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anna j. clutterbuck-cook 🏳️‍🌈
@feministlib
This thread (read the whole thing) has prompted me to reflect on a particular experience of coming out I have discussed with a couple of newly-out friends recently. Coming back to this when I've had coffee. 1/
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Tom Peach
@ThomasPeachLib
“I don’t see you as gay, I just see a librarian” That’s lovely, but I asked him to consider how his words try to erase the very real experiences which result from my identity. I pointed out that not seeing it doesn’t help us when our problems are structural or policy.
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anna j. clutterbuck-cook 🏳️‍🌈
@feministlib
I understood, yet did not understand, my bisexuality in my early teens. It took a cross-country move, the queer internet, and falling in love for me to articulate that I was queer. I was twenty-seven and in grad school with a B.A. in Women's Studies. 6/
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anna j. clutterbuck-cook 🏳️‍🌈
@feministlib
I had studied lesbian feminism for my senior thesis. A dear friend had come out as gay (the first of many dear friends to do so). My parents were supportive and welcoming to that friend. I still couldn't *know*. 7/
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anna j. clutterbuck-cook 🏳️‍🌈
@feministlib
Other queer folk have even tougher pathways to understanding and being vulnerable with their queer selfhood. We have many dangers to navigate: The potential losses of home, family, love, financial security, respectful healthcare, legal protections. 8/
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anna j. clutterbuck-cook 🏳️‍🌈
@feministlib
(Parenthetically, this is part of why #Pride still fucking matters. Because it's still a radical act to be visible, and those of us who can risk exposure offer ourselves to be seen for those who need to know it's possible to exist.) 9/
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anna j. clutterbuck-cook 🏳️‍🌈
@feministlib
The first is to remember the struggle and the risk. Against the weight of cisheteronormative cultural conditioning and expectation and social structures it is nearly ALWAYS a fight to come out as queer both to ourselves and to others. 11/
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anna j. clutterbuck-cook 🏳️‍🌈
@feministlib
Perhaps particularly when an adult human begins to identify openly as queer, there's a story of struggle toward self-knowledge and safety behind that disclosure. There are probably painful reasons why they have not claimed those words before now. 12/
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anna j. clutterbuck-cook 🏳️‍🌈
@feministlib
(Parenthetical: I don't speak for all queer people, so if this is not your story I am not speaking about you. I have just observed a plurality of this type of experience in my queer social circles.) 13/
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anna j. clutterbuck-cook 🏳️‍🌈
@feministlib
So my first suggestion is: Recognize the courage and bravery that has gotten them this far, and recognize that if they are sharing this vulnerable part of themselves with you, that's a huge leap of faith. Be worthy of their trust. 14/
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anna j. clutterbuck-cook 🏳️‍🌈
@feministlib
You may think/know that you are supportive of queer personhood and human rights, that you celebrate queer diversity, and think of this person as fully human and your friend in all of their glorious queerness. 15/
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anna j. clutterbuck-cook 🏳️‍🌈
@feministlib
If they're talking to you, they probably HOPE that's the case. They trust you enough to be sharing this part of themselves with you. They're probably going to need to feel that love in action, again and again, before they can have faith in it. 16/
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anna j. clutterbuck-cook 🏳️‍🌈
@feministlib
Which leads me to my second suggestion: Please, please, please don't respond as if the person coming out to you is doing something utterly mundane, maybe even weird and attention-seeking because who needs to *come out* these days? 17/
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anna j. clutterbuck-cook 🏳️‍🌈
@feministlib
Take your cues from them, obviously. Don't over-invest in their identity in a way that turns their coming out story into something that's happening to or for you. But recognize the risks they are taking. Honor the work that has brought them more fully to themselves. 19/
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