Coming Out Day.

"We will not win our rights by staying silently in our closets... We are coming out. We are coming out to fight the lies, the myths, the distortions. We are coming out to tell the truths about gays, for I am tired of the conspiracy of silence, so I'm going to talk about it. And I want you to talk about it. You must come out. Come out to your parents, your relatives."- Harvey Milk

October 11, 2012. National Coming Out Day. A day celebrated within the LGBTQ community. A day that conjures (for many) the spectrum of positive and negative encounters and responses they have faced and heard in choosing to come out each and every day to family, to friends, to strangers, to colleagues and bosses, to leaders of their faith community, to roommates, to peers, to fraternity brothers and sorority sisters, and, for even some, to current partners. 

And in waking up this morning, I posted something on both Facebook and Twitter that struck me in the moment. That today we should be telling the queer people in our lives that we love them, not regardless of their sexual orientation and gender identity, but because of it. And though that thought came to me quickly, the impact of it has stuck with me throughout the day as I have thought about the number of people I have come out to in the last 11+ years since I first came out to myself. And I am one of the lucky ones. The number of positive affirmations and responses I have heard FAR outweigh the negative ones. In fact, I am hard pressed to count more than on one hand the number of negative "coming out" experiences I have had. And even those negative ones for the most part turned positive down the road. No disownment. No loss of love or support. No loss of job. or security. or safety. I am one of the lucky ones. But going back to my thought from this morning, I am thinking to the number of people I have come out to who have said they love me regardless, they love me for me, and that my sexual orientation or gender identity didn't matter. Or the number of people who have come out to me for which I have given the same response. It doesn't matter. I love you anyway.

The truth though? It DOES matter. Our identities matter. They make us US. They are the fabric of who we are. They shape how we view the world and our environments. They frame our relationships. They dictate our privilege or define our marginality. They make us more human, more authentic, more vulnerable, more courageous, and more resilient. Identities matter. Just as much as the people who own them matter. And I think we neglect a huge piece of the human connection when we accept or acknowledge someone's identity by saying we love them regardless. We should be saying we love them because of that identity. Not,  "I love you and don't care that you're gay." but "I love you because you're gay." Think about it. Give it a whirl. In the first, we affirm the person but neglect the identity. In the second, we affirm the person and value the identity. And with all the hate and hurt in the world, we could all do with a little more valuing. 

Happy Coming Out Day. Whether you are a member of the queer community, an ally, an advocate, or none of the above, I hope you take the time to celebrate those in your life who live their identities out loud. It isn't an easy road, but it's one worth traveling. 

Cheers.