tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/coming-out-11477/articlesComing out – The Conversation2024-03-07T18:17:27Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2239102024-03-07T18:17:27Z2024-03-07T18:17:27ZWhat you should know about coming out as LGBTQ+ in your 20s and 30s<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/577029/original/file-20240221-28-gh1zf3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=241%2C101%2C5941%2C4013&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/young-women-on-street-enjoying-holding-1727996827">Ground Picture/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>For LGBTQ+ baby boomers, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/nov/15/gay-people-coming-out-younger-age">coming out in your 30s</a> was the norm. The average age to come out among Gen Z is in <a href="https://www.thetrevorproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/October-2022-Research-Brief-Final.pdf">your teens</a>. </p>
<p>Greater social acceptance and more LGBTQ+ representation in culture, such as the Netflix series <a href="https://theconversation.com/heartstopper-how-this-joyous-teen-show-contrasts-with-my-bitter-memories-of-school-life-under-homophobic-law-section-28-212139">Heartstopper</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/netflixs-sex-education-is-doing-sex-education-better-than-most-schools-170776">Sex Education</a>, are making it easier for young people to be open about their sexuality and identity. </p>
<p>Despite this, some people still don’t come out until their late 20s, 30s or later. If you are in this position, you may feel like you are “behind” younger people who are openly LGBTQ+. But you are not alone. Coming out is a process that unfolds over time, and may take longer for some than for others. </p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Quarter life, a series by The Conversation" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><em><strong><a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/quarter-life-117947?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=UK+YP2022&utm_content=InArticleTop">This article is part of Quarter Life</a></strong>, a series about issues affecting those of us in our 20s and 30s. From the challenges of beginning a career and taking care of our mental health, to the excitement of starting a family, adopting a pet or just making friends as an adult. The articles in this series explore the questions and bring answers as we navigate this turbulent period of life.</em></p>
<p><em>You may be interested in:</em></p>
<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/five-important-things-you-should-have-learned-in-sex-ed-but-probably-didnt-202177?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=UK+YP2022&utm_content=InArticleTop?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=UK+YP2022&utm_content=InArticleTop">Five important things you should have learned in sex ed – but probably didn’t</a></em></p>
<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/dating-someone-with-a-different-mother-tongue-learning-each-others-language-will-enrich-your-relationship-217748?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=UK+YP2022&utm_content=InArticleTop">Dating someone with a different mother tongue? Learning each other’s language will enrich your relationship</a></em></p>
<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/sex-education-a-sex-therapists-advice-on-having-a-successful-long-distance-relationship-215504?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=UK+YP2022&utm_content=InArticleTop">Sex Education: a sex therapist’s advice on having a successful long-distance relationship</a></em></p>
<hr>
<p>An LGBTQ+ person first has to recognise and accept their sexual orientation or gender identity, before making decisions about whether, when, and how to tell others. The time it takes to fully understand and accept your sexuality or gender and be ready to disclose it to others can vary considerably. </p>
<p>You may know that you are LGBTQ+ from a young age, or this self-discovery may happen later in life. You may experience <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-is-sexual-fluidity-33120">fluidity</a> in your <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2352250X22002184?via%3Dihub">sexuality</a> or <a href="https://srcd.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/cdep.12366">gender identity</a>, whereby your identity may shift over time. </p>
<p>If you identify as <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15299716.2015.1018657">bisexual</a> or <a href="https://globalhistorydialogues.org/projects/coming-out-as-non-binary/">non-binary</a>, you may face additional challenges such as feeling misunderstood or pressure to <a href="https://metro.co.uk/2021/12/04/im-bisexual-stop-asking-me-to-pick-a-side-15702239/">“pick a side”</a>, due to limited social understanding and stereotypes that these identities are “just a phase”.</p>
<p>If you are in your 20s or 30s, you may have received relatively little <a href="https://theconversation.com/uks-lgbt-teachers-still-scarred-by-the-legacy-of-homophobic-legislation-more-than-30-years-on-118618">LGBTQ+ inclusive relationship and sex education (RSE)</a> at school. In the UK, you may have been at school under section 28 which prohibited the “promotion” of homosexuality. The chilling effect of this law persisted even after its repeal in 2003, with many educators cautious about openly discussing LGBTQ+ topics. </p>
<p>Statutory guidance in 2020 made LGBTQ+ inclusive RSE compulsory. But it left room for <a href="https://theconversation.com/relationships-and-sex-education-review-government-must-remember-history-of-lgbtq-discrimination-in-english-schools-203008">inconsistency in how it is taught</a>.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/uks-lgbt-teachers-still-scarred-by-the-legacy-of-homophobic-legislation-more-than-30-years-on-118618">UK's LGBT teachers still scarred by the legacy of homophobic legislation more than 30 years on</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Internalised stigma</h2>
<p>If you are from a conservative religious or cultural background, you may be dealing with anti-LGBTQ+ attitudes in your family or community. This can lead to internalised stigma, shame and delayed self-acceptance. Research suggests that people from <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/19419899.2010.526627">ethnic minority communities</a> may have culturally specific challenges. </p>
<p>Coming out also isn’t one time event. You might choose different levels of openness <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1363460711420462">depending on the context</a> and may be more out in some spheres of life than others. You might be “out” to friends before telling family. It is also not always a linear process. Some people may “<a href="https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/i-ve-got-a-demon-in-me-gay-conversion-fighter-s-brave-rise-from-hell-on-earth-20230217-p5clby.html">go back into the closet</a>” due to negative reactions, experiences or social stigma. </p>
<p>My research with colleagues at Coventry University into <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/conversion-therapy-an-evidence-assessment-and-qualitative-study/conversion-therapy-an-evidence-assessment-and-qualitative-study">so-called “conversion therapy”</a> found that people who had been subjected to efforts to change their sexuality reported that they were discouraged from telling others they were LGBTQ+. Many also said that it negatively affected their mental health and delayed their self-acceptance.</p>
<p>It can take time to undo years of internalised stigma and shame, so be kind to yourself. Remember that negative thoughts and feelings about being LGBTQ+ are often rooted in messages from your social environment, not a reflection of your intrinsic worth.</p>
<h2>Challenges and benefits of coming out later</h2>
<p>While societal acceptance has progressed, coming out in your quarter life can present unique challenges. You may fear, for example, that it will impact <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1300/J041v16n02_02?casa_token=0Wd5NBRqnw0AAAAA:yYbq3lxmSnmDyIkw3SNT8dXfjY1aWUQHx6fgwbesb_bBw0EsmjeDpeIqO7hVc5xkkqra3sl8Mw">relationships</a> and friendships that you have established over many years. </p>
<p>If you <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1550428X.2021.1902448">are with a heterosexual partner</a> in early adulthood, breaking the news to them and any children from the relationship can be particularly challenging.</p>
<p>On the other hand, coming out later may give you the benefit of a more developed understanding of yourself, and greater interpersonal skills gained from more life experience. You may also have more independence from your parents, which can help if they have a negative reaction. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Two men sit on the floor with a small toddler, all playing together as a family" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/577036/original/file-20240221-26-nqxg72.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/577036/original/file-20240221-26-nqxg72.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577036/original/file-20240221-26-nqxg72.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577036/original/file-20240221-26-nqxg72.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577036/original/file-20240221-26-nqxg72.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577036/original/file-20240221-26-nqxg72.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577036/original/file-20240221-26-nqxg72.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">It’s never too late to live as your authentic self.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/loving-lgbtq-family-playing-toys-adorable-2117537102">Gorodenkoff/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>How important is coming out?</h2>
<p>Research suggests that living authentically is generally associated with <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2016-45629-001">greater psychological wellbeing</a>. But coming out is an individual choice and no one should be pressured to disclose their LGBTQ+ status to others, particularly if it may put your <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1948550611411929">safety at risk</a>. LGBTQ+ people may be at risk of <a href="https://clok.uclan.ac.uk/20996/7/20996%20LGBT%20Honour%20Report%20-%20Final%20%282018%29.pdf">“honour”-based violence or forced marriage</a> in some communities. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, concealing your identity can have <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2020-52973-001">complex mental health implications</a>. While it might protect you from discrimination, keeping your authentic self a secret can be a significant source of stress.</p>
<p>If you are newly learning about your sexuality, identifying as LGBTQ+ or thinking about coming out, finding peer support can be helpful. You may want to join an LGBTQ+ group in your community or online, confide in a trusted person or seek support from a professional or an LGBTQ+ charity. </p>
<p>No one can tell you how to identify or whether you should come out, but they may help you to clarify your sense of self, explore the pros and cons of coming out and help you navigate the process.</p>
<p>Remember, your loved ones may experience a range of emotions when you come out to them. Give them time and space to process their own feelings. While their initial reaction might not be what you hope for, it doesn’t define your future relationship. With time to adjust, your relationship may even grow stronger.</p>
<p>Everyone’s journey is unique, and deciding whether and when to come out should be guided by personal comfort and safety. Ultimately, there’s no right time to come out, and it’s never too late to live authentically.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/223910/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Adam Jowett's research on so-called conversion therapy was funded by the UK Government Equalities Office. He is Chair of the British Psychological Society's Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Board. </span></em></p>People are coming out at younger ages – but if you’re navigating your sexuality in your 20s and 30s, you aren’t alone.Adam Jowett, Associate Head, School of Psychological, Social & Behavioural Sciences, Coventry UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2071462023-08-22T20:05:27Z2023-08-22T20:05:27Z‘Religion would take my life’: two women testify to enduring and surviving harm in evangelical Christian communities<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543872/original/file-20230822-31888-w6jk3b.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C5%2C3994%2C1988&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Steph Lentz (left) and Rachel Louise Snyder (right).</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Brett Sayles/Pexels (cross), Nikko Tan/Pexels (background pews)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>I grew up in evangelical churches where “telling your story” or “sharing your testimony” was a method of converting others. </p>
<p>I understood a personal testimony to be a powerful thing. I was told no one could question your personal story, your testimony. Which in hindsight is odd, because it turns out when women share stories of harm – including religious harm – they will, in fact, often be questioned. </p>
<p>As Julia Baird <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-05-23/when-women-are-believed-the-church-will-change/9782184">notes</a>, after she and Hayley Gleeson wrote about instances of intimate partner violence <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-07-18/domestic-violence-church-submit-to-husbands/8652028">in Christian communities</a> and <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-08-18/shattering-silence-surviving-domestic-violence-in-church/8788902">shared the testimonies</a> of Christian victim-survivors, “a volcano of comment erupted”.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Review: Women We Buried, Women we Burned – Rachel Louise Snyder (Scribe); In/Out – Steph Lentz (ABC Books)</em></p>
<hr>
<p>I sit here with two memoirs full of women’s experiences. They’re each, in their own way, a testimony. Not testimonies of conversion <em>to</em> Christianity, but testimonies to surviving religious harm. </p>
<p>Rachel Louise Snyder, author of <a href="https://scribepublications.com.au/books-authors/books/women-we-buried-women-we-burned-9781922585363">Women We Buried, Women We Burned</a>, grew up in Pittsburgh and Chicago in the 1970s and 1980s. Her childhood appears clouded by grief, upheaval, family violence and the overbearing religiosity of adults: a religiosity she never shared. </p>
<p>Steph Lentz, on the other hand, was a committed Sydney Anglican. She grew up in the 1990s, fully absorbed <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/religion/joshua-harris-and-the-cruel-optimism-of-christian-purity-culture/11369762">evangelical purity culture</a>, and became an accidental “teenage fundamentalist” who, despite having crushes on girls from age nine, married her husband at 23. </p>
<p>In October 2020, Lentz – now 30, divorced, and out to “close family members and a few trusted friends” – told the Christian school where she was a teacher that she was gay. She was fired. She tells her story in <a href="https://www.harpercollins.com.au/9780733342974/inout/">In/Out: A Scandalous Story of Falling into Love and Out of the Church</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543665/original/file-20230821-29-gz6yys.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543665/original/file-20230821-29-gz6yys.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543665/original/file-20230821-29-gz6yys.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543665/original/file-20230821-29-gz6yys.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543665/original/file-20230821-29-gz6yys.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543665/original/file-20230821-29-gz6yys.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543665/original/file-20230821-29-gz6yys.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543665/original/file-20230821-29-gz6yys.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Steph Lentz was fired when she told the religious school she worked at that she was gay.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>I still believe sharing a personal story can be a powerful, almost magical thing.</p>
<p>Marta Scrabacz <a href="https://overland.org.au/2016/09/this-is-not-a-memoir-the-c-word-in-womens-writing/">says</a> when we read of women’s experiences in works of narrative non-fiction and memoir, “it allows us to share our experiences with each other”. She suggests “women write such stories for two reasons – firstly, to stop feeling alone and find women like them and, secondly, to stop the past from defining them”.</p>
<p>These memoirs are, at first glance, worlds apart. But both appear to narrate their past in order to be free of it. Synder and Lentz bring us into their personal and intimate stories. Religion is a “character” in both their books. Though the role religion plays varies, religious harm seeps through. </p>
<p>A sense of searching or longing – perhaps for answers, or justice, or maybe freedom – carries these memoirs forward. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/holy-womans-fleshy-feminist-spiritual-pilgrimage-is-a-warning-against-religious-coercive-control-185388">Holy Woman's fleshy, feminist spiritual pilgrimage is a warning against religious coercive control</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Stories of death and new beginnings</h2>
<p>Snyder’s memoir is framed by a story of new beginnings – and a story of cancer, loss and death. </p>
<p>She opens with a memory that would return to her “through the years and then the decades”. An uncle has helped fund a place on a floating, world-travelling educational program, Semester at Sea. On the ship, watching the night sky, Snyder sees day and night split across the horizon. She is in her early twenties. Looking back, she calls this moment a “reset”. It becomes her “origin story”. </p>
<p>The “reset” is a glimmer of future freedom, but we must wait for it. It will be 180 pages before Snyder takes us back to it. In the meantime, it’s overtaken by a second story.</p>
<p>Snyder swiftly moves us back in time. She is an eight-year-old child. Her mother has just died. Her mother’s death, though natural, appears as a violent interruption. It fractures her father’s life: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Her death was the one story that nothing in my dad’s life had prepared him for. And in that story, the loss of her, something of him – that gregarious, smiling, warm man beloved by strangers and family alike – disappeared too.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This death and disappearance double-act is the story at the centre of Snyder’s memoir, one that flows into the unravelling of Snyder’s family, her home, her life. </p>
<p>We make sense of ourselves and our worlds with stories. Stories can sustain us. But they can also be a source of unravelling. Sociologist <a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/L/bo9471242.html">Arthur Frank</a> puts it this way: “stories have the capacity to deal with human troubles, but also the capacity to make trouble for humans”.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-empathy-or-division-on-the-science-and-politics-of-storytelling-176679">Friday essay: empathy or division? On the science and politics of storytelling</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Making trouble: religious harm and family violence</h2>
<p>When Snyder’s father finds a new beginning in a Christian community, the reader is forewarned: “Cancer took my mother. But religion would take my life.” Snyder’s story unravels into loss, grief, family violence, running away (again and again) and homelessness. </p>
<p>Through childhood and adolescence, religion would be used against Snyder. It’s a weapon in her father’s hands. He justifies his physical violence by retelling a story that will, unfortunately, be common to many: obedience to a parent is a sign of obedience to God, discipline is an act of love, violence is an act of love. Snyder recalls:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>He’d hit us ten times, a dozen, however many it took until he felt he’d broken us down enough to be truly repentant. And then we three would pray together and repent for my sins. We’d hug. Cry, because at the end of the day it was necessary to see how all this was done out of love. God’s love and my parents’ love.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Discipline that does harm, whether in the home or in the church, can never be loving. Feminist theorist <a href="https://www.harpercollins.com.au/9780060959470/all-about-love/">bell hooks</a> writes: “Love and abuse cannot coexist.” Love, according to hooks, is “the will to nurture our own and another’s spiritual growth”.</p>
<p>There is little love of that kind during Snyder’s adolescence. </p>
<p>Snyder is kicked out of high school. At 16, she and her older siblings are kicked out of their parent’s home. She takes a string of low-paid jobs and lives in insecure housing. Her grandmother sends her to a “finishing school”, which is followed by a stint as a band manager. A music industry lover prompts her to go back to school: she gets her GED, starts college at the age of 19, and becomes “consumed” by education. </p>
<p>Education, particularly reading and writing, becomes a pathway to possibility and growth. Snyder “began to understand that writing […] was an empathetic exercise in which to examine the complexities and seeming contradictions of people”. </p>
<p>We have arrived at the moment where Snyder’s story is “reset”: on board that ship, aged 23. Writing and travel come to “define” Snyder’s world. This is her fourth book, following two works of investigative journalism and a novel.</p>
