Speak Out : National Coming Out Day
National Coming Out Day (NCOD) is an annual civil awareness day internationally observed on October 11 to recognize members of the LGBTQ+ community. As you know the process of coming out involves self-disclosure of one’s sexual orientation and/or gender identity.
NCOD was founded in 1988 by Robert Eichberg, a psychologist from New Mexico and founder of the personal growth workshop, The Experience, and Jean O’Leary, an openly gay political leader from Los Angeles and then head of the National Gay Rights Advocates. The date of October 11 was chosen because it was the anniversary of the 1987 National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights.
Initially administered from the West Hollywood offices of the National Gay Rights Advocates, the first NCOD received participation from eighteen states, garnering national media coverage. In its second year NCOD headquarters moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico and participation grew to 21 states. After a media push in 1990 NCOD was observed in all 50 states and seven other countries. Participation continued to grow and in 1990 NCOD merged their efforts with the Human Rights Campaign.
Happy NCOD everyone!
Dave
I think it’s long past time to abandon the “coming out of the closet” paradigm. It’s hate speech that sanitizes what is really a pernicious and all too often lethal form of child abuse. No one is born in a closet. They are put there and there are responsible parties. What we call the “closet” is more truly a cage with bars of hate, violence, ridicule, and indifference. If there was anything similar happening to any other group on the planet other than gays it would be a national emergency, laws would be passed, and the perpetrators would be prosecuted. The “closet” is developmental carnage, it’s pathological, it’s a point on a spectrum of suicide that spans the figurative to the literal. It takes a whole lot of hate and violence to teach a child the only way he can be safe in this world is not to be in it. It’s long long long past time that we continue to participate in trivializing this form of abuse. Say what it really is. A cage is no more a closet than a prison cell is a steamer trunk. One doesn’t
“come out” so much as heals from abuse. How about “Happy Escape the Cage of Straight Hatred Day” instead? Perhaps that’s a bit cumbersome but we’re a clever lot and I suspect we could come up with something a lot better than the self-defeating “closet” paradigm.
NCOD is also a bit of a bullying tactic because it implies that if one is not “out” one is lesser than.
I used to screw everything and everyone knew it because word got out and I never denied any of it. People have known about me since practically forever, but I’ve never once come “out”.
I let my actions tell the story and I have balls to let it be.
If anything, we should not act like being “out” makes us superior, but that is what too many LGBT people make it out to be.
I never did “come out” officially, but when you live with a dude for 32 years, people put it together. When we visited his family or mine, the other was usually along.
Some accepted it. Some didn’t. Some of my family came to like him more than me…some of his family came to like me more than him. We delighted in that.
Being gay isn’t my identity anymore than being heterosexual would be my identity. Who I am is way more than that small part of myself.
That being said,I have no problem publicly supporting gay rights…and have often done so. Some put it together I’m gay when I do that…some don’t. I could care less either way…but I don’t make “grand announcements” about it.
I dont get any of this. Why anounce to everybody that your gay? Its your business what your sexuality is. Do straight
people come out and tell everyone there straight?
I have never come out, but just like Matt says I don’t deny it
@Matt
I tend to agree with you there, Matt. I think one’s sexuality is one’s own business. Every person suffers enough slings and arrows in growing up that there is not necessarily any additional responsibility to “come out” in order to live one’s life in a socially comfortable way, whatever is that way. Some people are in better position to make political statement comfortably than are others, and there is no “responsibility” to do or not do that. Hetereosexuals do not go around announcing their “straightness”; neither should homosexuals have to announce their “gayness,” although if they choose so to do, that is also quite fine.
You all say we shouldn’t have to come out and you feel coming out makes some feel better than others??? Ok, so youre right that we shouldn’t have to but until the world changes, most of us HAVE to. at some point we have to let our families know, friends, even coworkers (depending on situation). Verbally is not the only way to come out, coming out can be as simple as bringing your firsr bf home, or holding hands in public for the first time. And NO, im not saying put on a show, for you anti PDA guys. im saying everybody has come out insome sort of way. some loud and proud, some by force. i wish we could eradicate “coming out” and everyone just accepted everything but thats not nor will it soon be the case. Also, you can say all you want that gay is not apart of your identity but it is. if you’re anti labels im sorry but labels are importanttools. you take a label off a can of tomato soup, its still a can of tomato soup and will always be a can of tomato soup. removing the label doesnt do anything or help anyone. My personal opinion is noone should still be closeted and in the dark in adulthood. I dont think it makes you less of a person but i do think it speaks on your character and i believe its a show of strength when someone comes out. Grown DL men get angry when i turn them down. Im 25, i dont have time or patience to be sneaking around and paranoid like some teenagers. i dont run around with a rainbow flag on my back but i also dont hide my affection from the world. You can be discreet and private without putting on a facade everyday. Coming out is importantfor YOUTH of this generation because we are a generation that struggling with interpersonal communication. Also, we are a generation of rebellion and we believe in the power of our voices, we want and need to be heard so we shout our pride to the heavens. the more people who “come out” the more common it becomes, and eventually itll just be as common as having the bird n bees talk. itll be no different than telling your friends you’re now a vegan or a country music fan…….
