Coming out day

Coming out day is a yearly thing occurring on October 11th.  It's meant to promote awareness of gay/bisexual people, increase tolerance and increase visibility of queer folk.  Wikipedia calls it a civil awareness day.

I missed commemorating it this year but I would hope that I do enough year round to promote awareness and visibility.  My reason for the late post is that aroundabout Oct 11th I saw some people declaring that they thought a National Coming Out day was a bad thing as it would push or force people into coming out, when they weren't ready for it and/or when it may not be safe for them to do so.

I disagree with this interpretation of the day - as I see it the designation of Coming Out day is more for those who are already out and able to show their colours so to speak.  It should be a day when those who are comfortable enough to do so discuss LGB (and trans) issues and provide a visible presence and become a role model of sorts tho those folk who aren't out, for whatever reason.

It may be a day to tell your coming out story, it may be a day to say why you're proud to be queer (or the descriptor of your choice), it may be a day to talk about your life in general and just make the most fleeting reference to not being heterosexual.  Nobody should be pushed into coming out.  It's not always an easy thing to do, it can be very stressful and for a lot of people it can be dangerous.  the least the rest of us can do is be open and show the bigots that we're here, we're varied and we ain't going anywhere.

Maybe that will help those who are still in the closet.

If you want to read more about what I've said on the subject click on the LGB and coming out tags beneath this post.