<p>Later, as a journalist living in Cambodia, Snyder reflects she was on a “sacred pursuit: to learn as best I could how different lives could be lived, different belief systems understood”. Far away from the American evangelicalism she grew up with, there is peace. </p>
<h2>Doing damage</h2>
<p>On the other side of the world, in Sydney, the stories of evangelical Christianity also make trouble for Lentz.</p>
<p>While Snyder slowly walks her reader through her life, to places of pain and harm <em>and</em> to places of personal and spiritual growth, Lentz starts by recounting her picture-perfect Sydney Anglican life. Against this backdrop, she takes us to the point where the glue holding together her belief system, her marriage and her world come unstuck. </p>
<p>Synder begins with a world unravelling; Lentz is on her way there. A third of the way into In/Out, Lentz reflects:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>With my husband of five years by my side, via an old school friend, on the day a new church was born, I met the woman at whose hands I would, over the next three years be taken apart. That day snagged the thread that unravelled my world, and hers. One year on from that day, my life would be unrecognisable. Two years on, I would be on my way to the bottom of the pit I had to walk through. Eventually, I would begin to rebuild. The process would be excruciating and ludicrously slow. It remains a work in progress. But first, I had to do some damage.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Lentz declares she will do damage – and yes, we could count an affair, a divorce and fractured friendships as damage done by her. But the church culture she grew up in, which taught her homosexuality was sinful and incompatible with Christian faith, had already done damage of its own.</p>
<h2>Christianity, sexuality and religious harm</h2>
<p>Religiously informed LGBTQ+ change and suppression practices <a href="https://www.latrobe.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0007/1201588/Healing-spiritual-harms-Supporting-recovery-from-LGBTQA-change-and-suppression-practices.pdf">cause harm</a>. This is not only true of intentional activities – such as praying for a change in sexuality – but of communities, <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/sydney-anglicans-say-same-sex-desire-an-inclination-toward-evil-20230816-p5dx1o.html">including the Sydney Anglican Diocese</a>, that teach homosexuality is wrong, evil or sinful. Simply hearing that message is harmful. </p>
<p>Continually telling a story that places queer people outside faith communities causes <a href="https://theconversation.com/i-will-never-be-considered-human-the-devastating-trauma-lgbtq-people-suffer-in-religious-settings-176360">harm and trauma for queer people</a>. And it renders queer religious people <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/religion/religious-discrimination-debate-and-spiritual-harm/13747818">invisible</a>.</p>
<p>In/Out was written after Lentz lost her job. She boldly invites the reader into her experience of religious harm. She provides an intensely personal, intimate account of the way Christian culture – and religiously informed stories – can both inform and limit how we understand ourselves. </p>
<p>For Lentz – as for many people – Christianity’s place in her life is complex. Through her teenage years, church life was experienced as a welcoming refuge, providing a secure identity and place in the world. </p>
<p>Yet belonging to an evangelical community is often contingent on the “right” expression of gender and sexuality. For Lentz, it was a harmful space that prohibited her from understanding her own sexuality. Lentz’s writing excels when she begins to grapple with how the church, as an institution, stretches into her personal life:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>My own marriage had a lot to do with churchmen’s fear about the collapse of patriarchy; my sense of self was shaped by a hierarchical institution ruled by a text covered in the fingerprints of the men looking to keep control.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The legacy of those fingerprints is sexism, exclusion and gendered harm.</p>
<p>For those who have been harmed, or who are still in a place of harm, Lentz’s book may remind them they are not alone. It may give permission to read the Bible differently and to seek welcoming, inclusive communities where they are free to do gender, sexuality and religion (if they want) in a way that honours the complexity of their identity. This is a good thing.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/were-told-pentecostal-churches-like-hillsong-are-growing-in-australia-but-theyre-not-anymore-is-there-a-gender-problem-199413">We're told Pentecostal churches like Hillsong are growing in Australia, but they're not anymore – is there a gender problem?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>A scandalous story</h2>
<p>In/Out is positioned by its subtitle as a “scandalous story”. In this regard, Lentz delivers. She recounts in detail what it was like to finally let herself fall in love with a woman. She shares the thrill and the mess of that relationship. We share in her emotional ride. We are with her as she discovers sexual intimacy, as she expects to feel guilt, but feels calm:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I was committing the sins of adultery and lying and homosexuality […] I waited for the sense of wrongness to kick in. I waited for God’s judgement to fall upon me in some manner or other. But nothing happened. If anything, I felt closer to God: finally, neither of us was pretending I was that good Christian woman anymore. Instead of condemnation, I experienced deep calm.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>We are also with Lentz when she attends an affirming church and is welcomed – but no longer feels at home in Christian spaces. </p>
<p>We are with Lentz when she meets with her school principal and HR manager. Here she tells “the story about my dawning of awareness of my sexuality”. And in telling this story, she sets in motion a conversation with the school which would lead to her being fired: “As letters went back and forth betweeen the school and me, it became clear the Board did not see a future for a gay teacher among its staff.” </p>
<p>Given the school understood homosexuality <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/national/steph-lentz-was-sacked-this-year-for-being-gay-it-was-perfectly-legal-20210809-p58gzv.html">to be a threat to salvation</a>, the risk of keeping Lentz on staff was too high.</p>
<p>Sure, there is some sexy content in the pages of Lentz’s memoir, but perhaps the real scandal is the mess of <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-debate-about-religious-discrimination-is-back-so-why-do-we-keep-hearing-about-religious-freedom-169643">state and federal discrimination laws across Australia</a>, which continue to frame religious freedom and LGBTQ+ rights as in competition. Those laws risk failing those who most need protection. </p>
<h2>‘The goal is simply to endure’</h2>
<p>Lentz races through her book. She gives the reader few moments to pause. Perhaps she is still searching for a place to pause, to start again. I found myself hurriedly turning pages, wanting to know about the process of recovering from religious harm, or of what trauma theologian <a href="https://scmpress.hymnsam.co.uk/books/9780334060932/the-dark-womb">Karen O’Donnell</a> calls post-traumatic remaking. </p>
<p>While some people may seek recovery from religious and spiritual trauma, others know they can never recover the person they were before. O’Donnell explains: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>the experience of the trauma survivor is not a simple wiping clean of the self from the experience of trauma but rather a more complex and arduous work. […] what is the goal of the trauma survivor in this aftermath? It is not transcending trauma, nor finding solutions to the dilemmas of survival. The goal is simply to endure.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Snyder’s memoir is a masterful case study in endurance and survival. As a reader, there is time to sit with child Rachel in her sadness, and with teenage Rachel in her confusion, anger and despair. In the midst of pain, there are beautiful and tender moments. </p>
<p>After crying through her father’s second marriage, Snyder is embraced by her grandfather: “I felt my grandfather’s hand on my head. He didn’t say anything. He just held his hand there on me in stillness.” </p>
<p>This stillness embeds in my mind. I feel I am there in the basement of the church, feeling both the anguish and the comfort. I can pause, exhale. I can start again – and again – with Snyder, after every loss, every setback. Snyder’s writing is consistently measured, yet deeply moving.</p>
<p>Snyder also holds out glimmers of hope. On the cruise, at the moment of her “origin story”, she learns a lesson about death. It’s a lesson that resists shallow causality (your mum died so that you could …). Actually, it’s a lesson on how to live. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>My mom’s early death had been a warning shot, a directive about life itself […] it wasn’t a betrayal to her memory to seek a life in which joy was deliberate. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Do we know how to deliberately seek joy? To allow ourselves to be joyful? Maybe we are always in the process of learning these sorts of lessons.</p>
<p>Lentz closes her book saying she’s “growing up all over again, learning who I am, learning to choose”. </p>
<h2>Freedom from the past</h2>
<p>Freedom from the past comes from being able to narrate our stories truthfully. </p>
<p>Lentz finds freedom “Closer to the chaos at the heart of living”. She reflects:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It was not a freedom like the one that had been sold to me, squashed into a small box of constrained choices and limited options. […] It was freedom to be patient with mystery.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>For Snyder, freedom is knowing she doesn’t have to say her parents “did the best they could under the circumstances with the resources they had”. Freedom is knowing this isn’t true. And so, Snyder can say: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I gave myself the freedom to live with a different historical narrative. And in the strangest way this lifted my anger. […] I would no longer carry this burden. They could view our collective past through whatever lens they wanted, but I was going to free myself.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>You can’t undo what was done. None of us can. But in holding and telling your story truthfully, you can recover your agency and sense of self. In this, there is hope. Your story may or may not be a method for converting others. But the opportunity to tell it can be freeing.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/207146/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rosie Clare is a feminist researcher interested in religion and gender. She grew up in the Sydney Anglican Diocese, and recently completed PhD research focused on the lived experiences of Sydney Anglicans. </span></em></p>New memoirs by Rachel Louise Snyder and Steph Lentz chart the territory of being shaped by an ill-fitting version of strict Christianity – and their struggle to free themselves.Rosie Clare Shorter, Research fellow, Deakin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2115752023-08-15T15:56:34Z2023-08-15T15:56:34ZAdults: how a sex play about boomers v millennials brings both together<p>Kieran Hurley’s new play <a href="https://www.traverse.co.uk/whats-on/event/adults-festival-23">Adults</a> brilliantly illuminates an intergenerational clash that should leave <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2008/06/25/baby-boomers-the-gloomiest-generation/">boomers</a> (born between 1945 and 1964) and <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2019/01/17/where-millennials-end-and-generation-z-begins/">millennials</a> (born between 1981 and 1996) in the audience with a little more empathy for each other.</p>
<p>It all starts entertainingly when a strawberry milkshake bursts open in the face of Iain (Conleth Hill) just as he arrives early at the flat of thirtysomething Zara (Dani Heron). Zara is a sex worker who runs her business from home “collectively and ethically”.</p>
<p>Iain, in his 60s, married with two grown-up daughters, is completely out of his comfort zone and there to have sex with a young man: Zara’s business partner, Jay (Anders Hayward), who is running late.</p>
<p>As Iain wipes the pink goo from his face, Zara recognises him as her former teacher Mr Urquhart. And so Hurley sets up his character triangle. For the next 80 minutes, the audience has the pleasure of watching Zara, Iain and Jay argue with, blackmail, and eventually simply hold each other across the generational divide.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/apr/29/millennials-struggling-is-it-fault-of-baby-boomers-intergenerational-fairness">spat</a> between boomers and millennials has been rumbling on for the last few years, pitting the former against their children’s/grandchildren’s generation who are viewed as whiny, lazy snowflakes with an overinflated sense of entitlement.</p>
<p>Conversely, millennials view boomers as the generation that took everything, ruined everything, and have left very little for those who came after. As journalist David Barnett has succinctly <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/millenials-generation-x-baby-boomers-a7570326.html">pointed out</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Boomers live in the past and have ransomed the future. Millennials fear the future and are ignorant of the past.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Envy, resentment, misunderstanding</h2>
<p>Disappointed expectations and repressed resentment bubble up during Zara’s and Iain’s initial confrontation, which plays out in her small one-bedroom flat while she matter-of-factly turns her living space into a brothel, replete with dildo collection (set and costume design: Anna Orton).</p>
<p>Zara, a literature graduate now earning money through sex work, begrudges the older generation their safe careers and settled lifestyles, and resents her teacher for instilling in her the bogus belief she could do anything with her life. Iain, meanwhile, feels trapped and envies the younger generation their seeming freedom, abandon and sexual confidence.</p>
<p>Both are deliberately ignoring the fact that the object of their envy is a fantasy. Iain is oblivious to the fact that the carefreeness of the younger generation (the young men he watches in his videos) is largely performed for a capitalist market that values only these qualities.</p>
<p>Zara’s resentment, meanwhile, doesn’t take into account that the apparent safety of her teacher’s generation came at the expense of not pursuing other, maybe more exciting or fulfilling alternatives.</p>
<p>Their debate treads the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/apr/29/millennials-struggling-is-it-fault-of-baby-boomers-intergenerational-fairness">familiar territory</a> of millennial precarity versus boomer affluence, but is nonetheless supremely entertaining. Spontaneous applause rewards Zara’s viciously eloquent takedown of Iain’s cherished memories of reading his kids Thomas the Tank Engine, which, according to Zara, is simply “pseudo-imperialist nostalgic colonial nonsense … some big nostalgic cry-wank for a lost idea of Britain”. </p>
<p>However, once Jay arrives, with his infant daughter screaming in the pram, the stakes are raised considerably. While Zara berates him for bringing his daughter to work, he insists that she owes him money, thus revealing her talk of an ethical and “non-hierarchical business practice” as hypocritical.</p>
<p>Jay needs money to secure shared custody of his daughter. And when the little one finally goes to sleep, he puts all his expertise into performing the willing, lascivious little “twink” to seduce the inhibited Iain and earn his money.</p>
<h2>Comedy and tragedy</h2>
<p>Hayward and Hill (who played Varys, Master of the Whisperers, in Game of Thrones) excel in this seduction scene that alternates beautifully between moments of physical comedy and verbal exchanges that reveal profound sadness. Hill’s Iain, a sexually inexperienced older man who has never explored his desires, gradually develops into a tentative, then enthusiastic punter who enjoys roleplay – only to revert to the condescending, middle-class teacher who judges Jay for how he earns his money and is scathing about his parenting.</p>
<p>Hayward’s Jay writhes seductively on the floor, performs the invested listener and works his literal butt off, but draws the line at being insulted. When he vindictively posts a compromising picture of Iain on Facebook, the secrets that Iain and Zara have kept from their families are revealed.</p>
<p>Roxana Silbert’s confident direction lets the play text breathe and leaves room for her actors to insert some well-timed physical comedy – Hill sliding/falling off various bits of furniture hits the spot every time. </p>
<p>In the end, Iain, shocked but also relieved that he has nothing more to lose, comes clean to his wife in the face of his very public outing. The humbled Zara acknowledges in yet another reference to children’s literature, this time <a href="https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-lorax/dr-seuss/9780007455935">The Lorax by Dr Seuss</a>, that she just might be a “Once-ler” too – meaning to “accept that the world you’re passing on is in a worse state than when you inherited it”.</p>
<p>Before the lights go out, we see Jay, the overwhelmed millennial father, lying on the bed holding the sobbing Iain, while offstage the voice of his crying baby clamours for attention to the coming generation.</p>
<p>With Adults, Hurley, a millennial author himself, seems to appeal to his own generation to let go of their rage, be more understanding of their elders, and accept that, one day, they too will to be blamed for the future. Because as it turns out, confirms Iain: “Everyone always grows up thinking it’s the end of the world.”</p>
<p><em>Adults is showing until August 27 at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh</em></p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><em>Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/something-good-156">Sign up here</a>.</em></p>
<hr><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/211575/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ann-Christine Simke is affiliated with the theatre company Stellar Quines. She is a member of the board for the company.</span></em></p>Kieran Hurley’s new play treads the familiar debate of millennial precarity versus boomer affluence with verve and insight.Ann-Christine Simke, Lecturer in Performance, University of the West of ScotlandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1873382022-08-19T12:42:06Z2022-08-19T12:42:06ZCollege students are increasingly identifying beyond ‘she’ and ‘he’<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/479270/original/file-20220816-12-9kslx6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=33%2C0%2C7315%2C4891&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">'They/them' are among the most popular pronouns, but many students are devising new pronouns to identify their gender.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/woman-wears-graduation-cap-and-gown-showing-gay-royalty-free-image/1158696624?adppopup=true">Spiderplay via Getty Imagges</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When students today fill out their college applications, they are not just identifying as “she” or “he.” More than 3% of incoming college students use a different set of pronouns. That’s according to <a href="https://www.gennyb.com/research/2022-common-app/">my analysis</a> of the more than 1.2 million applications submitted for the 2022-23 school year through the <a href="https://www.commonapp.org">Common App</a>, an online application platform used by more than 900 colleges.</p>
<p>While 3% may not seem like a lot, it represents nearly 37,000 students. It is also indicative of a growing number of young people who identify outside of a gender binary – that is, they do not identify as female or male. For example, the percentage of college students who indicated that they are nonbinary on one national survey has more than tripled from <a href="https://www.acha.org/documents/ncha/NCHA-II_FALL_2016_UNDERGRADUATE_REFERENCE_GROUP_DATA_REPORT.pdf">1.4%</a> in 2016 to <a href="https://www.acha.org/documents/ncha/NCHA-III_SPRING_2022_UNDERGRAD_REFERENCE_GROUP_DATA_REPORT.pdf">5.1</a> in 2022.</p>
<h2>Beyond the binary</h2>
<p>In analyzing the data from the Common App, I found that 2.2% of students – more than 26,000 individuals – who applied to college for this fall identified as transgender or nonbinary. This figure is likely an undercount because some students may be reluctant to indicate their gender identity on an admissions form. For instance, students often complete their college applications with their families and are unlikely to state that they are trans or nonbinary if they are not out to them.</p>
<p>The leaders of the Common App provided me with data from the college applications for the 2022-23 school year so that I could analyze how students today identify their gender and what pronouns they use. Students’ names and other identifying information were withheld.</p>
<p>In looking at how students named their gender and pronouns on the Common App, two contrasting trends stood out to me. </p>
