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People who are closeted are still part of the queer community, you ignorant fuck. Go sit down and shut up and maybe read a stack of queer lit published in the late 80s and early 90s. https://twitter.com/gabydunn/status/1303918279845490688
Oh this has me fuming. It isn’t safe for everyone to come out, for lots of reasons.
Is it time for story time with Natalie? It might be!
Is it time for story time with Natalie? It might be!
When I was a wee baby freshman in college, I was trying to figure out the whole sexual orientation and gender identity—although I didn’t recognize that I was “grappling” with the latter until much much much later on.
It was a thing in the dorms to decorate in the hallway right next to your door. Some people had very elaborate displays. I put up a bunch of song lyrics (mostly R.E.M. iirc) but also a printout I made that said “love knows no gender” in a fairly small font.
I lost track of how many times I had to replace that tiny sign either because it disappeared or it had been defaced by my dorm mates. On October 10, which is National Coming Out Day, the ad which ran in the student paper was taped to my door.
I went to my RA to complain, as it was clearly a pattern of harassment. She told me there was nothing they could do, since it was all anonymous. I never did find out the person or persons who were harassing me for merely showing my support for the gay community.
Did I feel safe coming out at that point and place in time? No, no I did not.
Fast forward ten years or so. I’m living in another Midwest college town. I have a job which is slowly turning nightmare-ish because I had the co-worker from hell. I also had a blog at that time and I talked about being polyam and queer on it.
Nightmare co-worker found my blog and proceeded to out me to everyone at work. Some of those other co-workers felt that it was appropriate to leave comments on my blog about how disgusting they thought I was.
I go to management to complain about targeted harassment. I am told that it is my fault for having a blog. I am fired a couple of months later, the day before the BoD was due to make their annual visit—so I wouldn’t tell them what was going on.
Fast forward to today. I am kind of out at work—I have a rainbow flag in my cubicle, I’m a member of the LGBTQIA+ affinity group, but I’ve never made a giant announcement about it. In part because I don’t HAVE to, because there are now legal protections in place for my queer ass.
I have never been to Pride. I have never been to a gay bar. I am married to a man. I’ve never “officially” come out to my family.
And despite those things, I am still part of the queer community. I have been harassed for being maybe queer. I have been fired for being definitely queer.
To deny any queer person access to the community—even if it’s quiet access—is downright cruel.
To deny any queer person access to the community—even if it’s quiet access—is downright cruel.
And if you’re going to use your platform to invalidate someone’s queerness because they’re closeted and demand that only out people can write queer rep, maybe YOU are the one who needs to GTFO.
Because it’s often those in the closet who are in most desperate need to see themselves in fiction, because it is not safe to openly look for that community.
The end. And now I’m going to bed, don’t @ me. Or you can, but I won’t see it until later today because I have ten million things to do at work and I need to be up in six hours.
