Come Out Come Out Wherever You Are!
I was reading an article in the Chicago Tribune today about Barry Manilow, his recent public “coming out,” and acknowledgment of his marriage to his partner of 40 years. The article talked about the mixed reactions of the public ranging from support to questions about why Manilow waited so long.
What disturbed me most about the article was its implication that coming out means we are finally living authentically. The author writes, about his own coming out: “I felt my mind clear and my stomach quiet. Life was different now. I knew that.” And later he writes “but living my truth in public outweighed all that. I was free to be me at last.”
As a social worker and therapist, I always want to support each person’s lived experience. And I know that even if one of my identities is similar to or the same as someone else’s, that person’s experience cannot be assumed to be similar to mine. So I don’t want to discount or dismiss the author’s experience of his own process of coming out.
I struggle, however, with the idea that when we come out we are finally living authentically, implying that everything that came before the act of coming out was inauthentic. And also implying that we are somehow more evolved the more “out” we are.
*This post is simultaneously posted on Live Oak’s blog: “Branching Out." Written by Jeff Levy, Co-Founder and CEO
Employee Resource Systems, Inc
7 年I think it's when we try to cram people into "one or the other" category that we get into trouble. People are so much more complex than that.