<p>One is the number of ways that nonbinary students have developed to describe their gender. Whereas trans people used relatively few gender identity labels for themselves <a href="https://www.gennyb.com/genny-beemyn/publications/chapter-being-genderqueer/">when I came out as nonbinary in the late 1990s</a>, these students provided approximately 130 different genders and about 78 different pronoun sets – from “<a href="https://pronoun.fandom.com/wiki/Ae/Aer">ae/aem</a>,” which was first used in a 1920 science fiction novel with third-gender characters who were born from air, to “<a href="https://pronoun.fandom.com/wiki/Ze/Zir">ze/zir</a>,” which is likely based on the German plural third-person pronoun “sie.”</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/479941/original/file-20220818-2873-tnodgw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="An assortment of buttons that feature a variety of different pronouns." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/479941/original/file-20220818-2873-tnodgw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/479941/original/file-20220818-2873-tnodgw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479941/original/file-20220818-2873-tnodgw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479941/original/file-20220818-2873-tnodgw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479941/original/file-20220818-2873-tnodgw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479941/original/file-20220818-2873-tnodgw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479941/original/file-20220818-2873-tnodgw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Young people are using a growing variety of pronouns to refer to themselves.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Stonewall Center, University of Massachusetts, Amherst</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Unique expressions</h2>
<p>Through their use of different gender labels and pronouns, young nonbinary people are making detailed distinctions between different gender identities and showing how gender is unique to the individual. For example, the most common gender identity written in by the students was “genderfluid,” which was given by more than 40% of the write-ins. At the same time, many students named the specific way that their gender is fluid, such as <a href="https://gender.fandom.com/wiki/Genderfae">genderfae individuals</a>, whose gender can be fluid between feminine genders, nonbinary genders and genderlessness but which does not encompass masculine genders. </p>
<p>In contrast to the proliferation of gender labels, the other major trend among the college applicants was the common use of “they/them” pronouns. </p>
<p>Of the students who went by pronouns other than just “she/her” or “he/him,” nearly 97% indicated using “they/them” as one of their pronoun sets. Just 19 students reported using only neopronouns, or new pronouns – that is, third-person singular pronouns other than the common ones of she, he, they and it – for themselves. </p>
<p>The use of “they/them” in the singular is not new. The practice goes back <a href="https://public.oed.com/blog/a-brief-history-of-singular-they/">at least to the 1300s</a>. The singular “they/them” fell out of favor in the 1800s, <a href="https://blogs.illinois.edu/view/25/331699#:%7E:text=Before%20you%20light%20145%20candles,it%20only%20grudgingly%20accepted%20women.">when “he/him” began to be widely used generically</a> to refer to someone in the third person, despite opposition from many women.</p>
<h2>Questions of acceptance</h2>
<p>Unlike <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/third-person-gender-neutral-pronoun-thon#:%7E:text=in%20their%20dictionary.-,thon.,obvious%20analogy%2C%20and%20is%20euphonious">earlier attempts to create a singular third-person pronoun</a>, the singular “they/them” <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2021/06/gender-neutral-pronouns-arent-new/619092">has caught on in the larger society</a>. It is considered appropriate language by <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/singular-nonbinary-they">online dictionaries</a>, <a href="https://apastyle.apa.org/blog/singular-they#:%7E:text=When%20should%20I%20use%20the,%E2%80%9Cthey%E2%80%9D%20as%20their%20pronoun.">writing style guidelines</a> and the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-post-drops-the-mike--and-the-hyphen-in-e-mail/2015/12/04/ccd6e33a-98fa-11e5-8917-653b65c809eb_story.html">news media</a>. “They” in the singular was even declared “<a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/woty2019-top-looked-up-words-they#:%7E:text=Merriam%2DWebster's%20Word%20of%20the%20Year%20is%20determined%20by%20data,Year%20for%202019%20is%20they">word of the year</a>” by Merriam-Webster in 2019. The American Dialect Society designated “they” as “<a href="https://www.americandialect.org/2019-word-of-the-year-is-my-pronouns-word-of-the-decade-is-singular-they#:%7E:text=3%E2%80%94In%20its%2030th%20annual,Decade%20(2010%2D2019)">word of the decade</a>” for the 2010s.</p>
<p>The widespread usage of “they/them” may be a recognition by many nonbinary students of the difficulty of getting others to use pronouns that may not be well known even in trans communities. This was my own experience.</p>
<p>When I came out as nonbinary decades ago, I asked others to use “<a href="https://pronoun.fandom.com/wiki/Ze/Hir">ze/hir</a>” – pronounced “zee” and “here” – for me. But few people did. Unlike “they/them,” it was not language they knew or were comfortable using. After a few years, I decided to go by “they/them” and found people generally more willing and readily able to respect my identity. It certainly helped that I worked in higher education directing an LGBTQ+ center.</p>
<h2>Challenges remain</h2>
<p>Despite <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/08/style/neopronouns-nonbinary-explainer.html">the growing visibility of neopronouns today</a>, people who use these pronouns still struggle to get others to learn and respect them. Neopronouns are hardly more accepted in the larger society now than they were when I used them in the late 1990s, or when they <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/whats-your-pronoun-beyond-he-she/oclc/1102468443&referer=brief_results">were proposed as early as the 1700s</a>.</p>
<p>To learn all the genders and pronouns used by nonbinary people today would be a difficult task and never-ending, as more and more genders and pronouns will undoubtedly continue to be devised. </p>
<p>But knowing all possible gender options should not be the point. What I think matters is knowing how the people in our lives see their gender and what pronouns they use for themselves and then using these pronouns. </p>
<p>This may involve learning different words to refer to someone, but people are always learning new terms. How many people knew the word “coronavirus” five years ago? </p>
<p>Using new pronouns for others affirms who they are and enables them to feel respected and seen. For many young nonbinary people who <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/soin.12482">report that they are often misgendered</a>, receiving support for their gender identities can <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jadohealth.2018.02.003">improve their mental health and reduce their sense of social stigma</a>. It really does not take much to learn to use pronouns like “ze/hir” or “xe/xem” (pronounced “zee” and “zem”), but it can go a long way toward building a positive relationship with someone and creating an inclusive culture for nonbinary people.</p>
<p><em>Article updated to reflect survey data from 2022.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/187338/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Genny Beemyn does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>An analysis of college applications reveals that 3% of US students use pronouns other than the traditional “he” or “she” binary.Genny Beemyn, Director, Stonewall Center, UMass AmherstLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1486002021-11-16T19:14:15Z2021-11-16T19:14:15Z‘Coming Out,’ the East German film that premiered when the Berlin Wall fell, is still relevant today<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/432053/original/file-20211115-15-8fuwoj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=12%2C20%2C1221%2C625&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Matthias Freihof played lead character Philipp in 'Coming Out.'</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(DEFA-Stiftung/Wolfgang Fritsche)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Coming Out</em>, the first and only feature <a href="https://ecommerce.umass.edu/defa/film/3538">film about homosexuality made in East Germany</a>, premiered on Nov. 9, 1989 — <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/cold-war/berlin-wall">the day the Berlin Wall fell</a>. Now, 32 years later, the film, which appears this year on DVD in a newly restored version, still has great relevance for viewers.</p>
<p><a href="https://ecommerce.umass.edu/defa/sites/default/files/Coming%20Out%20in%20East%20Germany_by%20Kyle%20Frackman.pdf"><em>Coming Out</em> is</a> first and foremost about the experiences of LGBTQ people in <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/east-germany-a-failed-experiment-in-dictatorship/a-50717157">the German Democratic Republic (GDR)</a>. Its primary focus is gay men, centred on the young and enthusiastic teacher Philipp (Matthias Freihof), a white German man. But the film also reveals a society with more challenges than were publicly discussed, like <a href="https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2021/country-chapters/germany">racism and xenophobia, that persist in Germany today</a>. </p>
<p>Through narrative and cinematographic means, the film <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/glal.12208">presents an affirmative message for positive inclusive social change, while also highlighting the dissonance</a> between socialist utopian rhetoric and who is excluded from its mainstream norms. <em>Coming Out</em> tests the limits of socialist utopia by documenting the different ways marginalization is manifest in this society.</p>
<h2>Rights, responsibilities of citizens</h2>
<p>Watching and thinking about <em>Coming Out</em> today can be a reminder that the legacy of both the film and the country in which it was produced fluctuates and continues to be shaped by current events. </p>
<p>The GDR can conjure thoughts of communism, repression and scarcity. In the decades since its collapse, East Germany has also been a metaphor for Germans to think about their past as well as their present. For example, the hit film <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/09/movies/09live.html?smid=url-share"><em>The Lives of Others</em></a> (2006, directed by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck) — which won the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/nov/23/how-we-made-the-lives-of-others-stasi-florian-henckel-von-donnersmarck-sebastian-koch">2007 Oscar for best foreign language film</a> — leads audiences to think about privacy, surveillance and the rights and responsibilities of citizens. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="An image of a portion of spraypainted wall." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/431762/original/file-20211113-15-1kxzhzz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/431762/original/file-20211113-15-1kxzhzz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431762/original/file-20211113-15-1kxzhzz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431762/original/file-20211113-15-1kxzhzz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431762/original/file-20211113-15-1kxzhzz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431762/original/file-20211113-15-1kxzhzz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431762/original/file-20211113-15-1kxzhzz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘Coming Out’ premiered on Nov. 9, 1989, the day the Berlin Wall fell.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Luis Diego Hernandez/Unsplash)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Struggle against state censorship</h2>
<p>In <em>Coming Out</em>, Philipp enters a relationship with a colleague, Tanja (Dagmar Manzel), who eventually gets pregnant. An unexpected visit by Tanja’s gay friend Jakob (Axel Wandtke) sends Philipp into a tailspin of doubt, which leads him to explore his identity in the gay bars of East Berlin. </p>
<p>This exploration of the bars leads to his short-lived relationship with Matthias (Dirk Kummer), whose suicide attempt opens the film, and who moves on from Philipp to pursue another relationship. Although Philipp’s personal and professional lives crumble into disarray because of his struggles with his sexuality, leaving him alone at the end of the film, he is shown to be content and assured in his own identity.</p>
<p>East German films were produced in the state-run studios <a href="https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9781137322302">called DEFA</a>, an abbreviation for German Film Company (<em>Deutsche Film-Aktiengesellschaft</em>). By the late 1980s, some of the customary restrictions and censorship that were present in DEFA had eased somewhat. </p>
<p>The film’s acclaimed East German director <a href="https://ecommerce.umass.edu/defa/people/456">Heiner Carow</a> (1929–97) was vice-president of the GDR Academy of Arts and made the hit cult film <a href="https://eastgermancinema.com/2010/09/14/paul-und-paula/"><em>The Legend of Paul and Paula</em></a> in 1972. For years he struggled against state censorship and the ingrained prejudice in DEFA before he received approval to make <em>Coming Out</em>.</p>
<p>In East Germany, male homosexuality was decriminalized in 1968, but it remained largely a taboo in public life. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/DykM_EPZdfM?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">‘Coming Out’ trailer.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In 1988, the year before <em>Coming Out</em> premiered, a short documentary called <a href="https://hcommons.org/deposits/item/hc:19557/"><em>The Other Love</em></a> was released. This documentary featured interviews with lesbians, gay men and their family members who talked about their lives and the challenges they faced. The documentary encouraged positive acceptance of lesbians and gay men, but was limited in its focus on urban life.</p>
<p>The focus in <em>Coming Out</em> is on homosexuality in East Germany, but Carow also wanted to illustrate issues of marginalization more broadly. </p>
<h2>No tolerance for ‘deviation’</h2>
<p>The filmmaker’s goal was to show how what was considered normal in East German society could create an oppressive and sometimes violent context for what deviated from that norm. Another way the film shows this is to highlight other forms of discrimination: racism and xenophobia.</p>
<p>In one scene, Philipp and his students witness three neo-Nazis assaulting a Black man (Pierre Sanoussi-Bliss) in a subway car while the passengers ignore what is happening. Philipp breaks up the attack and becomes the skinheads’ new target, leading his students to get involved, pushing and yelling at the attackers. </p>
<p>In <em>Coming Out</em>, the inclusion of the neo-Nazis’ assault and Philipp’s intervention both reminds (or informs) the audience of this racialized violence in the GDR and shows the importance of resistance even if only through disruption. Since its founding in 1949, East Germany had considered itself to be an <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/43697338">anti-fascist country</a>. </p>
<h2>True successor?</h2>
<p>The GDR saw itself as the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/10848779908579948">true successor</a> to Germany’s pre-Nazi cultural history, not its capitalist counterpart to the west, the Federal Republic of Germany. </p>
<p>The country’s anti-fascist policies, however, did not eliminate far-right ideologies. Reports of far-right violence do not appear in East German newspapers until 1988, although there were incidents long before then. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1991/10/01/world/a-wave-of-attacks-on-foreigners-stirs-shock-in-germany.html?smid=url-share">Racist attacks intensified in the years following unification</a>. </p>
<p>The worst attacks took place in <a href="https://nyti.ms/29nyo2M">Hoyerswerda</a> in 1991, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1992/08/26/world/german-neonazis-firebomb-foreigners-housing.html">Rostock</a> in 1992, <a href="https://nyti.ms/29hj9eH">Mölln</a> in 1992 and <a href="https://nyti.ms/29dSUpE">Solingen</a> in 1993, and became symbols of the terrorism perpetrated in the early 1990s.</p>
<p>Even in more recent years, extremist violence <a href="https://nyti.ms/2DcAkLW">continues to be a source of concern</a> in Germany. Terrorism increased once more after Germany accepted many refugees and asylum-seekers starting in 2015. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/15/angela-merkel-defends-germanys-handling-of-refugee-influx">German Chancellor Angela Merkel remarked</a> that it was the nature of Germany as a nation to welcome those in need. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="An election campaign sign has been defaced with a Hitler moustache." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/432046/original/file-20211115-22-1cw6b2m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/432046/original/file-20211115-22-1cw6b2m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/432046/original/file-20211115-22-1cw6b2m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/432046/original/file-20211115-22-1cw6b2m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/432046/original/file-20211115-22-1cw6b2m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/432046/original/file-20211115-22-1cw6b2m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/432046/original/file-20211115-22-1cw6b2m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A vandalized election campaign poster for the far-right Alternative for Germany party stands on a road in Magdeburg, Germany, in June 2021. Magdeburg was part of the GDR.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Rights of minority populations</h2>
<p>Despite many welcoming gestures, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/germany-unnerved-by-scores-of-xenophobic-attacks-against-refugees/2015/08/16/eada9284-3fb1-11e5-b2c4-af4c6183b8b4_story.html">there were many attacks</a> that mirrored the violence in the years following German unification. Another geographic connection to the xenophobic sentiments is the far-right political party Alternative for Germany (AfD), <a href="https://nyti.ms/2yV1cgu">which entered Germany’s parliament for the first time following elections in 2017</a>. The AfD’s most reliable voters have been <a href="https://nyti.ms/2GoDnEy">found in the east</a>, as <a href="https://theconversation.com/german-election-continuing-popularity-of-far-right-afd-has-roots-in-east-west-divide-167844">seen in recent German elections</a>.</p>
<p>East Germany’s dissolution wasn’t certain when <em>Coming Out</em> premiered, but there had been serious <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/how-east-germans-peacefully-brought-the-gdr-regime-down/a-50743302">upheaval and demands for change</a>.</p>
<p><em>Coming Out</em> serves as a reminder that it’s the responsibility of every society to protect the rights of minority populations.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/148600/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kyle Frackman has collaborated with the DEFA Film Library at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, which will release the restored version of "Coming Out" on DVD, including curating the special features of the DVD. He is also the author of "Coming Out" (2022, Camden House), a book about the film. He receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), which has supported research related to this film.</span></em></p>More than 30 years after the Berlin Wall fell, the re-release of the East German film ‘Coming Out’ reminds us that protecting minority populations’ rights is every society’s responsibility.Kyle Frackman, Associate Professor of German and Scandinavian Studies, University of British ColumbiaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1707642021-10-29T12:36:39Z2021-10-29T12:36:39ZHow much longer will Major League Baseball stay in the closet?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/429168/original/file-20211028-23-1s0j8ki.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=9%2C9%2C6211%2C4138&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">While the league has taken steps to make baseball more welcoming for LGBTQ employees and fans, no active player has come out.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/vanessa-williams-proposes-to-her-girlfriend-megan-coombs-in-news-photo/1310310612?adppopup=true">Spencer Platt/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In his 1990 autobiography, “<a href="https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-451-17029-3">Behind the Mask: My Double Life in Baseball</a>,” Dave Pallone, a gay major league umpire who was quietly fired in 1988 after rumors about his sexual orientation circulated in the baseball world, contended that there were enough gay major league players to create an All-Star team.</p>
<p>Since then, attitudes and laws about homosexuality have changed. High-profile figures in business, politics, show business, education, the media, the military and sports have come out of the closet. </p>
<p>Athletes in three of the five major U.S. male team sports – the NBA, NFL and MLS – have come out while still playing, with <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-its-such-a-big-deal-that-the-nfls-carl-nassib-came-out-as-gay-163228">NFL player Carl Nassib</a> and <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/19/us/luke-prokop-comes-out-nhl-trnd/index.html">NHL prospect Luke Prokop</a> coming out in summer 2021. Meanwhile, <a href="https://www.outsports.com/olympics/2021/7/12/22565574/tokyo-summer-olympics-lgbtq-gay-athletes-list">according to OutSports magazine</a>, at least 185 publicly out LGBTQ athletes – 90% of them women – participated in the Tokyo Olympic Games, more than in all previous Summer Olympics combined.</p>
<p>But among the <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/">more than 20,000 men</a> who have played major league baseball, not one has publicly come out of the closet while still in uniform.</p>
