COMING OUT!

I have been watching this incredible Netflix series called SEX EDUCATION, where they talk about gender equality, safe sex practices, LGBTQ+ rights and their struggles, within a high school environment in England. Most importantly the show also tells us how humans really care about each other deep down in contrast to what is happening in the world right now.

I got hooked up with the characters in the show, each and every one of the characters are unique and well developed. In this particular season (3), there was a development arc of a character apparently a high school teen who comes out as a Bi-sexual to his peers in school. But he is still not ready to come out to his parent as a Bi-sexual yet. And this caused strain in his relationship, because his partner, who came out as a Gay person years ago and was comfortable with his emotions and feelings, who wanted him to do the same. This caused the earlier trauma of pain and the feeling of not good enough for anything.

I myself could not relate to many things in this series as the culture in this series is completely opposite to those of Indian and I also never identified myself as a Feminist or an LGBTQ+ activist but a kind person who always try to be as empathetic as one can be. So, this made me to think why LGBTQ+ people are always under pressure to come out? What’s the point in coming out? And more importantly what is coming out exactly?

As I learned by watching few episodes of The Ellen Show, coming out is a phase of your life where you tell everyone or your close ones around you what’s your sexual preference is. By answering the question” Do you like men or women?”. To be more LGBTQ+ inclusive it’s about telling what’s your gender, what you are comfortable wearing what you love what you don’t and its basically telling who you really are? So, this answered my question of what is coming out exactly, that it’s a process where you talk about who you are to others more precisely without giving them space for any assumption.

Now let’s try to answer the second question what’s the point in coming out? Most people come out as an LGBTQ+ member because the surrounding environment assumes or judges your Sexuality/Gender by your outer look and tries to suffocate you with things that you don’t associate with. So, when you come out, the person around you will be aware of your needs and the things you associate with. In order to explain this with an example if you complement a non-binary woman as “pretty”, they would be offended in their heart but may not be able to express them. Thus, coming out helps your surroundings to treat you in the way you need to be treated. Thus, we are prone to hurt LGBTQ+ members by actually complementing them with wrong connotations. These little things sum’s up to an identity crisis for the LGBTQ+ as they are unable to represent themselves fully.

This helped me to answer the second question as well but the third one “Why coming out puts pressure on people?” As I can observe, by coming out most people are being bullied or even threatened to murder by communities in which they live in. So, coming out is a process which helps you to tell who you are, which helps the people around you to treat you better and appropriate, backfires on you in terms of bulling and life threat. Then is it actually necessary? I guess not, but yes.

I might not be an expert but assuming persons gender or sexuality by mere outer appearance are things of the past. We are now in a phase of human race who can be anything they want as technology connects a person from Japan with a person in west coast of US who share same feelings and emotions, giving us a sense of we might be a minority but not alone. Going forward let’s try not to assume people gender or their sexuality, let it be a surprise untill you are close enough to ask them or told by them. My vision for LGBTQ+ might seem like its not in near future but I take a vow here not to assume peoples gender or sexuality and be little more empathetic to everyone.