posted on rebeccaldavisphdgmailcom.substack.com Why "coming out" still matters
The founders of the GLF intentionally echoed the rhetoric of Black Power (“power to the people”) and of North Vietnamese resistance (“liberation front”) to Western imperialism, even as they called out other “oppressed groups” for discriminating against queer people rather than finding solidarity with them. Visibility was a radical proposition for queer Americans in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In encouraging people to “come out,” the GLF advocated for the transformation of a culture that not only presumed heterosexuality but too often forced queer people to conform.
posted on shelraphen.com Community Roundup Week of 2024.10.06–11
I pass for cisgender perhaps 75% of the time. I have very good health insurance through my union, and in the near future I could get facial feminization surgery. I would easily pass and could go stealth and assimilate into heterosexuality. I could be inoffensive and demure, only quietly transsexual when relevant, and distance myself from the trans community that has supported me to where I am in my life today. My unusually high number of gay male friends could be attributed to being a faghag beloved by GBFs like I'm Grace of the eponymous Will & Grace. I could rename my blog to "The Millennial Chofetz Chaim" and edit and delete every post about being trans. I could make myself someone appealing to the lowest common denominator of men.
But is rejection of who I am really the path to happiness? Is the love of a man worth more than the gift I have been given by HaShem of being transsexual?
This post is by now a bit late for National Coming Out Day, but I did enjoy Dr. Davis's history of its observance and the political background of the concept of "coming out" and I particularly appreciated Shel's additions. She considers her experience specifically as a straight trans woman, the value of being out to her, and its value to the community. It feels a little silly to repost a link roundup, but this is definitely one worth reading!