<p>What’s taken so long? And is baseball ready for its gay Jackie Robinson? </p>
<h2>Two ex-players pave the way</h2>
<p>“I think we’re getting close,” <a href="http://billybean.com/">Billy Bean</a>, the only openly gay former major league player alive today, recently told me. “We’re making incredible strides.” </p>
<p>Bean played for the Detroit Tigers, Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres for parts of six seasons, hiding his homosexuality from his friends, fans and teammates at great emotional cost. He quit baseball in 1995 and four years later publicly came out. In 2003 he published a book, “<a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Going_the_Other_Way.html?id=ngidGSutPvUC">Going the Other Way: Lessons from a Life In and Out of Major League Baseball</a>,” in which he describes the anguish of being a closeted ballplayer. In 2014, then-Commissioner Bud Selig hired Bean as Major League Baseball’s first Ambassador for Inclusion.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/429161/original/file-20211028-26-1ovgbwd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Man gazes out window." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/429161/original/file-20211028-26-1ovgbwd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/429161/original/file-20211028-26-1ovgbwd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=799&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429161/original/file-20211028-26-1ovgbwd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=799&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429161/original/file-20211028-26-1ovgbwd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=799&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429161/original/file-20211028-26-1ovgbwd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1004&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429161/original/file-20211028-26-1ovgbwd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1004&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429161/original/file-20211028-26-1ovgbwd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1004&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">After retiring from baseball, Glenn Burke talked about the difficulties of coming out as a professional athlete.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/AIDSBurke/ad2a4d54728241889454cc61fb5b5e4e/photo?Query=glenn%20burke&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:asc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=33&currentItemNo=9">AP Photo/Mark Hundley</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Bean was the second major league baseball player to come out of the closet after hanging up his spikes. The first, Glenn Burke, played for the Dodgers and Oakland Athletics between 1976 and 1979. He came out publicly in 1982 in an Inside Sports article, “<a href="https://deadspin.com/the-double-life-of-a-gay-dodger-493697377">The Double Life of a Gay Dodger</a>.”</p>
<p>“It’s harder to be gay in sports than anywhere else, except maybe president,” said Burke. “Baseball is probably the hardest sport of all.”</p>
<p>In his autobiography, “<a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/318320/out-at-home-by-glenn-burke-erik-sherman/9780698196612">Out at Home</a>,” published shortly after he died of AIDS in 1995, Burke recalled: “I got used to the ‘fag’ jokes. You heard them everywhere then.”</p>
<p>No other ex-major league baseball player – much less one still in uniform – has yet followed in Bean’s and Burke’s footsteps.</p>
<h2>A lingering stain of homophobia</h2>
<p>What’s stopping LGBTQ baseball players from coming out publicly?</p>
<p>Perhaps they calculate that the personal or financial costs still outweigh the benefits.</p>
<p>There is a strong current of fundamentalist Christianity within baseball, which could make life uncomfortable for openly gay players. <a href="https://religioninpublic.blog/2018/02/12/i-want-thank-god-for-allowing-my-team-to-win-an-analysis-of-sports-and-christianity/">One study of Bible verses in pro athlete’s Twitter bios concluded</a> that major league baseball players were “far and away the most overtly religious group of athletes of the four major sporting leagues.”</p>
<p>There are also lingering strands of explicit homophobia.</p>
<p>In 2012, Detroit Tigers outfielder Torii Hunter <a href="https://www.latimes.com/sports/la-xpm-2012-dec-31-la-sp-sn-torii-hunter-gay-athletes-20121231-story.html">told the Los Angeles Times</a> that he’d be uncomfortable with a gay teammate, because “biblically, it’s not right.”</p>
<p>In 2015, Houston Astros slugger Lance Berkman, an evangelical Christian, campaigned against the city’s Equal Rights Ordinance, designed to protect LGBTQ rights. “To me,” <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/early-lead/wp/2015/11/05/retired-mlb-star-lance-berkman-declares-tolerance-is-killing-our-country/">Berkman said at the time</a>, “tolerance is the virtue that’s killing this country.” The ordinance was defeated.</p>
<p>Other MLB players have made homophobic comments over the years, including <a href="http://www.espn.com/mlb/news/1999/1222/247659.html">John Rocker</a>, <a href="http://www.espn.com/mlb/news/2001/0502/1190420.html">Julian Tavarez</a>, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/19/sports/baseball/yunel-escobar-suspended-3-games-for-slur-on-eye-black.html">Yunel Escobar</a>, <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/mlb/cubs/2018/08/26/cubs-laura-ricketts-co-owner-daniel-murphy-anti-gay-comments-trade/1104636002/">Daniel Murphy</a> and <a href="https://www.espn.com/mlb/news/2003/0429/1546815.html">Todd Jones</a>, along with manager <a href="https://www.espn.com/mlb/news/story?id=2496753">Ozzie Guillen</a>.</p>
<h2>Changes start at the top</h2>
<p>Even as players on big-league rosters stay in the closet, MLB and individual teams have taken steps to make baseball more inclusive for LGBTQ employees and fans.</p>
<p>In 2009, when the Ricketts family purchased the Chicago Cubs, <a href="https://www.chicagomag.com/chicago-magazine/may-2020/women-power-50/laura-ricketts/">Laura Ricketts</a> became the first openly LGBTQ person to own a professional sports team. <a href="https://www.tennismajors.com/our-features/on-this-day/may-1st-1981-the-day-billie-jean-king-was-outed-138210.html">Billie Jean King</a>, the former tennis star who, in 1981, became the first openly gay high-profile sports figure, is now part-owner of the Dodgers. </p>
<p>At least four teams – the Dodgers, Baltimore Orioles, San Francisco Giants and Arizona Diamondbacks – now have openly gay top-tier executives. Bean has started a program to recruit and mentor more LGBTQ people to work for teams’ front offices at the major and minor league levels.</p>
<p>In 2000, a lesbian couple <a href="https://www.outsports.com/2011/7/18/4051562/moment-84-lesbian-couple-ejected-from-dodgers-stadium-for-kissing">was ejected from Dodger Stadium for kissing</a>. Today, out of 30 MLB teams, <a href="https://www.outsports.com/2021/6/14/22532482/houston-astros-texas-rangers-lgbtq-pride">only the Texas Rangers have never hosted an LGBTQ Pride event of some kind</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Fans walk past a Boston Red Sox logo with a Progress Pride flag superimposed over it." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/429165/original/file-20211028-25-18n3xci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/429165/original/file-20211028-25-18n3xci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429165/original/file-20211028-25-18n3xci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429165/original/file-20211028-25-18n3xci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429165/original/file-20211028-25-18n3xci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429165/original/file-20211028-25-18n3xci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429165/original/file-20211028-25-18n3xci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">All major league baseball teams, save for one, have held a Pride Night.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/pride-night-banner-hangs-in-the-concourse-as-walk-by-before-news-photo/1322950569?adppopup=true">Adam Glanzman/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Several teams have fined or suspended players, managers, and at least one broadcaster – the Cincinnati Reds’ <a href="https://www.si.com/mlb/2020/09/25/thom-brennaman-reds-broadcast-resign">Thom Brennaman</a> – for uttering anti-gay slurs. And despite the occasional homophobic epithet that continues to emerge from their ranks, more and more straight baseball players have expressed support for the LGBTQ community over the past couple of decades. </p>
<p>In 2003, Colorado Rockies star Mark Grace <a href="https://www.outsports.com/2013/2/26/4033832/pitcher-todd-jones-doesnt-like-gay-people">told the Denver Post</a> that most ballplayers wouldn’t be threatened by the idea of a gay teammate. “I’ve played for 16 years, and I’m sure I’ve had homosexual teammates that I didn’t know about.”</p>
<p>Added Grace: “I think if you’re intelligent at all, you’d understand that homosexuals are just like us.”</p>
<p>In 2005, Reds outfielder Ken Griffey Jr. <a href="https://www.espn.com/espn/news/story?id=2035653">said that having a gay teammate</a> “wouldn’t bother me at all. If you can play, you can play.” And in 2018, after <a href="https://www.outsports.com/2018/8/3/17647030/ranking-the-apologies-of-major-league-baseball-players-for-their-anti-gay-tweets">the media highlighted a rash of anti-gay slurs</a> tweeted by several major league ballplayers, pitcher Sean Doolittle <a href="https://twitter.com/whatwoulddoodo/status/1024054958092627968?lang=en">tweeted a full-throated defense</a>: “Some of the strongest people I know are from the LGBTQ community. It takes courage to be your true self when your identity has been used as an insult or a pejorative.”</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1024054958092627968"}"></div></p>
<h2>No perfect time</h2>
<p>The first gay major league baseball player to come out will not be a matter of if, but when.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.outsports.com/2015/1/27/7904811/poll-large-majority-americans-favor-openly-gay-athletes">A 2015 poll</a> found that 73% of Americans – including a majority of white evangelical Christians – said they would support a pro sports team signing an openly gay or lesbian athlete. </p>
<p>Some hope that the first pro ballplayer to come out will be a star. In 2014, Pallone, the gay former umpire, <a href="https://www.foxsports.com/stories/other/a-chat-with-dave-pallone-first-mlb-umpire-to-come-out-as-gay">told Fox Sports</a> that he wanted it to be “a player whose name rolls off somebody’s tongue. That’s what will do the most good.”</p>
<p>Or the first gay big-leaguer could simply emerge from the prospect pipeline. In the past decade, two openly gay ballplayers – David Denson and Sean Conroy – played in the minor leagues. A third minor leaguer, Bryan Ruby, played as an infielder for the Salem-Keizer Volcanoes, part of an independent professional league in Oregon, <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/mlb/2021/09/02/bryan-ruby-only-active-professional-baseball-player-out-gay/8244571002/">came out in September 2021</a>. There are <a href="https://www.outsports.com/2020/4/1/21199294/gay-college-baseball-brett-lysohir-coming-out">growing</a> <a href="https://www.outsports.com/2018/4/23/17238344/michael-holland-felician-baseball-gay-coming-out">numbers</a> of openly gay college players, and the best of them could ascend the professional ranks into the majors.</p>
<p>“When I was playing, homosexuality was a taboo topic. We never talked openly about it,” Bean said. “Gay athletes in high school, college and the minors now have role models.”</p>
<p>There will always be some who argue that the time isn’t ripe for a major breakthrough. But as Jon Buzinski, the founder of OutSports, told me: “Everybody will say, ‘We aren’t ready.’ Society was not ready for Jackie Robinson. If you are going to wait for everybody to be ready, nobody will do it.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/170764/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Dreier does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Among the more than 20,000 men who have played major league baseball, not one has publicly come out of the closet while still in uniform.Peter Dreier, E.P. Clapp Distinguished Professor of Politics, Occidental CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1632282021-06-24T12:12:02Z2021-06-24T12:12:02ZWhy it’s such a big deal that the NFL’s Carl Nassib came out as gay<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/407959/original/file-20210623-15-40g6ij.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=1097%2C314%2C2117%2C1305&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">After Las Vegas Raiders defensive end Carl Nassib came out as gay, his jersey became a top-seller on Fanatics, an online retailer of sportswear.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/defensive-end-carl-nassib-of-the-las-vegas-raiders-warms-up-news-photo/1278550912?adppopup=true">Ethan Miller/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The video was <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CQZXu_8nyy_/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link">short and simple</a>, but for America’s gay community it was a blockbuster event.</p>
<p>In an Instagram post, Las Vegas Raiders defensive lineman <a href="https://www.raiders.com/team/players-roster/carl-nassib/">Carl Nassib</a> announced from his yard in West Chester, Pennsylvania, that he’s gay and that, while he’s a private person, he feels “representation is so important.” He added that he would donate US$100,000 to the Trevor Project, which offers suicide prevention services to LGBTQ youth.</p>
<p>Thus the 28-year-old Nassib, now in his sixth year, became the first active NFL player to come out, a milestone that immediately garnered national attention, a mention in a <a href="https://twitter.com/POTUS/status/1407506870181453824?s=20">congratulatory tweet</a> from President Joe Biden and an outpouring of support on social media from powerful sports figures and fans. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1407506870181453824"}"></div></p>
<p>As someone who has reported on football and other sports since the early 1990s, and who directs the sports journalism program at Penn State, I know this development does not mean the end of homophobia in sports. Yet to have a gay player in <a href="https://www.sportsmediawatch.com/2020/12/most-watched-sporting-events-2020-list-nfl-nba-mlb-viewership/">America’s most-watched sport</a> represents a landmark moment.</p>
<h2>Reasons for reluctance</h2>
<p>Gay athletes long have been conscious of the toll of coming out. </p>
<p>Dave Kopay, a running back who came out in 1975, three years after his NFL career ended, said in <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhmoHtPHXsc&ab_channel=MORMusicClips">a 1980s television interview</a> that he sometimes felt “too straight for the gay world and too gay for the straight world.” The first retired NFL player to come out, Kopay described the hostile reaction to his announcement, including from his family. In his view, being openly gay froze him out from getting a coaching job in college or the NFL.</p>
<p>Tennis legend Billie Jean King once said <a href="https://www.tennis.com/news/articles/king-i-lost-all-endorsements-in-24-hours-after-outing">she lost all her endorsements in the 24 hours</a> after she was outed by a former lover in 1981.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="San Francisco 49ers halfback Dave Kopay receives a pass." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/407961/original/file-20210623-27-pb0lsa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/407961/original/file-20210623-27-pb0lsa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/407961/original/file-20210623-27-pb0lsa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/407961/original/file-20210623-27-pb0lsa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/407961/original/file-20210623-27-pb0lsa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/407961/original/file-20210623-27-pb0lsa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/407961/original/file-20210623-27-pb0lsa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Dave Kopay, pictured catching a football, was the first retired NFL player to come out.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/ComingOutTheReality/a8646d1887d44614a8109a5cc5f845ee/photo?Query=dave%20AND%20kopay&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:asc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=2&currentItemNo=0">AP Photo</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The quest to combat discrimination against LGBTQ athletes has been long and fitful, particularly in male team sports, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/089124302237892">where homophobic language is commonplace</a> and an emphasis on physical strength and a warrior mentality have clashed with gay stereotypes.</p>
<p>That’s why it was big news when, in 2013, <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-happened-to-the-openly-gay-athlete-78586">NBA center Jason Collins came out as gay</a>, becoming the first active player in any of the four biggest male American pro leagues – the NBA, NHL, MLB or NFL – to go public. </p>
<p>Even though athletes like Collins have come out in recent years, it doesn’t mean gay and lesbian fans and athletes live in a world that embraces them with open arms.</p>
<p>In 2020, Monash University in Australia conducted a survey of young people from six English-speaking nations. The Associated Press reported that, according to the survey, <a href="https://apnews.com/article/gay-athletes-lack-of-change-nfl-rugby-fa90b7510d8264bd91fa4c13058d37f3">athletes who came out</a> “were significantly more likely to report they’d been the target of homophobic behaviors in sport settings.”</p>
<p>And in early 2021, <a href="https://theconversation.com/sports-remain-hostile-territory-for-lgbtq-americans-157948">researchers at Ohio State University and Mississippi State University found</a> that half of LGBTQ respondents in a study said that they’d experienced discrimination, insults, bullying or abuse while playing, watching or talking about sports.</p>
<h2>Michael Sam’s ‘raw deal’</h2>
<p>Perhaps nothing illustrates the cost of coming out quite like the story of University of Missouri football star Michael Sam. </p>
<p>Since 2010, 12 players have been selected as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southeastern_Conference_football_individual_awards">the defensive player of the year in the Southeastern Conference</a>, which many fans and pundits <a href="https://athlonsports.com/college-football/college-football-2020-conference-power-rankings">regard as the toughest league in college football</a>. Of those players, 11 have been selected in the first round of the NFL draft and one in the second round. The median selection was ninth overall. </p>
<p>The exception to this incredible run of success was Sam, from Missouri, who tied C.J. Mosley as SEC defender of the year for the 2013 season.</p>
<p>Heading into 2014, Sam was projected as a fourth-round draft pick. Then he publicly declared in interviews that he was gay in February of that year and <a href="https://www.thebiglead.com/posts/michael-sam-fell-70-spots-on-cbs-draft-prospect-board-overnight-update-01dkkp3wh0sf">tumbled on the draft boards</a>, sliding to <a href="https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/michael-sam-gay-nfl-draft/">a sixth-round projection</a>.</p>
<p>Ultimately, he was not selected until the 249th pick overall – eighth to last – in the final round of the draft. </p>
<p>He never played a regular season down in the NFL and wound up leaving football <a href="https://www.sportingnews.com/us/nfl/news/michael-sam-carl-nassib-gay-nfl-players/sjfd2ijhgl7g1k4m8832bb3ys">after a very brief stint</a> with the Canadian Football League’s Montreal Alouettes.</p>
<p>Whether Sam got a fair shot from the league or whether homophobia came into play is <a href="https://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2021/06/22/did-michael-sam-get-a-fair-chance-in-the-nfl/">still a matter of debate</a> in football circles. But his mind seemed to be made up at a University of New Mexico speaking engagement in 2019.</p>
<p>“The NFL gave me a raw deal,” <a href="https://www.outsports.com/2019/2/17/18226792/michael-sam-gay-nfl-coming-out-regret">Sam told students</a>. “It was tough to forgive them. I love football.”</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Michael Sam clutches his award as he speaks during the ESPYs." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/407963/original/file-20210623-25-24k6fh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/407963/original/file-20210623-25-24k6fh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/407963/original/file-20210623-25-24k6fh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/407963/original/file-20210623-25-24k6fh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/407963/original/file-20210623-25-24k6fh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=530&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/407963/original/file-20210623-25-24k6fh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=530&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/407963/original/file-20210623-25-24k6fh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=530&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Michael Sam – shown speaking during the 2014 ESPYs after receiving the Arthur Ashe Courage Award – would later regret his decision to come out before the NFL draft.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/player-michael-sam-accepts-the-arthur-ashe-courage-award-news-photo/452250012?adppopup=true">Kevin Winter/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The times are changing</h2>
