National Coming Out Day

Today is National Coming Out Day...or, at least it is in the US. Here in Australia, there is no such day; October 11th goes unmarked in Adelaide, and no one seems to take note that somewhere this month is considered Gay History Month. All the same, I’ve grown accustomed to honouring the 11th of October, taking care to remember Matthew Shepherd, who was brutally murdered 11 years ago, and Harvey Milk, who urged us all to come out and be out, as only through recognizing us for who we are will our loved ones, friends and neighbours make a personal connection with the injustices committed against the queer community, and only then will they stand with us, accept us, and fight with us for equal rights. It all sounds very good in theory.

But what does coming out really mean? I’m talking here not only about what it literally means, but the consequences it signifies as well. In some parts of the world, declaring oneself as gay is quite literally a death sentence. “Coming out” as LGBTQ can mean anything from freedom and empowerment to acceptance to social ostracization to murder a la hate crime—given the huge range of consequences (normalcy, homelessness, admiration, death), the mere act of “coming out” is at best a rewarded as courageous and is at its worst no more constructive than slitting your own wrists. And what of the underlying meaning of “coming out”? It’s a little more than implied that LGBTQ people will forever need to come out. Oh, you moved to a new town? Well, you better tell people you’re gay. Oh, you’re dating someone new? Do they know you’re a transsexual? “Coming Out” in these senses—as something you have to do and something that needs to be openly admitted—often feels a lot like “coming clean.”How many times has “coming out” as a transsexual been rephrased as “coming clean”? It’s the same principle. We have this dirty little secret that needs to be exposed, lest we’re lying to ourselves or others, or we’re not exhibiting the characteristics of Pride, or living up to Milk’s quixotic dream. The whole point of “coming out” was supposed to be empowering. It’s supposed to be a statement of who we are, and because “who we are” is a marginalized and oppressed group, that seemingly-simple act of expression becomes an open force of rebellion...or so it used to be. Now, everything around “coming out” seems to be the obligation to fess up to something, or it’s become a way for many privileged folks in the community to celebrate the fact that they were able to “come out,” even though there are heaps of people who are unable to do so.

And what are we “coming out” as? I’ve given a lot of thought into this, and so to best demonstrate my qualms with the whole “coming out” act, I will, symbolically, “come out” to you all. I’m putting all my cards on the table:

My name is Sonia Adeline. I’m an Amazon woman—or girl. Girl sounds better because, well, I associate “woman” with a certain age and sense of maturity/attachment to the real world that I, frankly, never hope to attain. I’m a scientist, and artist, and a musician, although my lack of experience and dearth of patience have conspired to retard my musical and artistic abilities. That’s not to say I’m not good at what I do, only I could be much better if only I had more discipline. I’m not particularly adventurous, though given the circumstances of my life it would be easy to make that assumption. Really, I’m just very adept and jumping into uncomfortable situations—at unknowingly stumbling into unexplored (or scarcely explored) territory. I’m laid back/easy-going, humble, kind-hearted...though I have an alter ego who is much more intense/exciting/sarcastic/witty/playful/playfully-sadistic/adventurous/spunky/whatever. She peaks through the everyday Sonia frequently, sometimes making me feel like I have a dual personality. I may be crazy, but I’m probably not insane.

Oh, you wanted to hear about sexuality and gender, huh? Well, I thought I was laying my cards on the table, and my deck...well, let’s just say there are far more than 52 cards—and each card is the size of a damn billboard. But, if you want a limited window, let’s go for it. I like girls. A lot. I like tall girls mostly, though shorter is fine by me too. I’m not picky, though I have preferences. I like trans girls and I like cis girls. I like girls with tattoos and dyed hair, and I like girls who play guitar or paint. I like boys—and/or bois—specifically trans boys. I like genderqueers, though I’m not too attracted to genderfucks. I like cis boys...as friends. Mostly. I like people who make my soul resonate.

