“Coming out”, as it were

For some time now I find the modern meaning of the term coming out to be rather tedious. While by no means an original thought, the problem with coming out is that it frames a pivotal moment in someone’s life through the lens of someone else, who was just, like, existing. “Is he out to his parents?” “Do her classmates know?” “Should we tell Grandma?” Originally, coming out is used in debutante culture to introduce young women into society. Gay men naturally adopt the terminology in the early 20th century, and shift the meaning to be coming out to the fellow gays. In this context, coming out is a celebration! In modern discourse, though, implicit in every coming out story, is the person or people to whom one comes out. Implicit is the lying, the deception, the shame, that surrounds life in a closet. A closet that only exists because of the people outside of it. Young Simon—in Phoenix, in Tucson, in Uppsala, in Seattle—has queer friends, but only a smattering. So every interaction with…