<p>So to Jim Buzinski, co-founder with Cyd Zeigler in 1999 of <a href="https://www.outsports.com/">Outsports</a>, the leading LGBTQ sports website, it was an important step forward for gay rights to see the hypermasculine NFL welcome Nassib, a player who already had proved himself in the league.</p>
<p>Bit by bit, the number of athletes coming out has increased annually, Buzinski told me.</p>
<p>In 2014, Outsports began to post “<a href="https://www.outsports.com/comingout">Coming Out Stories</a>,” in which gay athletes write about their own experiences revealing their sexual orientation. Authors – who have ranged from athletes at the high school, college and pro levels – were a little reluctant at first. But more and more readers saw the articles and wanted to talk about their own stories. </p>
<p>Now, Buzinski estimates, Outsports has posted 150 or more of the pieces, with so many submissions that he’s had to set a publishing calendar to keep the copy flowing smoothly.</p>
<p>The athletes “always find more support than they expected,” he said. “These stories, and moments like Carl’s announcement, create a positive feedback loop.”</p>
<p>As of this writing, the athletes profiled on that <a href="https://www.outsports.com/comingout">Coming Out Stories page</a> include a rower, a swimmer, a softball player, a volleyball coach, a tennis player and a triathlete. A high school football player whose story got held a day because of the Nassib announcement <a href="https://www.outsports.com/comingout/2021/6/23/22542680/marc-small-high-school-football-player-colorado-coming-out">was also featured</a>. </p>
<p>“We haven’t had a cricketer yet,” Buzinski joked when I asked if any sports were missing.</p>
<p>[<em>Like what you’ve read? Want more?</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=likethis">Sign up for The Conversation’s daily newsletter</a>.]</p>
<p>A big factor in the shift toward athletes telling their stories was <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/27/us/supreme-court-same-sex-marriage.html">the 2015 Supreme Court ruling legalizing gay marriage</a>, he said. “It was a touchstone moment. It made a huge difference and is now so accepted, there’s so much more representation in the media.”</p>
<p>Still, individual acts make a difference. So when Nassib came out, and supportive tweets from a range of people, including former Penn State teammate <a href="https://twitter.com/saquon/status/1407100169515003905?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1407100169515003905%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fgiantswire.usatoday.com%2F2021%2F06%2F22%2Fnew-york-giants-saquon-barkley-shows-support-las-vegas-raiders-carl-nassib%2F">Saquon Barkley</a> and NFL Commissioner <a href="https://twitter.com/aroundthenfl/status/1407121654707335169">Roger Goodell</a>, quickly followed, it said something about acceptance of gay athletes. ESPN’s Adam Schefter reported the day after the announcement that <a href="https://twitter.com/AdamSchefter/status/1407426608303161354">Nassib had the top-selling jersey</a> on Fanatics, an online retailer of sportswear. </p>
<p>Buzinski expects the trend to continue. He noted that Outsports is preparing its quadrennial count of openly gay and lesbian athletes participating in the Summer Olympics in July.</p>
<p>For Rio de Janeiro, <a href="https://www.outsports.com/2016/7/11/12133594/rio-olympics-teams-2016-gay-lgbt-athletes-record">that number was 56</a>. </p>
<p>In Tokyo, it’s expected to easily surpass 100.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/163228/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John Affleck is the director of the John Curley Center for Sports Journalism at Penn State. Jim Buzinski, whom he interviewed for the piece, is a Penn State alumnus and serves on the alumni advisory board for the center, a post that is voluntary and unpaid.</span></em></p>The quest to combat discrimination against LGBTQ athletes has been long and fitful, particularly in male team sports.John Affleck, Knight Chair in Sports Journalism and Society, Penn StateLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1582752021-04-20T18:45:23Z2021-04-20T18:45:23ZHow parents can support a child who comes out as trans – by conquering their own fears, following their child’s lead and tolerating ambiguity<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393274/original/file-20210402-21-1hhsl9n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=7%2C7%2C4977%2C3729&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Studies show that family acceptance or rejection has a big impact on a trans child's mental health and happiness. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/deshanna-neal-pictured-with-her-transgender-daughter-news-photo/1190172555?adppopup=true">Scott Hoon / Barcroft Media via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Young transgender, or trans, people face high rates of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jadohealth.2016.06.012">anxiety, depression and suicide</a>. These elevated mental health risks largely <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpr.2018.03.003">stem from external factors</a> such as discrimination, victimization and – most especially – <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/cou0000419">family rejection</a> rather than from being trans.</em> </p>
<p><em>Em Matsuno, a <a href="https://www.riselab.paloaltou.edu/post-doc">research fellow</a> at Palo Alto University, is currently developing and testing an online training program called the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/parentsupportpsp/">Parent Support Program</a> to help parents better understand and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/1550428X.2020.1868369">support trans youth</a>. They talked with The Conversation U.S. about their findings and how parents can be better advocates – and avoid common missteps – when a child identifies as trans or nonbinary.</em></p>
<h2>What are common challenges parents with trans kids face?</h2>
<p>A big one is fear. Parents fear for their child’s safety. For example, they fear their kid will be bullied, so they may say, “No, I don’t want you to wear that to school.” Or if they don’t have knowledge about trans identities, they may feel overwhelmed or not know what to do. And they worry about messing up themselves – saying or doing the wrong thing. </p>
<p>Another barrier is the beliefs and attitudes that parents may have. Parents may have grown up learning misconceptions about gender. For example: the belief that one’s sex assigned at birth – which is typically based on anatomy – is the same thing as <a href="https://transstudent.org/gender/">their gender</a>, or that gender is strictly male or female.</p>
<p>If extended family or their community is conservative, the parents themselves can experience rejection from others as well. People will tell them it’s bad parenting if they let their kid transition. Sometimes parents have to risk being rejected by their loved ones, and it can put them in a difficult position as well. </p>
<h2>What does the research say about parental support?</h2>
<p>There was a 2016 study that showed trans children who were supported by their parents had <a href="https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2015-3223">similar mental health outcomes</a> as a cisgender control group.</p>
<p>Certainly, there have been studies about trans youth <a href="https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2015-3223">having depression or suicidal ideation</a>. As a result, some people think that being trans makes someone more likely to suffer from mental health risks. But really what we see is that it’s not about being trans but <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jadohealth.2016.06.012">whether you’re supported or not</a>.</p>
<p>One of the studies I worked on looked at <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/fam0000561">different types of social support</a> for trans youth – their friend/peer group, the trans community and their family. Of those three, family support was the strongest predictor of depression, anxiety and resilience. It’s unfortunate because a lot of trans people lose their family support and have to rely on others, but family has the greatest impact.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393271/original/file-20210402-17-660sqy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C5751%2C3828&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A gender-nonconforming person sits on their bed" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393271/original/file-20210402-17-660sqy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C5751%2C3828&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393271/original/file-20210402-17-660sqy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393271/original/file-20210402-17-660sqy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393271/original/file-20210402-17-660sqy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393271/original/file-20210402-17-660sqy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393271/original/file-20210402-17-660sqy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393271/original/file-20210402-17-660sqy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Parents can ask their trans kids: ‘How can I best support you?’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NuyMMtJJRzhfEClj3n5N4F9c0z-bjSYO/view">Zackary Drucker/The Gender Spectrum Collection</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Online resources advise parents to support a trans child by using their pronouns, advocating for them, educating themselves and showing unconditional love. What would you add or emphasize?</h2>
<p>Get your own support. A lot of times parents say they’re 100% supportive and accepting, and yet they still feel feelings – sad, or anxious – and that’s OK. It doesn’t mean you’re not supportive. But sharing all your emotional difficulties with your kid can make them feel like a burden or that they are causing you all this distress. If parents can’t find other parents in their local community, there are online support groups. And get professional support if you can. </p>
<h2>What common myths or disinformation do you find most troubling?</h2>
<p>The main one is “rapid onset gender dysphoria.” It sounds like a medical term, but it’s not used in trans health whatsoever and is based in <a href="https://slate.com/human-interest/2018/08/rapid-onset-gender-dysphoria-study-criticism-is-not-censorship-its-good-science.html">faulty research</a>. This often manifests itself in the idea that, “Oh my God, all of a sudden my child is trans. They must be influenced by peers.”</p>
<p>A lot of time kids reach puberty and all of a sudden there are feelings of discomfort. Or maybe it was happening before but they weren’t sharing it with a parent, so it feels sudden to the parent but not to the child. </p>
<p>There’s also a lot of disinformation around gender-affirming medical care, which is a big stressor to a lot of parents. There’s this fear: “What if they change their minds?”</p>
<p>Cases of regret after transitioning are <a href="https://www.doi.org/10.1016/j.jsxm.2018.01.016">extremely rare</a>. As for puberty blockers, they are <a href="https://pharma.nridigital.com/pharma_sept20/puberty_blockers_transgender_children">reversible and low-risk</a>. Often, trans people don’t know what’s right for them until they <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1359104519836462">try some things out</a>. Yes, there are <a href="https://transcare.ucsf.edu/guidelines">risks to medical interventions</a>, but there are also significant risks associated with continued gender dysphoria. </p>
<h2>Why are more kids today identifying as trans?</h2>
<p>Trans and nonbinary people have been around for <a href="https://talesoftimesforgotten.com/2020/08/21/transgender-and-intersex-people-in-the-ancient-world/">all of time</a> across <a href="https://nhm.org/stories/beyond-gender-indigenous-perspectives-muxe">all cultures</a> and <a href="https://aeon.co/essays/the-west-can-learn-from-southeast-asias-transgender-heritage">continents</a>. So it’s <a href="https://www.historians.org/publications-and-directories/perspectives-on-history/may-2018/what-is-trans-history-from-activist-and-academic-roots-a-field-takes-shape">not a</a> <a href="https://www.sealpress.com/titles/susan-stryker/transgender-history-second-edition/9781580056908/">new thing</a>. But there’s been an <a href="https://www.umass.edu/stonewall/sites/default/files/Infoforandabout/transpeople/genny_beemyn_transgender_history_in_the_united_states.pdf">erasure of</a> <a href="https://www.decolonizinggender.com/the-zine">that history</a>.</p>
<p>Now there’s more visibility, more acceptance, and younger generations are also learning earlier on about trans identities. They have what trans actress and activist Laverne Cox calls “<a href="https://lavernecox.com/about/">possibility models</a>,” where they can think, “Oh, this is an option for me.” For a lot of trans people my age or older, that wasn’t a thing we knew about. </p>
<h2>What can parents say to show support when a trans child comes out?</h2>
<p>Parents can recognize their kid’s bravery and show gratitude by saying, “Thank you for letting me know.” Also, explicitly say you love them. Trans kids fear rejection when coming out, so very explicit support is important. </p>
<p>Common reactions are to say, “No, you’re confused. You’re just gay/lesbian. Are you sure?” Or asking too many questions, which kind of puts the kid on trial: “How did you know? When did you know?” They fire all these questions and the underlying message is “I don’t believe you” or “I don’t approve.” </p>
<p>A better approach is to say, “Is it OK for me to ask some questions, or do you need some time?” Parents can also ask their kid, “How can I support you?” With younger kids, they might give some examples: “Do you want me to use ‘he’ when I refer to you, or not? What sounds good to you?”</p>
<h2>Any final advice for parents?</h2>
<p>Learn to tolerate ambiguity, uncertainty and fluidity. Parents often want to know who their child is going to be, with certainty, stability and consistency. That rigidness comes from anxiety. </p>
<p>But things won’t always be clear. Allow your child to come to their own answers. I think with kids there’s a lot of exploration, so things can change and that’s OK. Openness from parents allows them to be who they are.</p>
<p>[<em>Get the best of The Conversation, every weekend.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/weekly-highlights-61?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=weeklybest">Sign up for our weekly newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/158275/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Em Matsuno receives funding from the American Psychological Foundation. </span></em></p>A psychologist and expert on gender diversity explains strategies for creating a healthy environment for trans or nonbinary kids.Em Matsuno, Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Palo Alto University, Palo Alto UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1296092020-02-10T13:58:09Z2020-02-10T13:58:09ZThe history of ‘coming out,’ from secret gay code to popular political protest<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/310358/original/file-20200115-134797-epn1u8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Protesters in Manchester, U.K., 1988.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/clause-28-march-in-manchester-people-demonstrate-against-news-photo/930164184?adppopup=true">Reid/Mirrorpix via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>You probably know what it means to “come out” as gay. You may even have heard the expression used in relation to other kinds of identity, such as being undocumented. </p>
<p>But do you know where the term comes from? Or that its meaning has changed over time?</p>
<p>In <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=u5MOC4YAAAAJ&hl=en">my 2020 book</a><a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/come-out-come-out-whoever-you-are-9780190931650?cc=us&lang=en&">“Come Out, Come Out, Whoever You Are,”</a>, I explore the history of this term, from the earliest days of the gay rights movement, to today, when it has been adopted by other movements. </p>
<h2>Selective sharing</h2>
<p>In the late 19th and early 20th century, <a href="https://www.basicbooks.com/titles/george-chauncey/gay-new-york/9781541699212/">gay subculture thrived</a> in many large American cities. </p>
<p>Gay men spoke of “coming out” into gay society – borrowing the term from debutante society, where elite young women came out into high society. A 1931 news article in the Baltimore Afro-American referred to “the coming out of new debutantes into homosexual society.” It was titled “1931 Debutantes Bow at Local ‘Pansy’ Ball.”</p>
<p>The 1930s, ‘40s and ‘50s witnessed a growing backlash against this visible gay world. In response, gay life became more secretive. </p>
<p>The Mattachine Society, the earliest important organization of what was known as the homophile movement – a precursor of the gay rights movement – <a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/S/bo3640270.html">took its name from mysterious medieval figures in masks</a>. In this context, coming out meant acknowledging one’s sexual orientation to oneself and to other gay people. It did not mean revealing it to the world at large.</p>
<p>Such selective sharing relied on <a href="https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/contested-closets">code phrases</a> – such as “family,” “a club member,” “a friend of Dorothy’s,” “a friend of Mrs. King” or “gay” – that could be used in mixed company to designate someone as homosexual. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.basicbooks.com/titles/george-chauncey/gay-new-york/9781541699212/">The term “gay”</a> was originally borrowed from the slang of women prostitutes, when they used the word to refer to women in their profession. Of course, “gay” was ultimately “<a href="https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/contested-closets">outed</a>” when the gay rights movement adopted it following the Stonewall Rebellion in 1969. </p>
<h2>Out in public</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/280290/original/file-20190619-171281-1lwjdaf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/280290/original/file-20190619-171281-1lwjdaf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/280290/original/file-20190619-171281-1lwjdaf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1533&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280290/original/file-20190619-171281-1lwjdaf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1533&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280290/original/file-20190619-171281-1lwjdaf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1533&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280290/original/file-20190619-171281-1lwjdaf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1927&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280290/original/file-20190619-171281-1lwjdaf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1927&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280290/original/file-20190619-171281-1lwjdaf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1927&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The first article on Stonewall to appear in The New York Times.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1969/06/29/89004281.html?action=click&contentCollection=Archives&module=LedeAsset&region=ArchiveBody&pgtype=article&pageNumber=33">New York Times</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Coming out took on a more political meaning after the 1969 Stonewall Rebellion, in which patrons of the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177%2F000312240607100502">Stonewall Inn in New York City</a> fought back against a police raid. The rebellion included riots and a resistance that lasted for days. It was subsequently commemorated in an annual march known today as “gay pride.”</p>
<p>At the first Gay Liberation March in New York City in June 1970, <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/outing-shattering-the-conspiracy-of-silence/oclc/28026413">one of the organizers stated</a> that “we’ll never have the freedom and civil rights we deserve as human beings unless we stop hiding in closets and in the shelter of anonymity.” </p>
<p>By this time, coming out was juxtaposed with being in the closet, conveying the shame associated with hiding. By the end of the 1960s, queer people who pretended to be heterosexual were said to be “in the closet” or labeled a “closet case” or, in the case of gay men, “closet queens.” </p>
<p>By the 1970s, <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/outing-shattering-the-conspiracy-of-silence/oclc/28026413">mainstream journalists were already using the term</a> beyond sexual orientation – to speak of, for instance, “closet conservatives” and “closet gourmets.” </p>
<h2>A rite of passage</h2>
<p>By presenting coming out as a way to <a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/S/bo3640270.html">end internalized self-hatred</a> and achieve a better life, the LGBTQ movement helped to encourage people to come out, despite associated risks. It also showed how <a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/S/bo3640270.html">coming could be used to build solidarity and recruit other queer people</a>.</p>
