Come out, come out, wherever you are...

[stevekenson]

So, October 11th is National Coming Out Day, for those who might not know. I’m posting this now so folks can see it, since, well, Sunday is a game-day, and I’ve got stuff to do...

I’ve already covered my favorite “coming out” story on LJ. So I figured I would say a few words about questions like “Why a National Coming Out Day? Why is being ‘out’ so important?” After all, isn’t sexual orientation a private matter? Are queer people “flaunting” our “lifestyle” by “putting in the town square what belongs in the privacy of the bedroom?” Am I going to “stop” using “quotes” any time soon? (Not likely...)

It’s difficult to explain the concept of being out to somebody who has never had to hide their sexual orientation, to hide a major part of who they are, out of fear of rejection, condemnation, or even violence. A recent example:

When discussing the question of inclusiveness in RPGs and related settings, someone inevitably says something like: “Well, it’s just a non-issue in my games, because sexuality and sexual matters never come up.”

To which I respond: “Really? Never? The characters in your stories have no parents or families? There are no weddings, engagements, or romances? No stories based around lovers: star-crossed, spurned, or otherwise? No couples, married or not? No love-triangles? No love, even if it’s just told in the legend about why the treasure-filled dungeon is there?”

Although they call it “sexual orientation” and “homosexuality” it is about so much more than just sex. It is about attraction, flirtation, romance, partnership, and, most importantly the very nature of the relationships with the most important people in your life. It’s about life. Our lives.

Imagine never being able to talk about your significant other in anything other than the most bland, sanitized platonic terms. Not just your current romantic- or life-partner(s), but any previous ones you’ve had, too. Imagine not being able to openly mention finding someone attractive, even in passing, or talking about your friends, for fear of exposing the truth about them, too. Imagine the family gatherings where you’re asked “So, when are you going to find someone and settle down?” and you want to say “But I have been for years now, we’re building a life together,” but you can’t. If you can imagine that, then you’re touching just the outer edge of why I treasure the ability to be open about such things, and why I refuse to stop being open about them.

I was born just days after queer people in New York City rioted, having finally had enough of police harassment and brutality. When I was taking my first breaths, being gay was illegal in nearly every part of the country, and there was no such thing as “gay rights”. Things have changed more in my lifetime than I had expected, but not nearly so much as I have hoped. The greatest force for change in how we are treated is not a PAC or political action group or lobby. It is the willingness, the courage, of ordinary people to be out, to take a chance, to defy the fear, and rejection, and even the violence and be seen and heard, because it’s easy to malign and oppress “those people” when you think you don’t know any, and a different matter when you realize that you do. If you’re reading this, you do.

Happy Coming Out Day, everybody.

Comments

[anaka.livejournal.com]

Hugs for you.

[saxon-pagan.livejournal.com]

A very Happy Coming Out Day to you too! You expressed this very well. Sexuality is not something that just happens in the bedroom, it is a fundamental aspect of our humanity.

[whswhs.livejournal.com]

You know, I've run into that whole issue in gaming, and in a somewhat different way. I've commented on my GBT players (no L players, though I know a few L in other ways) and had people in online discussions ask (a) how I would know and (b) why I would care about my players' orientations. And I find that just astonishing. If a straight man gets a new girlfriend, or a straight woman a new boyfriend, or if they move in together, or marry, I find out about it, because these are friends and I'm interested in their lives. And the same if it's a same-sex relationship. Perhaps these people truly know no one who's not straight, or game with people who have no involvement except at the gaming table, or live in a matrix of customs in which straight relationships are openly acknowledged but gay relationships are "discreet"; I have no sympathy for the last expectation, and I find the other two impoverished.It would trouble me to think that my players could not tell me about his new boyfriend, or her first involvement with a woman.

So good for you. I'm male, straight, and 59 years old, and I'm glad you don't feel the need to hide from me.

[jkusters]

*cheers*

[epinoid.livejournal.com]

Happy Coming Out Day, Steve!

[boymonster.livejournal.com]

Awesome.

[mathadox.livejournal.com]

Happy Coming Out Day!

[freeport-pirate.livejournal.com]

You tell 'em, Steve. Nicely done.

[mechanteanemone.livejournal.com]

Excellent post. And of course I think the only people who think the debate does not affect them will "click: is if they realize it does affect someone they know, a friend, a family member, a neighbour, etc.

This blindness, the "it doesn't come up for me" reaction is the same type of blindness displayed by wealthy white politicians this summer during the Sotomayor confirmation hearings, concerned that she would let her ethnic background and gender affect her judgment. Because of course theirs never affected them... It's interesting to look at people when they feel comfortably entrenched in The Norm. All of us leave The Norm in part of what we are and we do -- then we go off the cliff.

[d-fuses.livejournal.com]

Fuck yes. In the church of awesome, you get a whole stained glass window.

[thebitterguy]

Dammit, I was gonna get you a coming out day card this year.

Good piece. I cannot imagine anyone who could say their game doesn't include any aspects of human sexuality.

Unless they play D&D! (sad.trombone)

[artbroken.livejournal.com]

That was just goddamn wonderful.

[thastygliax.livejournal.com]

I grew up in rural Indiana, so didn't know any (out) gays until college. I don't really know what my parents think of gays, but they raised me to be much more open-minded than the rednecks we lived among, so when I finally was exposed to new races, religions, and sexualities in college, my reactions were "huh, what is that?" rather than "OMG you're a freak!"

Now I'm living in Boston, and half of my babysitting short-list are lesbian or bi, the main GM in my regular gaming group is lesbian, and I once ran a long campaign where 2 of the 3 players were bi. It makes me very happy to know that my kids are going to grow up thinking that gay is normal.

[gamerguy.livejournal.com]

Sadly, the 'Really? /Never/?' comment is all too true for most of the games I've been in. No-one has family, because family is just a plot hook the GM can use against you. No couples, no romance, no flirting, /nothing/ that even smells like romance, save with the very occasional off-the-cuff comment about barmaids. No real friends save each other, and even that's doubtful at times.

It's been years since I was in a game where such things mattered. Maybe it's because everyone else /is/ married, they never think about romance again. I dunno.

[winterhawk.livejournal.com]

Happy Coming Out Day!

You know, it's funny--I play World of Warcraft (rather excessively, actually) and I'm an officer in a large guild (we have almost 500 people) on a LGBT server. It's the second largest LGBT Horde guild on the server--the largest is this huge amalgamation of linked guilds that has almost 5 *thousand* people in it. The funny (and neat, and cool) part of it is that on my server, being LGBT or LGBT-friendly is the *majority*. Nobody bats an eye when a guy talks about his boyfriend or a girl about her girlfriend. In my raid group we have both gay and straight folks, and there's no particular notice of either. Everybody just accepts you for whatever you are (like me, who's straight but not very good at being a girl--that's why I looked for a guild like that, because I got tired of all the misogyny and idiot teenage boys trying to prove how "manly" they were). It's such a breath of fresh air.

I spend so much time in the game or working (in a company that's very LGBT-accepting--my current and former bosses were/are both gay) that it almost seems weird to me to think that there's still persecution out there. Oh, I know it's there, and every time I see it, it makes me sad and angry. Why do people have to get all worked up over what amounts to a small subset of what a person is? It just seems like such a waste to me. Why not take the time to get to know people for who they *are* before you reject them because they happen to be attracted to somebody of the same gender? That's like rejecting somebody because they prefer Apple over Microsoft, or dogs over cats. Stupid.

Okay, enough rambling. But I'm looking forward to living in a world someday that's like my WoW guild. And people wonder why I spend so much of my time with my head in a fantasy world...