But I don’t really want to have sex with anyone. That’s all a problem. Yeah, I’ll call myself “gay” to appease/shut up some idiot. Yeah, I’m gay...but that’s too simple. If I subscribe to the popular theories of sexual orientation and assume that human sexuality is a spectrum along a bell curve (homosexuality and heterosexuality at the poles with most people being some degree of bisexual), I still limit my sample size. This paradigm still assumes that only two genders exists and that I must be sexually attracted to one or both of them. What if there are more genders, and what if I’m attracted to them all? What if I’m not attracted to anyone? What if, as my case is, I want to cuddle with them, hold hands with them, kiss them, but not really fuck them? What then? In a multi-gendered, multi-sexed, and multi-layered world, words like “gay” and “straight” and “bisexual” lose all meaning. The more progressive of us invent words like “omnisexual” and “pansexual” to describe this phenomenon, but even they make assumptions; they assume that I am equally attracted to everyone, even though I clearly prefer feminine expressions. And again, don’t these terms imply that I’m sexually attracted to them—that I, in fact, want to have sex? I’m a passionate, playful asexual. For now anyway. These identities are in constant flux—I may well meet someone who I really want to fuck. Why limit myself now? The only word for me in this sense is queer. I’m queer, and as all queer folks know, “queer” doesn’t really mean anything aside from “atypical.”

What then of gender/sex? It’s true that I was born male, transitioned, and am now female. That technically makes me a transsexual; however, does this mean that I am the “Once and Future Transsexual”? Instead of pulling a sword out of a stone and being crowned king, I get to instead pull a dilator out of a—well, you know—and be crowned “tranny”? I’m not saying I can change the past and I’m not suggesting that I’m not proud of who I am—instead I only mean to say that at some point in the transition, it seems like being a transsexual would take a major backseat to being a girl. Next there’s the somewhat ill-conceived category of “transgender”—a term that is so vague as to be virtually meaningless. In a technical sense, everyone is at some point transgender if for no other reason than a failure to conform to the unattainable ideals of masculinity and femininity (as society imagines them). But those in the know about minority labels recognize that identities like “transgender” have to be self-claimed. Just because a guy is really feminine doesn’t mean he’s transgender, though his gender expression does make him privy to a lot of the discrimination and asinine assumptions made of the transgender community—or the gay community, for that matter. Transgender expressions, whether the individual identifies as trans or not, are irrevocably linked to the gay community thanks to popular stereotypes.

So what’s the point of all these identity labels? Their meaning within the LGBT community is at best muddled by the gross complexity of sexuality, gender, and sex; however, even were sexual orientation and gender as simple as these basic binary cartoons, social realization of these identities are confused. A trans woman may well identify as female, but if she’s not in the privileged position to afford a transition (let alone “pass,” though that’s a different issue entirely) her self-identification as female may as well not exist—gender identities, to some extent, require social recognition in order to be fully actualized. This is the issue at the crux of “coming out”: how much does it matter what people think?

Like it or not, what other people think does matter. Even Daria Morgendorffer wasn’t immune to caring about what others thought of her. It’s a human characteristic—we look for verification of our identities from society; this is possibly why coming out becomes so important: if we don’t get to be out and recognized as ourselves in society, then our identities essentially don’t exist. For example, I self-identify as a feminine tomboy; while a lot of people who know me have found some way to make sense of this oxymoron of a gender identity, most people never recognize it. My height, my build, my tattoos and my piercings all are cues of masculinity—at least to the uneducated—and as such I am assumed to be more butch and more aggressive than I really am. To these people, that feminine identity is not a prevalent, and therefore is not as real as, say, my more punk/alternative identity (which, oddly enough, has nothing to do with my gender at all).

My point in all this is that if you feel compelled to come out as a given sexual orientation or gender identity/expression today, go for it. Knock yourselves out. What infuriates me is that on paper, these identities really don’t mean anything—they’re vague descriptions aiming to describe individual niches in a system that doesn’t really exist in nature—or it doesn’t exist in such simplistic terms. But outside of the theoretical, these words do mean something—they mean social rebellion; they mean liberation and self-actualization and alienation; love and hate; life and death. Identification as LGBTQ is a radical act, even if, on paper, the words are hollow and meaningless. The real truth in this issue is that any identity is essentially devoid of value until we assign meaning to it, and because everyone will value these labels differently, gathering any consistent standard proves ultimately futile. At this point, I would come out to you all; I would paint a picture using my 52+ metaphorical cards, but that would be an empty gesture. I cannot be defined by 52+ separate labels any more than I can be identified by one primary label of sexual orientation or gender. And besides, the notion of “coming out” or “coming clean” about my identity makes me feel like my inner-most self is some sort of dirty little secret, and you’re supposed to be privy to such intimate information. What infuriates me is that people are now expected to come out and be out as a part of Harvey Milk’s vision, or at least as some version of being an open and honest individual—never is there any mention of people who cannot “come out and stay out” because of social circumstances, or because their identities are too complex to distil succinctly into a Coming Out Day declaration. It’s for these reasons that if I “come out” as anything to you today, I “come out” (for now) as Sonia Adeline.