<p>For instance, in 1978, in his campaign to defeat a California initiative that would have banned gay teachers from working in state public schools, openly gay elected government official Harvey Milk urged people to “Come Out, Come Out, Wherever You Are.” </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/310354/original/file-20200115-134842-33il1m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/310354/original/file-20200115-134842-33il1m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/310354/original/file-20200115-134842-33il1m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=560&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310354/original/file-20200115-134842-33il1m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=560&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310354/original/file-20200115-134842-33il1m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=560&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310354/original/file-20200115-134842-33il1m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=704&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310354/original/file-20200115-134842-33il1m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=704&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310354/original/file-20200115-134842-33il1m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=704&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Supervisor Harvey Milk sits outside his camera shop in November 1977.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/avowed-homosexual-supervisor-harvey-milk-who-was-shot-and-news-photo/517432258?adppopup=true">Bettmann via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Milk gambled that if queer people told their friends they were gay, Californians would realize that they had friends, coworkers and family members who were gay and – out of solidarity – would oppose the proposition. The campaign helped defeat the initiative. </p>
<p>In the 1980s, the gay and lesbian rights movement radicalized in response to the Christian right and AIDS epidemic. Activists used the mantra “Come Out, Come Out, Wherever You Are” to demand that people declare their homosexuality. The coming out narrative became a rite of passage, something to be shared with others, and the centerpiece of gay liberation movements.</p>
<h2>In your face</h2>
<p>In the 1990s, the radical organization <a href="https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/contested-closets">Queer Nation</a> took coming out to a new level. </p>
<p>Its members wore T-shirts in Day-Glo colors with slogans such as “PROMOTE HOMOSEXUALITY. GENERIC QUEER. FAGGOT. MILITANT DYKE.” Wearing these T-shirts, they entered heterosexual bars in New York and San Francisco and staged “kiss-ins.” They visited suburban shopping malls outside these same cities and chanted, “We’re here, we’re queer, we’re fabulous – and we’re not going shopping!” Through these tactics, they not only came out, but forced heterosexuals to acknowledge their presence.</p>
<p>The politics of coming out has helped make LGBTQ people more visible and better protected by law. As testimony of this shift, today, marriage equality is the law of the land, the popular TV comedy “Modern Family” features a gay couple and one of the leading candidates for the Democratic presidential ticket, Pete Buttigieg, is a gay man.</p>
<p>To be sure, homophobia and transphobia are still alive and well. Still, LGBTQ people have made clear strides in the past half-century and coming out politics has been part of their success. </p>
<h2>Going bigger</h2>
<p>The success of the LGBTQ movement has inspired other social movements – such as the fat acceptance movement and the undocumented youth movement, among others – to also “come out.” </p>
<p>As I show in my new book, coming out has become <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/223459">what sociologists call a “master frame,”</a> a way of understanding the world that is elastic and inclusive enough for a wide range of social movements to use. </p>
<p>For example, just as Harvey Milk urged queer people to come out for “youngsters who are becoming scared,” so too the undocumented immigrant youth movement has urged undocumented youth to “come out as undocumented and unafraid.” </p>
<p>As one of the immigrant youth movement leaders quoted in my new book explained, Milk’s speech had impressed upon her and her peers that, “If you don’t come out nobody’s gonna know that you’re there. … They’re gonna say or do whatever they want because nobody’s standing up, and you’re not standing up for yourself.” </p>
<p>This campaign has been effective at <a href="https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=22645">convincing undocumented youth to be visible</a>, which has been crucial for political mobilization.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/310359/original/file-20200115-134789-7ewpm9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/310359/original/file-20200115-134789-7ewpm9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/310359/original/file-20200115-134789-7ewpm9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310359/original/file-20200115-134789-7ewpm9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310359/original/file-20200115-134789-7ewpm9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310359/original/file-20200115-134789-7ewpm9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310359/original/file-20200115-134789-7ewpm9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310359/original/file-20200115-134789-7ewpm9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">At a 2017 rally, one activist wears a T-shirt reading ‘Undocumented and Unafraid.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/activists-wearing-tshirt-reading-undocumented-unafraid-772202494">Diego G Diaz/Shutterstock.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The specific language of “coming out, which is so closely associated with LGBTQ rights, allows other social movements to liken their experience to that of LGBTQ people. </p>
<p>For instance, when fat liberation activist <a href="http://www.marilynwann.com">Marilyn Wann</a> speaks about how she "came out” as fat, she is not just speaking about a turning point in her personal biography. By using the term “coming out,” she implies that being fat is like being gay – and that, just as homophobia is morally wrong, so too is “fatphobia.” In this context, <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/197420/fat-so-by-marilyn-wann/">coming out as fat</a> means owning one’s fatness and refusing to apologize for it.</p>
<p>As my book shows, the multiple meanings of coming out – including coming into community, cultivating self-love, and collectively organizing to promote equality and justice – offer a productive way for social movements to move forward.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/129609/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Abigail C. Saguy receives funding from the National Science Foundation.</span></em></p>In the 1950s, ‘coming out’ meant quietly acknowledging one’s sexual orientation. Today, the term is used by a broad array of social movements.Abigail C. Saguy, Professor of Sociology, University of California, Los AngelesLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1236602019-10-02T21:47:18Z2019-10-02T21:47:18ZMy secret: Coming out as a gay elementary principal in an era of social conservatism<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/294218/original/file-20190925-51421-1vs0i9x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">LGBTQ2+ teachers may face clashing expectations between their political and professional identities. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The issue of sex education is in the media now as it was in spring 2018 when politicians promised to <a href="https://theconversation.com/doug-fords-reboot-of-sex-education-in-ontario-same-as-it-ever-was-122299">repeal contemporary sex-ed curriculum</a> “<a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/4198420/doug-ford-sex-ed-curriculum/">based on ideology</a>” and parental lobby groups called for the end of so-called “<a href="https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2018/07/12/opponents-of-sex-ed-curriculum-applaud-repeal.html">irresponsible” sex-ed curriculum</a>.</p>
<p>I was serving as an elementary school principal at the time and I received written requests from parents to exempt their child from health education classes in which sex education was covered. </p>
<p>As principals, we are obligated to provide the requested accommodations, provided they meet certain criteria. </p>
<p>But as <a href="https://tspace.library.utoronto.ca/bitstream/1807/89714/3/MacKinnon_Kenneth_H_201806_EdD_thesis.pdf">someone who completed a doctorate in education about how
men and women legitimize and promote traditional masculine values or masculinity within the principal role</a> <a href="https://journalhosting.ucalgary.ca/index.php/cjeap/article/view/61762">in elementary schools</a> — and as someone who researches educational leadership — I could not ignore the potential difficulties that these sex-ed exemption requests present, particularly for principals who identify with the LGBTQ+ community.</p>
<p>As principals we are expected to develop, maintain and enrich connections between the school and the wider community to support student development. This requires a form of leadership that is grounded in developing relationships. The question becomes: what potential impact might conflicting political viewpoints around the sex-ed curriculum have on these relationships and how are educators, children and families impacted as a result? </p>
<p>As I sat at my desk, in the far corner behind the pen caddy and telephone, visible only to me, lay a small framed picture of me and my husband. My secret: I am gay. I am now on leave, teaching educational leadership, scheduled to return to my school in January.</p>
<p>For the sake of all employees, school communities and children, our school systems need to find a space in which LGBTQ+ educators might re-imagine their professional and political identities. </p>
<h2>‘Out and proud’ versus professional</h2>
<p>Catherine Connell, an associate professor of sociology at Boston University, writes of the <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520278233/schools-out">clashing expectations LGBTQ+ teachers face between their political and professional identities</a>. For many of these teachers, this becomes a no-win situation in which they are unable to find ways of merging these identities. They fear professional recrimination should they decide to come out and disapproval from members of the LGBTQ+ movement if they choose to remain professionally closeted.</p>
<p>This same conflict exists for principals, who, among other things, are responsible for creating and maintaining a school environment which is inclusive of all. As a leader, I want to advocate for calls to action for <a href="https://www.principals.ca/en/opc-resources/resources/Documents/OPC_Fall16-web.pdf">justice and reconciliation</a> and <a href="https://www.principals.ca/en/opc-resources/resources/Documents/4271-OPC_Fall18-web.pdf">culturally responsive leadership that supports diversity, equity and inclusion</a>. </p>
<p>But I struggle with competing ideologies around what I feel is my duty to come out as a gay principal — and my desire to avoid any sort of conflict as a result.</p>
<p>Fortunately, we live in a time when the rights of persons who identify with the LGBTQ+ community are enshrined within the <a href="https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/Const/page-15.html">Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms</a>. I have been fortunate not to have been discriminated against as an employee, or as a citizen of Canada because of my sexual identity. This is also influenced by the privileges I have as a white male.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/294885/original/file-20190930-194884-p53it.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/294885/original/file-20190930-194884-p53it.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294885/original/file-20190930-194884-p53it.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294885/original/file-20190930-194884-p53it.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294885/original/file-20190930-194884-p53it.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294885/original/file-20190930-194884-p53it.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294885/original/file-20190930-194884-p53it.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Pride Toronto 2019 parade.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The 2019 Pride Toronto <a href="https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2019/03/26/pride-toronto-festival-to-recognize-50th-anniversary-of-the-stonewall-riots.html">theme was “Freedom”</a> in remembrance of some of the first freedom fighters in the LGBTQ+ community. For me, Pride parades provide opportunities to celebrate our sexual diversities. They also act as a reminder to me of the responsibility I have as an educator and principal to champion these rights and become a role model.</p>
<h2>Rise of social conservatism</h2>
<p>Jim Farney, a professor in the department of politics and international studies at the University of Regina, traces the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/13569317.2019.1589953">development and influence of social conservatism in Canadian political parties</a>. Farney describes the emergence of social conservatism in North America as a distinct subset of the conservative movement that opposes the rise of LGBTQ+ rights, among other issues.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/294882/original/file-20190930-194852-1jj0k30.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/294882/original/file-20190930-194852-1jj0k30.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=476&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294882/original/file-20190930-194852-1jj0k30.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=476&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294882/original/file-20190930-194852-1jj0k30.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=476&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294882/original/file-20190930-194852-1jj0k30.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=598&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294882/original/file-20190930-194852-1jj0k30.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=598&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294882/original/file-20190930-194852-1jj0k30.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=598&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Former Ontario Tory leadership hopeful Tanya Granic Allen participates in a debate in Ottawa, Feb. 28, 2018.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Justin Tang</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In my province of Ontario, we saw the rise of former Progressive Conservative candidate <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/tanya-granic-allen-no-longer-an-ontario-pc-party-candidate-after-irresponsible-comments-doug-ford-says-1.4650360">Tanya Granic Allen</a>, a social conservative who, although was eventually removed from her candidacy <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/tanya-granic-allen-under-fire-for-online-comments-against-gay-marriage-muslim-dress-1.4613483">after facing charges of homophobia and Islamophobia</a>, was initially welcomed by the party leadership. </p>
<p>As president of <a href="http://www.pafe.ca/">Parents as First Educators (PAFE)</a>, Granic Allen has supported an agenda aimed at discrediting the gains Canada has made in terms of gender equality and expression. </p>
<p>As the letters from parents requesting accommodation to be removed from sex education arrived on my desk, I noted that this was the very first time I had ever received such letters in this community, and I could not ignore the timing of their receipt. </p>
<p>They were carefully worded so as not to contradict the <a href="http://www.ohrc.on.ca/en/ontario-human-rights-code">Ontario Human Rights Code</a>, and it was clear to me that these were form letters produced by organizations in favour of repealing the curriculum. </p>
<p>While parents of course have the right to make such requests, I could not help but to interpret these letters as a stance against a curriculum that supported and <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/4079957/wynne-defends-sex-ed-plan/">represented the lived realities of our LGBTQ+ community</a>.</p>
<h2>A way forward?</h2>
<p>One potential response to such letters could have been to invite parents into my office to discuss their concerns and address any questions they might have about the health curriculum. This is what I should have done. As a gay man, however, I felt uncomfortable with this. </p>
<p>What if parents visiting my office happened to see the photograph of me and my husband? How would I navigate this conversation as a gay man knowing how strongly I feel about gains made by LGBTQ+ social movements?</p>
<p>During this time, I remember feeling a distinct and terrible anxiety around being discovered, and, I began to think about the issues that might come about should these parents discover my sexual identity. </p>
<p>Catherine Connell comments on the history of teachers needing to uphold a “moral authority” with respect to the maintenance of childhood innocence, who must be shielded from any notion of sexuality. </p>
<p>This is a fallacy as this so-called professional stance forces LGBTQ+ educators to maintain and uphold a sexually neutral position, while their heterosexual colleagues display their family portraits in full view. </p>
<p>As a principal, I feel the pressure to maintain this neutrality and yet, there remains in me a strong urge to be out and proud in support of those children who might be questioning their sexual identity.</p>
<p>Nick Rumens, a professor in human resource management at the University of Portsmouth, writes of the need to “queer” our workplaces: that means he <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Queer-Business-Queering-Organization-Sexualities/Rumens/p/book/9781138814011">questions and formulates new ways that LGBTQ+ identities and sexualities are experienced and represented in the workplace</a> in response to ongoing struggles for queer existence in organizations.</p>
<p>As for myself, this article represents the beginning of my journey, as I merge my identities: I am a principal, who happens to be gay.</p>
<p>[ <em>Like what you’ve read? Want more?</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/ca/newsletters?utm_source=TCCA&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=likethis">Sign up for The Conversation’s daily newsletter</a>. ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/123660/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kenneth MacKinnon is affiliated with the Liberal party.</span></em></p>For the sake of all employees, school communities and children, our school systems need to find a space in which LGBTQ+ educators might re-imagine their professional and political identities.Kenneth MacKinnon, Instructor in Educational Leadership, Western UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1239932019-09-24T20:14:59Z2019-09-24T20:14:59Z‘The beautiful HIV-positive community’: Queer Eye’s Jonathan Van Ness shines a spotlight on the changing face of HIV<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/293719/original/file-20190924-54793-v85alo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=5%2C26%2C3589%2C2365&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Johnathan Van Ness (far right) has won fans from his warm persona on Queer Eye.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Christopher Smith/Netflix</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Jonathan Van Ness, the high-profile star of <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7259746/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Queer Eye</a>, has <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/queer-eye-star-jonathan-van-ness-reveals-hes-hiv-positive-2019-09-21/">revealed he is living with HIV</a>, having been diagnosed seven years ago at the age of 25. </p>
<p>Media headlines have described the <a href="https://www.pedestrian.tv/entertainment/jonathan-van-ness-hiv-support/">outpouring of support</a> received by Van Ness since coming out as HIV positive to be indicative of <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com.au/jvn-hiv-positive-then-now-how-public-reacts-people-living-2019-9?r=US&IR=T">changing social attitudes toward HIV</a>. </p>
<p>However, understanding and acceptance of people living with HIV is far from assured.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1175396013819011073"}"></div></p>
<h2>Disentangling HIV and homophobia</h2>
<p>Van Ness is among the most famous queer and <a href="https://www.out.com/lifestyle/2019/6/10/queer-eyes-jonathan-van-ness-im-nonbinary">gender non-binary</a> people in the world. Yet he found revealing his HIV status presented a level of fear and risk above coming out as queer. </p>
<p>“I’ve had nightmares every night for the past three months because I’m scared to be this vulnerable with people,” he <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/21/style/jonathan-van-ness-hiv-memoir.html">told the New York Times</a> about the release of his memoir, Over the Top.</p>
<p>HIV-related stigma has always been entangled with <a href="https://theconversation.com/aids-homophobic-and-moralistic-images-of-1980s-still-haunt-our-view-of-hiv-that-must-change-106580">homophobia and social fears about immorality and deviance</a>. Growing acceptance of the LGBTI community has muted some of the moral panic about HIV, but most people <a href="https://www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/hiv-public-knowledge-and-attitudes-2014">know very little</a> about what it means to be living with HIV in 2019. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="InstagramEmbed" data-react-props="{"url":"https://www.instagram.com/p/B2rZsMHgwQ5","accessToken":"127105130696839|b4b75090c9688d81dfd245afe6052f20"}"></div></p>
<p>Since the mid-1990s, improved <a href="https://aidsinfo.nih.gov/understanding-hiv-aids/fact-sheets/21/51/hiv-treatment--the-basics">antiretroviral treatment (ART)</a> has enabled HIV be managed as a chronic condition, and often people with HIV can assume normal life expectancy. ART can also suppress HIV in a person’s body, which means it cannot be transmitted to a sexual partner — colloquially known as U=U (<a href="https://ashm.org.au/about/what-we-do/position-statements/U-equals-U/">undetectable = untransmissible</a>). </p>
<p>Despite this, HIV is still marred by <a href="https://newsroom.unsw.edu.au/news/health/research-reveals-stigma-remains-australia-marks-world-aids-day">high levels of stigma</a> and misunderstanding which make it incredibly challenging for people to “come out” as HIV positive.</p>
