Coming Out day — a time that has historically been used to encourage queer people to tell their friends and families that we aren’t heterosexual, or cisgender, as power and privilege make that the default assumption.
While it’s served as a helpful marker for many, it’s time to expand our understanding of what “coming out” really means — and what it could look like reimagined.
This year, I encourage all of us to shift our thinking from “coming out,” to “inviting in.” First of all, the notion of coming out perpetuates a harmful power dynamic that puts the pressure on queer people to more or less “confess” our identities to people around us, which is not something heterosexual, cisgender people ever have to do in a comparable way.