We are all born. As a child, I never saw color. I was taught color. I was taught to draw in the lines with a white crayon, a black crayon, a blue crayon, and a red crayon. I was taught to remain on the boy’s side of the line in a private Catholic school. I always understood my attraction to boys, instead of girls, but never understood the difference, until I was taught such. I never saw sexuality as different, until I saw.
Only time I notice str8t people amplifying there straitness if they sense a gay man is hitting on them, and women tend to have to give there man a kiss for no reason at all, I suppose if they sense the gaydar might notice there man, which I find all hilarious. lol
Ok first of all, that whole straight people not announcing they’re straight is just a plain old stupid argument. Of course they don’t because they don’t have to. They are not the ones who are called names in the street, beaten up, or thrown out of their house (yes it still happens). They are not the ones who didn’t have rights until recently. It’s still not the norm to a lot of people. Being out means being honest when someone asks you a question and not having to hide it in the name of falsely pious “not flaunting” it. Sex and relationships comes up quite a bit in regular conversation. It doesn’t have to done in heels with a bullhorn if that’s not your thing (if it is, cool).
That being said I dislike the idea of having some designated day to come out. If it helps you then great but it just seems silly because everyone’s situation is different and they should come out when they are ready. It’s not up to the movemnt to dictate when it happens.
Matt is right on target.
I am gay and if someone needs to have a coming out party that’s their business.
But I have never stood up on a soap box and said “hey world, I am gay”.
Who needs to bull sh*t that goes along with that. I don’t care if someone is gay or heterosexual, as long as they are a good person.
The comments on this one just serve to drive me AWAY from the gay scene now. THIS is what we’ve devolved into? Fuck it…I can’t stand the bars anymore (bunch of asocial, drug-addcited messes with double chins from burying their nose in an iPhone on this new reality of “shopping online” and “ordering in” instead of meeting guys WITHOUT the aid of a cell phone) and, well, this site sucks donkey turds, as they all do. Post-pandemic gay male society is a bunch of shit. I get more social interaction and fun at str8 places anymore. Fuck the gay life; it ain’t worth it anymore. There WAS a time when I was a proud member of a community; now I’m revulsed by the whole fucking sordid mess. Oh…do I pick guys up out of str8 bars? You bet I do; rather one of them than what passes for a gay guy these days.
@ MistrFistr, Try another gay bar. My first gay bar was a neighborhood bar. About 20 stools and six booths. Most people knew one another, and it was a lot of fun. They’d bring in friends, and it was even better. Games to play and spontaneous dancing.
Over time, many paired off…and it became a couples as well as a singles bar. A social thing among friends.
Maybe it depends on the bar and the people who hang out in it.
Other bars were pretty similar to what you’ve described in today’s world…minus cell phones…and an occasional raid by the police with lots of arrests just for being there.
While many bars may lousy, the gay community has made lots of positive changes….one being, you won’t go to jail for being in a gay bar. That’s a good thing.
If you read posts here long enough, you see posters who demand that “you ain’t gay if you ain’t come out.” These guys seem to be on the militant side of gay life. All too often they claim that by their marching in Pride Parades over the years they “gave blood for the cause”. They somehow seem to feel entitled, then, to dictate what “being gay” means, what rules gays have to follow to “be gay”. Coming out to them is some kind of requirement to get a “Gay Card”.
Along the way they missed that while they were parading, over the years gay men (and women) were living lives where they did not wear their sexuality on their sleeves. The only people who knew they were gay were close friends, relatives, and men (or women) they chose to get in bed with. While not parading, what they were doing was establishing themselves as quality individuals, people you could count on and respect. For many straights who knew them, sooner or later the light went on that “he (she) is gay”. But by that point, they didn’t care about sexuality; they respected him (or her) as an individual. Sexuality did NOT matter. Isn’t that the goal?
No coming out, big announcement, pat on the back, or “good job!” is needed. Be gay and get the hell over it. You ain’t no more special than anyone else.
Equality … isn’t that the goal?