<h2>Changing faces of HIV</h2>
<p>For many Australian adults, the darkly disturbing imagery of the 1987 Grim Reaper media campaign still stands as the dominant cultural image of HIV. The Grim Reaper fuelled a sense of panic with the message that HIV “could kill more Australians than World War Two” and firmly grounded <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/apr/15/the-fears-of-australias-hiv-crisis-have-faded-the-laws-of-that-time-should-too">HIV stigma in public sentiment</a>. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/OJ9f378T49E?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>At this time, one of the most visible Australian faces of HIV was that of <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-11-18/remembering-eve-van-grafhorst-after-hiv-diagnosis/10491934">Eve van Grafhorst</a>, a child from NSW whose family was forced into hiding due to harassment they received when Eve was outed as HIV positive in 1985. </p>
<p>In 1990, Time Magazine published the now infamous <a href="https://time.com/3503000/behind-the-picture-the-photo-that-changed-the-face-of-aids/">image of David Kirby</a> dying from AIDS, lying semi-conscious on his bed surrounded by his grieving family. Similar images of deathly thin, young gay men were the <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/archives/80days/stories/2012/01/19/3411655.htm">prevailing cultural stereotype</a> of HIV at the time, but they in no way told the whole story.</p>
<p>Since the early 1980s, many thousands of activists have <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3780739/">publicly disclosed their HIV status</a> in an act of resistance to discriminatory images of people living with HIV and to provide leadership in the fight against HIV and AIDS.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/293721/original/file-20190924-54763-14eennb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/293721/original/file-20190924-54763-14eennb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=636&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293721/original/file-20190924-54763-14eennb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=636&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293721/original/file-20190924-54763-14eennb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=636&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293721/original/file-20190924-54763-14eennb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=799&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293721/original/file-20190924-54763-14eennb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=799&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293721/original/file-20190924-54763-14eennb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=799&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Magic Johnson, playing for the LA Lakers.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_Johnson#/media/File:Magic_Lipofsky.jpg">Steve Lipofsky/Wikimedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In 1991, LA Lakers star point guard <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/guide/article/2018/11/22/how-magic-johnson-forever-changed-public-perception-hiv">Magic Johnson</a> publicly revealed his HIV status. As a heterosexual sporting hero, Johnson’s coming out disrupted some of the homophobic narrative around HIV, but he also had to confront a shocked public and ongoing media revelations about his sexual history. </p>
<p>This narrative has remained sadly consistent. In 2015, <a href="https://theconversation.com/charlie-sheen-and-ten-million-dollars-worth-of-hiv-stigma-50909">Charlie Sheen announced that he was HIV positive</a> in an effort to stop threats to “out” him. At this point, Sheen had already spent upwards of US$10 million on extortion payments. </p>
<p>Media reporting on Sheen’s HIV status <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/arts-and-entertainment/wp/2015/11/23/charlie-sheen-put-a-spotlight-on-hiv-and-sex-workers-but-heres-whats-missing-from-the-conversation/">commented on his sexual morality</a> and demeaned the character of sex workers he had engaged. </p>
<p>While the mainstream media around Van Ness has been celebratory of his willingness to share his story so openly, this does not necessarily mean it will be easier for others to reveal their status.</p>
<h2>Ongoing stigma and isolation</h2>
<p>Last week, the results of an Australian national survey of people living with HIV run by La Trobe University, the <a href="https://www.latrobe.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0007/1058614/HIV-Futures-9.pdf">HIV Futures 9 study</a>, were released, revealing the extent to which HIV stigma can lead to invisibility and isolation. </p>
<p>One in three respondents indicated that almost no-one in their life was aware of their HIV status. A similar number reported that they knew no other people living with HIV with whom they could speak about their experiences. </p>
<p>The survey findings also showed HIV status had a significant impact on the way people approached relationships with friends, family and potential partners: nearly half the heterosexual women surveyed indicated they had avoided intimate relationships or sex since their HIV diagnosis. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/hiv-in-australia-weve-come-a-long-way-but-theres-more-to-do-28386">HIV in Australia: we've come a long way but there's more to do</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Coming out to build community</h2>
<p>Van Ness came out about his HIV status by describing himself as a “<a href="https://time.com/5683249/queer-eye-jonathan-van-ness-h-i-v-positive/">member of the beautiful HIV positive community</a>.” </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/293723/original/file-20190924-54790-13bjoy0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/293723/original/file-20190924-54790-13bjoy0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293723/original/file-20190924-54790-13bjoy0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293723/original/file-20190924-54790-13bjoy0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293723/original/file-20190924-54790-13bjoy0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293723/original/file-20190924-54790-13bjoy0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293723/original/file-20190924-54790-13bjoy0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Community has always been important in the queer community – the HIV community is no different.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Austin Hargrave/Netflix</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The sense of support and solidarity that comes with community is an important <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2016-44830-001">buffer against the negative impact of stigma</a> and discrimination. For this reason, adequately funded <a href="http://www.aidsmap.com/news/sep-2018/peer-support-crucial-many-people-living-hiv">peer programs</a> and community organisations that connect HIV positive people with each other remain a vital part of the social response to HIV. </p>
<p>These programs rely on the willingness of people living with HIV to be open about their status – despite the risks – as a means to offer advocacy and care for others. </p>
<p>Public support for Van Ness has been powerful, and Van Ness’ fame provides a platform from which he can extend this <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/lgbtq-history-month-early-days-america-s-aids-crisis-n919701">legacy of building community around HIV</a>. But it should not mask the reality that many people living with HIV continue to be silenced and isolated by stigma. </p>
<p>For that to change, we need to build much greater awareness about the contemporary experience of living with HIV.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/123993/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jennifer Power receives funding from the Australian Department of Health and The Australian Research Council. She has previously received funding from ViiV Healthcare. Jennifer Power is the lead investigator on the HIV Futures 9 study referred to in this article. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Graham Brown receives funding from the Australian Department of Health, The Australian Research Council, the National Health and Medical Research Council, ViiV Healtcare, and the National Association of People Living with HIV Australia. Graham Brown is an investigator on the HIV Futures 9 study referred to in this article.</span></em></p>The Queer Eye star coming out as HIV positive and the changing face of HIV is an encouraging story about the way stigma is shifting. But we still have work to do.Jennifer Power, Senior Research Fellow at the Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society, La Trobe UniversityGraham Brown, Associate Professor, La Trobe UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1011182018-08-15T20:14:03Z2018-08-15T20:14:03ZComing out at work is not a one-off event<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/231830/original/file-20180814-2918-aftje8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">It's a mistake to think of coming out as a once-off declaration: many LGBTIQ+ people have to come out to new colleagues and workplaces again, and again, and again.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-vector/hello-gay-open-homosexuality-coming-out-1043973931?src=xImYFzjp5xkDKIH55dMNTA-1-3">Nadia Snopek/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>For many LGBTIQ+ workers coming out is a never-ending process. A recent study in the UK shows <a href="https://www.stonewall.org.uk/about-us/media-centre/media-statement/stonewall-reveals-coming-out-work-still-problem">coming out at work is still a problem</a>. <a href="https://www.dca.org.au/news/media-releases">Our research</a>, to be <a href="https://www.dca.org.au/event/235">launched in Sydney on August 27</a>, supports this finding and further unpacks the reasons for these continuing difficulties. </p>
<p>As LGBTIQ+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans/gender diverse, people with intersex variations, and queer) individuals navigate their careers, meet and work with new people, enter new workplaces and change their jobs, they continually face the dilemma of whether to come out at work. Even those who feel comfortable about their sexual orientation or gender identity need to assess this decision carefully because discrimination against LGBTIQ+ workers still prevails in some workplaces. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/we-have-marriage-equality-now-we-need-lgbtqi-inclusive-sexuality-education-in-schools-87501">We have marriage equality, now we need LGBTQi+-inclusive sexuality education in schools</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Why does coming out matter so much?</h2>
<p>Unlike women and minority groups, LGBTIQ+ individuals hold an invisible identity that they can hide to avoid prejudice and discrimination at work. However, being able to hide their identity can also be a curse. </p>
<p>Research shows that not being authentic at work can increase <a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/record/1997-42257-020">stress</a> and reduce <a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/record/2002-11420-003">satisfaction</a>. For LGB workers, hiding sexual orientation leads to <a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/buy/2003-01068-018">disengagement and dissatisfaction</a> at work. A similar dynamic applies to trans and gender-diverse employees who experience lower levels of satisfaction with their job when they are <a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/buy/2016-52085-001">misgendered by co-workers</a>. </p>
<h2>Then why don’t people come out?</h2>
<p>Participants in our research told us that, while coming out is important to them, the decision to come out is not always a real choice because the fear of negative consequences often constrains them. </p>
<p>At work, people are often calculating the consequences of their actions. They only take actions that lead to positive outcomes and avoid actions that lead negative outcomes. For many LGBTIQ+ workers, <a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/buy/2010-03383-010">coming out often presents both social and career risks</a>. Research continues to show that LGBTIQ+ workers face considerable disadvantages at work, including <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/hrm.21912">fewer job opportunities</a>.</p>
<p>Many LGBTIQ+ workers also live in fear that coming out might adversely impact their relationship with co-workers. Workers who have experienced discrimination in previous jobs have an even <a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/buy/2007-09571-016">greater fear of discrimination and are less likely to come out</a>. </p>
<p>The workplace or occupational environment may affect the decision to come out or not. Some LGBTIQ+ workers even <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0001839215576401">avoid jobs that require interactions with other people</a> so they don’t have to grapple with this decision. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-stigma-impacts-lgb-health-and-wellbeing-in-australia-96904">How stigma impacts LGB health and wellbeing in Australia</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Coming out is complicated</h2>
<p>The decision to come out is often a “Catch-22” situation – many LGBTIQ+ workers are damned if they do (e.g. facing discrimination) and damned if they don’t (e.g. the anxiety of not living authentically). Unfortunately, LGBTIQ+ workers continue to live throughout their lives and careers with this dilemma of why, when, to whom, where and how to come out. </p>
<p>Coming out is a never a one-off event. It is a repetitive process, particularly when one meets new co-workers or supervisors, or starts a new job. It involves juggling multiple tactics, based on different audiences and environments, and weighing up different social and professional risks and rewards. </p>
<p>This all happens at different times during their career and even <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0149206314539350">multiple times during a week</a>. One participant in our research reflected:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>You have to come out again, and again, and again, and again…</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Inclusive culture is the key</h2>
<p>We measured the inclusiveness of respondents’ workplaces and, ultimately, <a href="https://www.dca.org.au/research/project/out-work-prejudice-pride">our study</a> revealed it was having an LGBTIQ+ inclusive culture that makes LGBTIQ+ people feel safe to be themselves at work and able to have a real choice about being out at work. </p>
<p>Previous workplace research shows an <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/hrm.21630">inclusive culture encourages LGBTIQ+ people to be out at work</a>. This also increases <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10672-007-9046-y">their commitment and career satisfaction</a>. </p>
<p>Organisations with an inclusive workplace culture are <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0149206310385943">employers of choice for LGBTIQ+ employees</a> because they have a sense of belonging and feel their uniqueness is valued and respected. In these organisations, LGBTIQ+ employees feel they are an integral part of the organisation and their identity or status is respected. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/big-city-gaybourhoods-where-they-come-from-and-why-they-still-matter-93956">Big city gaybourhoods: where they come from and why they still matter</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Simply recognising the existence of LGBTIQ+ workers through workplace policies can make a huge difference to the workplace experience. <a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/buy/2001-16970-002">Using inclusive language or including LGBTIQ+ employees in policies and practices</a> enhances their positive attitudes towards their employer. </p>
<p>Being supportive of LGBTIQ+ colleagues can make <a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/buy/2003-01068-018">a positive difference</a> to their coming out experience. Working in an inclusive culture means that everyone is inclusive of all groups, and that we can make a difference to the lived experiences of all workers. </p>
<p>Also, being inclusive means organisations need to have inclusive and bold leaders. They are willing to take a stand and to call out homophobia, transphobia, biphobia and intersexism, even if it comes from important stakeholders such as potential and current clients or customers.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Cathy Brown and Jane O’Leary contributed to this article. Cathy is the Policy and Research Manager at Diversity Council Australia. Jane is the Research Director at Diversity Council Australia.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/101118/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Raymond Trau receives funding from Deloitte, QBE and the Victorian Government. Out at Work: From Prejudice to Pride is a partnership industry research initiative between Diversity Council Australia, RMIT University, the Star Observer, Deloitte, and QBE.</span></em></p>When LGBTIQ+ people change jobs, gain new workmates or a new boss, they again must weigh up the risks of coming out. Inclusive workplaces realise the benefits of workers who can be their true selves.Raymond Trau, Lecturer, RMIT UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/785862017-06-21T10:32:10Z2017-06-21T10:32:10ZWhat happened to the openly gay athlete?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/174549/original/file-20170619-22129-v2kkx7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">St. Louis Rams draft pick Michael Sam speaks during a news conference at the team's practice facility in May 2014.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Rams-Sam-Arrives-Football/d69450fddf95402e9d914448a4fe5724/146/0">Jeff Roberson/AP</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>From late April 2013 to early May 2014, gay and lesbian athletes welcomed breakthrough after breakthrough in the historically closeted world of sports.</p>
<p>Journeyman basketball center <a href="https://www.si.com/more-sports/2013/04/29/jason-collins-gay-nba-player">Jason Collins</a> came out as gay and later signed a contract with the Brooklyn Nets, making him the first openly gay player to get into a regular-season game in the NBA, NFL, NHL or MLB. </p>
<p>A few weeks after Collins’ announcement, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFX5IQzjAkw">Robbie Rogers</a> debuted for the Los Angeles Galaxy, breaking a similar barrier in Major League Soccer. That October, U.S. women’s soccer superstar <a href="http://www.espn.com/espnw/news-commentary/article/9799986/abby-wambach-marries-longtime-partner-teammate-hawaii">Abby Wambach</a> married her longtime girlfriend.</p>
<p>Finally, in football, SEC defensive player of the year <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/10/us/football-michael-sam/">Michael Sam</a> became the first out player to be drafted when he was selected by the St. Louis Rams in May 2014.</p>
<p>But if some were hoping the events of 2013 and 2014 would spark a wave of professional athletes coming out, little headway has been made. Since Sam was drafted, no active players have done so from any of the four major sports leagues. The closest have been players like <a href="https://www.brewcrewball.com/2017/3/22/15023152/brewers-gay-minor-leaguer-david-denson-retires">David Denson</a>, a minor league prospect for the Milwaukee Brewers who quit baseball this past spring, and retired NFL lineman <a href="https://www.outsports.com/2017/6/20/15835374/ryan-ocallaghan-gay-nfl-new-england-patriots-kansas-city-chiefs">Ryan O'Callaghan</a>, who came out on June 20.</p>
<p>What gives? Are professional athletes worried about discrimination? Do the perceived barriers to coming out as an athlete – not being signed by skittish general managers, <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2014/02/the-nfl-will-never-be-ready-for-an-openly-gay-player/283706/">not being accepted</a> by teammates, <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2740075/Michael-Sam-dropped-NFL-no-one-wants-distraction-claims-Buffalo-Bills-star-gay-football-player-tweets-upbeat-message.html">being labeled a “distraction”</a> by coaches or the media – still exert undue influence?</p>
<p>The answer is a nuanced one. But evidence suggests that, while momentum has slowed at the top levels of pro sports, an increasing number of players at the college and high school levels in America are coming out – and are finding themselves supported when they do so.</p>
<h2>More gay athletes telling their stories</h2>
<p>Since it was founded in 1999 by journalists Jim Buzinski and Cyd Zeigler, the website <a href="http://www.outsports.com/">Outsports</a> has been an outlet for gay sports fans and athletes to share their personal stories or simply chat about their favorite teams. </p>
<p>When the site was first launched, it was mostly the latter, Buzinski told me over the phone.</p>
<p>“It was just basically just two guys who liked sports who happened to be gay,” he said. “We’d write as much about general NFL stuff as we would about anything else.” </p>
<p>Things have changed dramatically over the past few years. A player coming out, either on Outsports or through other media outlets, has become almost routine – at least, outside of the big four professional leagues.</p>
<p>Each high school or college athlete who tells his or her story makes it easier for the next person, Buzinski said.</p>
<p>Scouring all media, Outsports keeps the best count that it can of athletes, coaches, sports administrators and sports media members who come out publicly each year. In 2013, that number was 77; in 2014, it was 109; 2015, 105; and 2016, 171. </p>
