Anyone else having some seriously mixed feelings about coming out day? I am finding myself totally in a funk and angry. I’ve done so much work but am still in an environment where I feel I can’t exist totally out of the closet. I have been able to manage that fact lately but today I am just mad and wishing I could just have the truth out there. But today is not the right time and I’m resentful of the thoughts and attitudes that make it so. *end rant*
I only now found out that is today, due to #ComingOutDay trending on Twitter. I just got done weeping over the beautiful messages being shared and especially the supporting of people who aren’t yet out also. https://twitter.com/i/events/1182671084262318080
Hopefully one day we won't need one as being LGBT will be a complete non issue. We can get all the legal protections in the world but changing peoples beliefs and perceptions is a lot harder. I work in social care which is supposed to have a better grasp of equality issues and once attended a training course for managers where one of the company directors and around a three quarters of the people attending actually believed that it was legal to refuse employment based on sexual orientation. By that stage in the UK it had been illegal to do so for a number of years. Although I think that things are getting better, sadly I feel that my hope for coming out day to become redundant will have to wait some time yet. Some day though I am sure that it will happen just hope I'm still here to see it.
I didn't originally plan on coming out on coming out day but I did. At least to my kids and my 30 friends on Facebook. I have wanted to for many years. Every year that the day passed and I was really wanting to but I had so many fears. I had more Facebook friends at that time and I was really scared to get rude remarks. This year it just happened.
I took the first step on coming out at least to myself and the girl at the tattoo/body piercing parlor (that was the first time I actually said the words I’m gay) and treated myself to celebrate it...but I feel lonely as hell even though I seem to have some self confidence and sense of empowerment....but where I go from here?
Saturday I went to comic con and a vendor was selling pride flag stickers in the shape of my state. I told her I just came out yesterday and she said congratulations! My chest tightened and my face turned red. That's the first time I had said it in public to a non-friend.
