Brave and Fierce

We’ve had enough of hiding.

It was National Coming Out Day this week and every year I post something on my personal Facebook page.

It is important that when we think of LGBTQ2S+ that real people come to mind. Knowing someone personally helps because the hateful conditioning, stereotypes and fear mongering don’t match up with the real people we know.

During the early years of the AIDS epidemic, many more people were in the closet because we could be fired from our jobs, and ostracized by family and former friends. Gay bashing was common and many died. The families of many men who contracted HIV found out that their son/brother/father/uncle were gay at the same time they found out their loved one had AIDS and was dying.

Do you remember being shocked learning that Rock Hudson was a gay man and was included in the Names Project? One thing about facing a life and death situation is that it clarifies our priorities. We’ve had enough of hiding. We take the risk of saying “this is who I am”.

There are many hidden costs of invisibility and hiding. When I was a teen in a small prairie town, I literally had never heard the word lesbian. I had no idea what to do with the feelings I had and I suppressed them so thoroughly I didn’t know I was a lesbian until my mid twenties. Many people married and had…