<p>“There’s been a real acceleration in the last four years,” Buzinski said. </p>
<p>The site has a policy of featuring only one athlete’s coming-out story per day. That used to be simple; few LGBT athletes wanted to be identified at all. Now the editors have to figure out which story will run on what day.</p>
<p>They include <a href="https://www.outsports.com/2017/6/19/15804040/austin-hodges-gay-texas-high-school-football-coming-out">a high school football player from Texas</a> who played for his team during the game and performed with the drill squad at halftime, and <a href="https://www.outsports.com/2017/6/15/15809442/gay-suicide-bemidji-state-lars-egge">a sprinter</a> who attempted suicide twice before coming to terms with himself as an out, gay man. </p>
<p>While acknowledging the dearth of names from top pro male teams, Buzinski likened the situation to legislation that fails to win approval in Congress, but is passed in similar forms at the local and statehouse level. Eventually, the measure becomes so ingrained that it becomes the law of the land. </p>
<h2>Where’s the media coverage?</h2>
<p>And yet, as the number of openly gay players grows at the high school and college levels (not to mention the WNBA, where stars such as <a href="http://people.com/sports/wnbas-brittney-griner-on-being-a-gay-athlete-i-felt-like-half-of-me-wasnt-accepted/">Brittney Griner</a>, <a href="http://www.outsports.com/2017/5/15/15642530/wnba-diana-taurasi-marries-penny-taylor-phoenix-mercury">Diana Taurasi</a> and <a href="http://www.espn.com/wnba/story/_/id/17214704/elena-delle-donne-chicago-sky-reveals-gay-engaged">Ellena Delle Donne</a> all have come out), some questions remain: Why aren’t male athletes at the professional level coming out? And why does it seem like the media are less interested in the subject?</p>
<p>I ran several searches of the <a href="http://www.newsbank.com/about-newsbank">NewsBank</a> database to try to gauge whether coming-out stories about gay and lesbian athletes were becoming more or less frequent. Each search used the terms “gay or lesbian” and “athlete or player” and “coming out” on U.S. newswires, which includes – among a range of mainstream outlets – all the state and national lines of The Associated Press. The number of results reached a peak at 35,047 in 2013 but dropped to 26,430 by last year, with early results indicating another likely decline in 2017.</p>
<p>Erik Hall, a freelance sports journalist, worked on the Sam story while a student at Missouri. His master’s thesis analyzed coverage of the lineman’s coming out saga, and he believes that this downward trend in news coverage can be explained quite simply: All those big stories raised the bar. For major mainstream publications, the story of a high school athlete coming out isn’t really that significant any more. To make it a national news story, it has to be a big name – a starter on an NBA, MLB, NHL or NFL team. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, Sam – who never played a regular-season down in the NFL and was released by the Rams and Dallas Cowboys – later admitted that coming out <a href="http://www.latimes.com/sports/nfl/la-sp-michael-sam-return-to-nfl-20150925-story.html">probably hurt his chances</a>. </p>
<p>Hall told me that he thinks Sam’s inability to land with a pro team was more about talent than his sexual orientation. But he did add that he knows some people “who think [Sam] didn’t make it because of his sexuality. I think that narrative has been strong. I feel that had a chilling effect on [athletes] that are on that level.” </p>
<p>Luke McAvoy was a closeted backup lineman at the University of Minnesota when Sam came out a few months before the 2014 NFL draft. He says he’s grateful to Sam; shortly after Sam’s announcement, McAvoy came out to his team and was largely accepted by the other Gopher players. He had no ambition or chance to play at the next level – he’s now a middle school educator in Milwaukee – but he can relate to the fear of coming out for those in Sam’s position.</p>
<p>“For a college athlete chasing that dream, you don’t want to do anything to damage that,” he said in a phone interview. “There’s team pressure, money pressure, media pressure to stay quiet.”</p>
<h2>A turning tide?</h2>
<p>At the pro level, will the tide ever turn to more openness about athletes’ sexuality? If so, McAvoy said, it will have to “trickle up” to the pros. </p>
<p>That day may not be so far away.</p>
<p>Hall, who writes a roundup of out LGBT athletes in U.S. colleges for Outsports, said that by his count, there were 23 such players active in Division I – the top level of college sports – at the start of the 2016-17 academic year. By the end of the year, there were 46.</p>
<p>This fall, there will be at least one more. <a href="http://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/18766769/arizona-wildcats-recruit-my-king-johnson-first-active-openly-gay-scholarship-player">My-King Johnson</a> is a standout defensive lineman headed to Arizona after turning down UCLA. He’s 17 years old and came out to friends and family at 12. </p>
<p>While Sam came out after his playing career at Missouri was over, Johnson will be out before his starts. That means much of the media coverage of Johnson-as-novelty could well be done by the time his Wildcats and Northern Arizona kick off their season opener on Sept. 2. </p>
<p>In that case, Johnson will be just one of the guys.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/78586/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John Affleck is the director of the John Curley Center for Sports Journalism at Penn State. Jim Buzinski, whom he interviewed for the piece, is a Penn State alumnus and serves on the alumni advisory board for the center, a post that is voluntary and unpaid.</span></em></p>Since Michael Sam came out in 2014, no one in the NFL, NBA, MLB and NHL has done the same. Are the barriers to coming out still holding firm? Or are there signs that the tide could soon turn?John Affleck, Knight Chair in Sports Journalism and Society, Penn StateLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/666552016-10-11T10:15:40Z2016-10-11T10:15:40ZWhy it’s often still so difficult to be out and proud<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/141137/original/image-20161010-3864-jhgsem.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Natasha Kramskaya/Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>A few months ago, I <a href="http://www.queerfutures.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Queer-Futures-Final-Report.pdf">interviewed</a> a 19-year-old bisexual woman and asked her why she had found it so difficult to “come out”. She replied: “I just had hate coming at me from all sides”. It may seem odd that a young woman living in the UK has experienced hostility because of her sexual orientation. The UK has made many legislative changes to promote lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans (LGBT) equality – such as anti-discrimination laws and same-sex marriage. But although laws have changed, negative attitudes to LGBT people unfortunately still exist. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.lgbthatecrime.org.uk/#project-overview">Hate crime</a> towards LGBT people remains a <a href="http://www.galop.org.uk">persistent problem</a> in the UK. And new figures compiled by Galop – a LGBT anti-violence charity – show that <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/brexit-hate-crime-hatred-homophobia-lgbt-147-per-cent-rise-double-attacks-on-gays-lesbians-a7352411.html">homophobic attacks have increased 147%</a> in the three months after the Brexit vote. Which suggests the rise in hate crime seen after the EU referendum wasn’t just confined to racism or Islamophobia. </p>
<p>Part of the problem is that we live in a world where everyone is presumed to be heterosexual/straight – and as a society we still like to think that everyone fits comfortably into a male or female gender category. But the reality is clearly quite different – with a <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/11807740/half-young-people-heterosexual-lgbt-homosexual-yougov.html">recent survey</a> revealing that 49% of people aged between 18 and 24 identify as something other than 100% heterosexual. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/141138/original/image-20161010-3909-5qs7bu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/141138/original/image-20161010-3909-5qs7bu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141138/original/image-20161010-3909-5qs7bu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141138/original/image-20161010-3909-5qs7bu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141138/original/image-20161010-3909-5qs7bu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141138/original/image-20161010-3909-5qs7bu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141138/original/image-20161010-3909-5qs7bu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Love is love is love, at this year’s Toronto Pride.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shawn Goldberg/Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But although the number of people identifying as something other than totally heterosexual is on the rise, it is still difficult for many people to identify fully as LGBT. This is because on top of the potential hostility an LGBT person might face, they also have to work out when the right time might be to tell someone they are not heterosexual or that they have a different gender. And this can mean that coming out is not a one time only event. </p>
<p>So whether it’s disclosing your sexuality to colleagues at a new workplace, explaining to a school that your daughter has two dads, or talking to your son about how his mum was born a man, coming out can often be a regular exercise for many LGBT people. </p>
<h2>Why come out?</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24691967">Research</a> shows that coming out about sexual orientation and gender identity makes a huge difference to LGBT people’s ability to lead <a href="http://bmcfampract.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12875-015-0389-4">happy, open and fulfilling lives</a>. Being open about sexual and gender identity improves LGBT people’s self-esteem and self-confidence, enables better relationships, improves employment satisfaction and increases well-being and psychological health. </p>
<p>In a <a href="http://www.queerfutures.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Queer-Futures-Final-Report.pdf">research interview</a>, Lex, who was 25 and genderqueer, explained to me how attending a LGBT youth group helped her come out:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It really took away the feeling of isolation and enabled me to get a core group of friends who understood me. It meant I was able to access other LGBT services. And we were able to grow in confidence both in terms of feeling accepted and in accepting ourselves.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>On the flip side there are tremendous negative impacts on LGBT people when they cannot be open about their sexual orientation or trans identity. This silencing can lead to isolation, self-harm, sexual risk-taking, substance abuse and poor relationships. <a href="http://bmcmededuc.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1472-6920-14-171">Research shows</a> that the inability to disclose sexual or gender identity, and the stress related to decisions about coming out, is also consistently linked with <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/267886750">suicide and depression in LGBT people</a>. </p>
<p>A <a href="http://www.queerfutures.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Queer-Futures-Final-Report.pdf">recent study</a> in England, funded by the Department of Health, investigated the high risk of suicide in young LGBT people (aged 16-25). The researchers found that 25% of people did not ask for help when they were suicidal because they were <a href="http://www.queerfutures.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Queer-Futures-Final-Report.pdf">hiding their sexual orientation</a> and/or gender identity.</p>
<h2>Out of hiding?</h2>
<p>But this isn’t something that just impacts young people – because hiding your sexual orientation or gender identity can have negative impacts throughout your whole life. <a href="https://www.mariecurie.org.uk/globalassets/media/documents/policy/policy-publications/june-2016/reality-end-of-life-care-lgbt-people.pdf">Two studies</a> funded by Marie Curie found that many older LGBT people have significant fears about palliative and end of life care services – because they are LGBT. </p>
<p>Respondents said they were concerned that service providers and health and social care professionals will be indifferent to their sexuality and gender identity, even actively hostile.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/141139/original/image-20161010-3881-ye9tjo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/141139/original/image-20161010-3881-ye9tjo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141139/original/image-20161010-3881-ye9tjo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141139/original/image-20161010-3881-ye9tjo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141139/original/image-20161010-3881-ye9tjo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141139/original/image-20161010-3881-ye9tjo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141139/original/image-20161010-3881-ye9tjo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Many older LGBT people have significant fears about end of life care services.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ive Photos/Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But despite the difficulties still experienced by many LGBT people, things are changing. Official government statistics show that nearly twice as many <a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/culturalidentity/sexuality/bulletins/sexualidentityuk/2015#statisticians-quote">young people identify as LGBT</a> than those over 25 years old. And a new study has found that <a href="http://attitude.co.uk/millennials-are-twice-as-likely-to-identify-as-lgbt/">more millennials are identifying as LGBT</a> than any other age group – and it is hoped that new generations will only continue to get more progressive.</p>
<p>Because with more people identifying as LGBT and being open about their sexuality and gender, as well as increased awareness, it may be that at some point in the future, coming out might well become a thing of the past. And one day people might not need to come out at all, because all sexualities and genders will be celebrated as natural and normal.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/66655/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Elizabeth McDermott receives funding from National Institute of Health Research.
</span></em></p>But it may be that at some point in the future, coming out will become a thing of the past.Elizabeth McDermott, Senior Lecturer in Health Research, Lancaster UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/291492014-07-14T03:26:15Z2014-07-14T03:26:15ZDo openly gay public figures like Ian Thorpe matter? They sure do<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/53710/original/6v96s7ym-1405306926.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Research shows that high-profile gay and lesbian people have made a real difference to the lives of others.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP Image/Paul Miller</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In his unassuming way, Ian Thorpe is probably quite accustomed to making history. His swag of Olympic medals and world records makes him Australia’s most successful swimmer. Last night, when <a href="http://tenplay.com.au/sport/2014/7/13/ian-thorpe-the-parkinson-interview-part-1">he told interviewer Michael Parkinson</a> he is a gay man, he made another kind of history – by becoming the most high-profile gay sporting figure in Australia. </p>
<p>As a 31-year old man, Thorpe would have seen significant changes in attitudes towards homosexuality over the course of his life. During his interview with Parkinson, he spoke of the casual homophobia that existed at his all-male high school and the impact that this had on him as a young man. He also spoke of being the target of homophobic verbal abuse – well before he identified as gay. </p>
<p>Thorpe’s public announcement last night that he is a gay man suggests he believes that Australian society has evolved considerably in recent years.</p>
<p>Perhaps the Twitter comment by conservative politician Reverend Fred Nile, famous for praying for the Sydney Mardi Gras to be rained out in the 1980s, <a href="https://twitter.com/frednile/status/487938729625939968">stating simply</a>, “You are champion, that is all that matters,” indicates he is correct.</p>
<h2>Do openly homosexual public figures matter?</h2>
<p>Along with a team of other academic researchers and the National Library of Australia, I am involved with the <a href="https://theconversation.com/learning-from-the-lives-of-gay-and-lesbian-australians-25270">Australian Lesbian and Gay Life Stories</a> oral history project. We are interviewing 60 gay men and lesbian women across Australia in order to investigate what it has been like to live a gay or lesbian life at a time when social attitudes towards homosexuality have shifted significantly.</p>
<p>As the interviews progress, we have come to realise just how important openly homosexual public figures have been for many of the gay men and lesbian women we have spoken to.</p>
<p>Many older Australians, particularly those born before the 1940s, have described growing up feeling isolated, with homosexuality being largely hidden from public view. When asked about the biggest changes that they have witnessed in their life with regard to homosexuality, almost all of these interviewees mention the growing number of public figures who are prepared to identify as gay or lesbian and the growing inclusion of homosexuality across popular culture.</p>
<h2>Generational change</h2>
<p>Those participants born after the 1960s have come of age at a time when there has been a dramatic growth in the visibility of lesbian and gay people in popular culture. </p>
<p>A significant number of lesbian interviewees, including those in rural towns, made reference to the public coming-out of <a href="http://www.ellentv.com/">Ellen DeGeneres</a> in 1997 and her continued popularity among mainstream television audiences as being important in increasing social acceptance of homosexuality. </p>
<p>The younger participants we have interviewed, particularly those born in the 1990s, have brought a very different understanding to the project. </p>
<p>While it is important to note that homophobia is still a force in Australian society, Australians born after 1984 have come of age at a time when there are considerable numbers of publicly open gay and lesbian public figures. Furthermore, the internet has allowed for easy connection to a global gay and lesbian culture. </p>
<p>Indeed, many of our younger participants tell us that they were aware of gay and lesbian celebrities before they ever met a gay or lesbian in their daily life.</p>
<p>What has been particularly interesting to hear from many younger participants has been the way that being aware of gay and lesbian public figures has made their life course easier. The sense of isolation that marked the adolescence of many gay or lesbian people growing up in the 1950s has been supplanted to an extent with the understanding that it is possible to live an open and happy gay or lesbian life.</p>
<p>While the interviews we have conducted appear to suggest that Australian attitudes towards homosexuality have evolved rapidly and positively over the past 30 years, it is evident that the journey has not always been easy for many lesbian and gay individuals and that homophobia is still a problem for many.</p>
<h2>Thorpe’s world</h2>
<p>As a man born in New South Wales in 1982, Ian Thorpe started life at a time when sexual intercourse between men was still criminalised. </p>
<p>Before he started training with his first swimming squad, the HIV/AIDS epidemic increased homophobia among some segments of Australian society. As his profile increased as a teenager, and before he was even aware of his own sexuality, he faced continued invasive and inappropriate homophobic questioning.</p>
<p>Thorpe’s decision to come out last night will do at least two things. </p>
<p>First, young Australians now growing up will see the further dismantling of homophobic stereotypes surrounding gay and lesbian people. Ian Thorpe, long considered one of Australia’s most popular and iconic heroes, is probably the most famous Australian to identify as a gay man. </p>
<p>Secondly, his visibility will challenge homophobia in the sporting arena, which long has had a reputation for problematic attitudes towards gay and lesbian people. </p>
<p>Although Ian Thorpe’s decision to come out publicly was clearly not an easy one for him to make, his decision marks a milestone, not only for him on a personal level but also for Australia. His announcement reveals a personal comfort with his sexuality. Let’s hope that this comfort is also reflected across the nation and that together we can recognise the rich contribution of gay and lesbian citizens to our public life.</p>
<p><br>
<br>
<strong>See also:</strong><br>
<a href="https://theconversation.com/homophobia-is-a-health-hazard-not-just-for-ian-thorpe-29148">Homophobia is a health hazard, not just for Ian Thorpe</a></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/29149/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Shirleene Robinson receives funding from the Australian Research Council for a Linkage Grant on "Australian Lesbian and Gay Life Stories".</span></em></p>In his unassuming way, Ian Thorpe is probably quite accustomed to making history. His swag of Olympic medals and world records makes him Australia’s most successful swimmer. Last night, when he told interviewer…Shirleene Robinson, Vice Chancellor's Innovation Fellow, Macquarie UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.