This year’s National Coming Out Day brings with it a certain poignancy. On the one hand, it has been amazing this past year to watch students like Constance McMillen, who not only came out, but took on her school district when it said she couldn’t attend prom with her girlfriend and wear a tux.
On the other hand, we have heard more and more stories about the many students who faced such severe anti-LGBT bullying and harassment when they came out (or even if they didn’t) that they were driven to suicide, killed by others, or tortured and given horrific choices like whether to be beaten with a bat or a pipe.
Why would anyone come out and risk such dangers?
Because if we forever hide who we are, the bigots and the bullies have won.
We should not come out in the face of immediate danger to ourselves or our families. There is room for sensible precaution. But those of us who can chance it, should, to whatever extent we can. In doing so, we not only help ourselves, but we increase the space in which others may safely be themselves. Whether we come out as LGBT, as having LGBT parents, having LGBT children, or as an ally, we add ourselves to the network of those who are standing against the hate and the intolerance.
The problem of anti-LGBT bullying and violence requires a multi-pronged solution. It must begin, however, with people choosing to speak up, to say, “Your words and actions affect me and those I care about, and I will not allow them.”
The situation is urgent. Children are dying. May today be but a reminder of an ongoing need.
Photo credit: Håkan Dahlström