Throwing People “Out” – Should It Ever Be Done?

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Old friends often ask me if other people are gay.

I am not entirely sure why this is.
Perhaps, as their only non-straight ex-class mate, I have become the authority on such things.

I often tell them I don’t know. Usually because I don’t, or because I feel protective over the privacy of my acquaintances.

Lately I’ve found myself wondering: why the interest in other people’s sexuality?

Surely outing is at best a senseless piece of gossip, and at worst life destroying.

Unfortunately, this fascination with one another’s preferences goes above and beyond our small world, extending into mainstream culture.

Ellen Page, George Clooney, Whitney Houston, and Will Smith, are just a few big names the media has recently painted pink. Personally, I neither care nor think it’s my business whether any of them are (or were, rest in peace Whitney) the slightest bit gay.

Even within the LGBTQ community a dialogue of banal phrases has developed:

“Remember [insert name] who we went to school with? Definitely gay”

“[insert name], has she come out yet?”

“Trust me, I know”

And, lastly, my all time favourite:

“She probably hasn’t realised yet”

I think many of us (although I can only speak for myself), out naivety or self-aggrandisement, have said at least one of the above statements. Though perhaps, if we are lucky enough to be able to fully understand, and vocalise, our own sexual identity, it isn’t our job to ‘liberate’ those who are not so public.

There was, of course, a time when coming out of the closet was seen as an essential part of gay activism. Today choosing to come out is still political action (often whether we want it to be or not). However the notion of outing another person, for the sake of gay rights, is contradictory. A concept rooted in shame, not pride, that polarizes those of us who are “out” from those who are “in”.

There is perhaps only one situation in which it is appropriate to out an individual: if they are an adult who is actively opposing the rights of other non-straight people. Particularly if they are in the public eye, and if the person doing the outing is part of the queer community.

Apart from than that, I can’t conceive of why it would be someone’s business how gay anyone else is…
Unless you fancy them – and if that’s the case you’ll just have to pick them flowers and find out?

Reasons for staying in the closet are rife; circumstance, work, family life, location, and religion, are just a handful.

In many ways and cultures, from terror on the streets of Uganda to the homophobic classrooms of the United States, LGBTQ people are being targeted.

Alternatively, sexuality can simply be a private thing; some are as unlikely to discuss what gender(s) they are (or are not) attracted to as they would what they do in the bedroom.

If somebody is not public then there is, most likely, good reason for it.

There is no ‘right way’ to sexually identify, and the very act of not being “out” is in itself justification enough for that decision to be respected.

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