Our Queer Responsibility: Why It's Important for LGBT+ People to Come Out

My hot-take (that ruined a friendship) : Queer people have a responsibility to come out if they are in an otherwise safe, stable, and secure environment / situation. Those who choose not to come out, despite being perfectly able to do so with little-to-no blowback, are being selfish.

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Queer people have a responsibility to come out

Back in college, I had a friend named Alec. We met on Grindr (as gays do) and went on a couple of dates. We really hit it off, but for one reason or another (mostly my fault), things never materialized beyond a few dates and hookups. We remained friends for a while, but ultimately had a falling out.

Aside from me being unready and unwilling to pursue anything more serious at the time, the biggest reason we fell out (I think) was because of an argument over the importance of gay men coming out of the closet.

I probably could have phrased my position better at the time — and I will try to now — but my stance was:

Alec didn’t like that. I drove him home and he never spoke to me again.

Okay, so what’s the story?

Alright, so the tea is: during one of the transitory days of our friendship, when we were figuring out whether or not we even wanted to be “just friends,” I extended an olive branch — an invite to The Mall™️. We did some shopping and caught up over boba tea. Things went well, and I had a glimmer of hope that we’d remain friends.

Close to the end of our friend-date, as we were sipping boba tea, we somehow came to the subject of ‘coming out.’ We shared our own coming out stories, and ran the gamut of who we’re ‘out’ to.

I told him the story I tell everyone — I was sort of always gay, and am therefore out to everyone. My parents, my siblings, my friends, my colleagues. (The reason for that is a story for a later time.) But Alec, by contrast, didn’t understand “the point” of coming out, and stated that he didn’t really feel the need to come out to anyone, and so the only people who knew were people he was sleeping with. From his perspective, “that’s the only time it matters.”

Hearing this, I was intrigued, so I asked some follow-up questions:

• “Would you family react negatively?” — Nope, they’re open-minded.

• “Is your work environment unaccepting?” — Nope, I have openly gay colleagues.

• “Are you still figuring things out?” — Nope, I’ve known I am gay for a long time.

This perplexed me, and after running out of questions, he had some in kind. It was at this point I sensed that he was a bit upset, or unhappy with my probing. In my defense, I was genuinely curious, and not really trying to change his mind. But he had some questions for me — mostly an iteration of this one: “Why do you feel the need to announce it to everyone?”

And so our conversation continued, in what I viewed as a mental sparring match; each of us citing personal anecdotes, quasi-philosophical positions, and generally trying to put some intelligence behind our sides of the debate.

So I laid down my position: someone who is perfectly capable of coming out, and chooses not to, is simply being selfish.

Coming Out is a Moral Imperative

No one put it better than Dan Savage many years ago on George Stroumboulopoulos’ Tonight: “You have a moral obligation to be out. That means not being out is a moral failing… If you don’t want to be out… you should own that as a moral failing.”

I found this clip while working on this update, and couldn’t agree more. I only wish I referenced it back in the day when I basically called Alec a selfish coward. (Which wasn’t my objective, but almost certainly how he took it…) I think it perfectly summarizes my viewpoint: while no one can force you to come out, there are people around the world being killed for their queer existence, and so if you’re in a position to change that even slightly, then you should.

Coming Out has a Network Effect

In the business world, a network effect is when a product or service becomes more useful or valuable as more people use it. An example of network effects at play would be social media.

The value of a social media platform, to both its users and its operators, increases as more people join and engage. More users means more content, likes, and interactions — all of which drive enjoyment for users, and monetization opportunities for the platform.

Not to completely commodify the notion of coming out with this example, but the same logic applies:

That is our moral imperative. It’s the answer to the question “Why do you feel the need to announce it to everyone?” Every openly queer person contributes to the network effect of social progress by coming out.

By coming out, queer people are slowly turning the concept of “other” into “brother, friend, neighbor, colleague.” Slowly we are chipping away at the walls that many have built around themselves to shelter them from the possibility that someone they know — worse, someone they love — might be gay.

That is the point.

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👋 ABOUT OMARALEXIS

I’m a data analyst, podcaster, pasta-lover... I'm many things, but above all, I'm a creator. I created The Gay Pro because I love sharing stories of queer success, with the intention of empowering and inspiring other queer leaders.