Tuesday, October 15, 2019

The Coming Out Conundrum

What do you mean by coming out? Do you really need to come out? Why do you need to come out? The only coming out that you need to is coming out of your mother’s womb after floating around for 9 months, or more (or less), after floating around in amniotic fluid.

Why does one need to come out? We don’t hear straight men and women coming out and saying “Look here, I am straight!” So why does a gay man or woman have to come out, state their preference out loud. It is their preference, what they choose to be, very much like a straight person, they need to be afforded the same benefit, like a normal human being, cause there’s not abnormal about being who you are.

How I choose to live my life is my choice to make. In a way you don’t really choose who you are. Cause when it’s all said done, as Lady Gaga would say, we are born this way. What we become is our choice. It’s upto us how we choose to live our lives. We can chose to live it in closet, or be out and proud.

Who you are is your our personal thing. It’s on a need to know basis. It’s not for the prying eyes or gossipy ears. It’s for those who mean something to you, who are important to you. Who accept you no matter who you are and how you choose to live your life. It’s not something to be declared, to be worn like a scarlet letter across your chest, around your neck, meant to be poked fun, to be ridiculed, treated like an insult, fodder for gossip, the target of hate. Its a choice you make.

Your sexuality and your preferences are yours and only yours alone, your personal thing. You can’t help falling in love with who you choose to love. Who you want to tell is your right, your choice, your decision to make, and no one can take that away from you, no matter what they try to do. Who you tell, who you want to come out is your choice. In way your telling them you are important to them, you are letting them see you who you are, behind the mask and facade, the real you, the naked you, stripped to the bone.

It’s a choice and decision for you to take and something that shouldn’t be forced upon you. Have you seen a straight person put under pressure to come out as straight. Then why does gay man or woman have to do it? Because they do not conform to the norms of society, you do not live up to what’s expected of you? But in truth you don’t have any norms or expectations to live upto.

Coming out can be liberating, it can set you free, it’s all up to you. It means you don’t have to live a life of lie. You can live the way you choose to live, love who you choose to love, without the care of the judgemental and condescending eyes. 

Be who you are. Be a rainbow, bright and beautiful, adorning the sky. Be a unicorn, unique from all that’s around you. But importantly be you, and the ones who matter to you, who get you, will care for you no matter what, you don’t have to explicitly tell them who to you, you don’t have to come out, cause they just know, they will get you. They accept you no matter what. 

So to come out in the in the open is yours and yours decision to take.

No comments: