I’m glad I was outed

Illustration by Killian Goodale-Porter.
Katie Meeker, Contributing Writer
It was all rather hilarious, actually.
I was sitting at the kitchen table with my mom and brother on Christmas Eve, wrapping some last-minute presents for my Dad. We had just gotten back from our neighbor’s annual Christmas party, and I was telling my mom about my friend and her new boyfriend.
My brother, in an attempt to join the conversation, suddenly piped up, “You know what else? Katie is dating a girl!” We both stared at him for a moment, astonished. Seriously, man?
I couldn’t help it — I burst into laughter.
My girlfriend and I have been close since freshman year, but we started dating last April. My friend accidentally let that slip in front of my brother at the Christmas party. She apologized profusely as my brother stared into the distance. She exclaimed, “He didn’t know?”
He didn’t. It wasn’t out of some desire for him not to know, I just hadn’t gotten around to telling him.
My mom looked at me as I laughed. I eventually calmed down enough to say, “Surprise! Also, I’m a lesbian. Surprise!”
She smiled at me, sighed and said, “Took you long enough.”
Technically, my dad still doesn’t know. I think I’ll just send this article to him. Hi, Dad!
It wasn’t like I was trying to hide my queerness from my family — far from it. I wasn’t worried that they wouldn’t accept me, kick me out or anything of that sort. I was fine with them knowing. It was the whole telling them thing I took issue with.
For as long as I can remember, I hated the idea of having to “come out.” The ceremony of it all, the consequence, it all rubs me the wrong way. To me, coming out feels like an invitation of judgment, more akin to standing before a jury deciding my fate than the heartwarming, liberating experience a lot of media makes it out to be.
Pop culture and Hollywood love coming-out stories. So many films about queerness released in the last few years focus on the grand coming-out story of the main protagonist. In reality, coming out is not always the deliverance these stories make it out to be.
These stories usually depict coming out as the epitome of the gay experience, an event that is built up to and “frees” the gay character from the closet and allows them to exist as their true self — with public approval, of course. Yes, I’m talking about “Love, Simon.” Whoops.
While coming out can be a way in which LGBTQ+ people can gain authority over their public identity, this method of pursuing control can sometimes backfire. Coming out, in a way, takes the knowledge of your identity out of your hands and puts it into the hands of the public community, and you cannot control what they might do with it.
I don’t believe the true function of coming out is even related to empowering queer people, and is rather just a polite declaration we must make to appease the values of our culture.
When I realized I was a lesbian and started dating my girlfriend, I decided not to come out to my family, instead opting to wait for the topic to come up naturally. Nearly a year later, my brother decided to do all the hard work for me. When he outed me, it honestly came as a relief.
However, my experience is not one that many other LGBTQ+ people share. I was lucky to be born with accepting parents in a part of the world relatively comfortable with queerness. I was only comfortable with being outed because I knew being an out-lesbian was not a safety hazard for me.
Outing, at its heart, is all about control. While I appreciated the lack of responsibility being outed gave me, that loss of control over your life’s narrative can be devastating for many queer people. My girlfriend, who was raised in a less accepting area of the world, is one such example — the environment that she grew up in makes my treatment of my sexuality look like an absurd fantasy.
I can’t blame her for her incredulity. I can’t blame my trans friends for reading this article and going, “Oh, that’s cute.” I know their judgment is justified. I admit, while my methods might seem reasonable in an ideal world, it is not very realistic for the one we currently live in — especially considering the cultural climate that the 2024 election results may usher in.
With a Donald Trump presidency and Project 2025 looming on the horizon, I can’t help but worry about my newfound state of vulnerability. I don’t have the opportunity to retreat into the closet, into safety, any longer. This article, if anything else, has cemented that fact.
Queer or not, try to remember this as we move into the new administration: Coming out isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Being out or not does not make you any more or less gay — the validity of your identity cannot be determined by something so superficial. Don’t feel pressured to creak open that door if you’re not yet ready. We will wait for you.