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You are here: Home > Forum > A Place of Safety > General Talk > Coming Out Day 2019
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Coming Out Day 2019  [message #75982] Fri, 11 October 2019 08:56 Go to next message
timmy

Has no life at all
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13739



I take the view that Coming Out Day is a celebration of those who have come out, and of my own coming out.

Others view it as a cue, an opportunity, to come out. It's a conversation starter; it allows the topic to be raised.

Still others view it as a duty of some description to come out, with some sort of peer pressure compulsion. I do not subscribe to that view.



Since 29 January this year when I published Queer Me! I've come out every time Amazon has placed the book on a page someone looks at. To me it makes sense to make it more accessible. So I've priced it at the lowest Amazon will allow me to, for seven days. They only let me do this on the UK site and on amazon.com. I will do this every year from now on.

[Updated on: Fri, 11 October 2019 08:57]




Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
Re: Coming Out Day 2019  [message #75984 is a reply to message #75982] Sat, 12 October 2019 19:47 Go to previous messageGo to next message
luvtwinks is currently offline  luvtwinks

Likes it here

Registered: August 2018
Messages: 175



"timmy wrote on Fri, 11 October 2019 08:56"
Still others view it as a duty of some description to come out, with some sort of peer pressure compulsion. I do not subscribe to that view

--
Indeed. I've had arguments with a couple of gay friends about that. They think because they've come out I should kick down the closet door and come out to the world in a flaming blaze of glory! They were actually upset that I won't do it. I was upset because they were pressuring me to come out to the world. I tell people on a case by case basis. That works for ME. Coming out, or not, is absolutely one's own personal choice.
Re: Coming Out Day 2019  [message #75985 is a reply to message #75984] Sat, 12 October 2019 20:45 Go to previous messageGo to next message
timmy

Has no life at all
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13739



"luvtwinks wrote on Sat, 12 October 2019 20:47"
Indeed. I've had arguments with a couple of gay friends about that. They think because they've come out I should kick down the closet door and come out to the world in a flaming blaze of glory! They were actually upset that I won't do it. I was upset because they were pressuring me to come out to the world. I tell people on a case by case basis. That works for ME. Coming out, or not, is absolutely one's own personal choice.

--
My belief is that it is a highly perosnal thing. "Uncoming out" is not possible, like unringng a bell. I see no blaze of glory in the act,  just releasing knowledge. The usual reaction I get is "So what?" And there is no glory in that either.

Continue to live life in your own way.

[Updated on: Sat, 12 October 2019 20:46]




Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
Re: Coming Out Day 2019  [message #75989 is a reply to message #75982] Sun, 13 October 2019 13:21 Go to previous message
NW is currently offline  NW

On fire!
Location: Worcester, England
Registered: January 2005
Messages: 1558



Coming out is a deeply personal thing, and people may have all kinds of very valid reasons for not coming out to a particular person, a group of people, or the world at large. Putting pressure on anyone to come out "because it would be good for them" is absolutely a rotten idea. But leading by example, being supportive, and being willing to talk about one's personal experience of what life is like as an out gay person, is fine - I've done quite a bit of that in the very nearly 40 years I've been "out to everyone".

However, I don't think it's very good for anyone to have absolutely no-one in the world that they can talk to things about if they think they are, or might be, LGBT+. Anonymous phone/email/websites like this etc lines are very much better than nothing, of course.



"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. ... Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night devoid of stars." Martin Luther King
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