not be necessary. Not everyone is privileged enough to not want to come out purely because of the cringey responses their parents may give. Not all coming out experiences end the same way.
Finally, I did not want to come out because I thought the notion of doing so was absurd. In my mind, there were two reasons why I viewed coming out (both in that moment and in general) as silly. First of all, I was and still am single, so why do I need to tell people who I would have sex with when I am not having sex with anyone? Secondly, and more importantly, straight people do not need to come out. Those who identify as heterosexual do not feel pressured to declare who they are specifically attracted to because their sexuality is viewed as the norm. The main issue I have with coming out is that it reinforces the idea that heterosexuality is, or should be, the default. The idea that heterosexuality is default is not inherently problematic. Statistically, more people are heterosexual than not. The problem is that a heteronormative attitude leads to non-heterosexual identities being seen as deviant or abnormal. Less common does not equate to being abnormal! Redwood trees are less common than maple trees, but redwood trees are not seen as “abnormal.” In other words, coming out allows the world to other you much more easily. The only people who truly need to know who you are attracted to are you and the person(s) you are attracted to (and maybe your therapist).
So, if I have all these thoughts against coming out, why did I? There were several reasons. First, I was tired of shutting down my parents whenever they asked if I was into the girls I hung out with frequently. The second reason was a bit more complicated: at home, I technically never denied my sexuality, but I would shut down any conversation before it could get there. At Vassar, I just never denied it. It certainly helped that a lot of my friends are LGBTQ+. I had known I was queer before I came to Vassar (I did not discover I exclusively liked guys until last October), so technically, I had been closeted at home. I was not bothered by it at the time, so what changed? I guess being able to be openly gay at Vassar made it difficult to be happy at home, knowing I was suppressing a part of myself that I did not have to suppress most of the time. In other words, it was not emotionally taxing to maintain being in the closet once I knew I was queer—it was emotionally taxing to reenter the closet every time I went home or talked to my family.
So where do we end up? I know it sounds like a cop-out, but I have concluded that coming out is something that should not be required or socially necessary and should instead be up to each individual. I should be able to be open with my parents about it, but it should never come up unless I am introducing them to a boyfriend or something like that.
Society is too heteronormative. People feel the need to come out because, regardless of how accepting people are to queer folks, any non-heterosexual identity is still seen as deviant from the norm. We need to get rid of the “straight until proven otherwise” mentality. In our current society, there is a way that coming out might be necessary socially but in a utopian society there would be no need to come out because non-heterosexual identities would be seen as no stranger than heterosexual ones.