I opened my Facebook feed earlier this month, on Sunday October 11th, and was informed by the rainbows on my screen that it was National Coming Out Day. I was thrilled to see dozens of my friends (most of whom were already "out of the closet" in some respect) coming out on their pages as bisexual, queer, gay, agendered, lesbian, asexual, or simply posting a message of support for their LGBTQIA* pals, and, in a moment of impulsiveness and solidarity, I came out too. I wrote "Oh.. It's National Coming Out Day? Call me queer. Heyyey" and clicked "post." But as my status accumulated a handful of likes from my friends and acquaintances, I began to acquire a distinct feeling discomfort in the pit of my stomach. This sense of unease increased, and so, after 22 minutes and seven 'likes,' I deleted my coming out status.
I don't consider myself closeted, and haven't for years. I'm pretty comfortable with my identity as a queer lady, and it's something I've had a lot of really good discussions about, with with queer and straight folks alike, but it isn't something I talk about with everyone, and there are several reasons why.
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My queerness is something that is very personal to me, and Facebook, however lovely a tool it may be to remain connected to family and friends and organize events, is an inherently impersonal medium for expressing oneself—at least to me. I'm usually pretty private about the intimate relationships of my life. I don't ever use the "in a relationship" feature on Facebook and generally avoid emotional vulnerability on my profile, and, due to the intimate and vulnerable nature of coming out as queer, announcing it in a flippant, 10-word Facebook status felt inherently antithetical.
My queerness needs more words than 10 to describe it, as is clearly documented by the word count of this article. It is fluid and it changes as I grow. It is an important part of my overall identity, but by no means the only part of it. I won't lie, one of the reasons that I am generally quiet about my queerness in the public sphere is that I don't want to be overshadowed by it. It's an aspect of who I am, but it isn't all of me. As a teenager, I rarely talked about it to anyone, because I was terrified of being categorized as "that bisexual chick," and having that be the only way that people would look at me. I didn't want to be condensed to that one part of myself--which was perhaps a fear that is infused with some internalized homophobia. It probably was.
My queerness is developing. That is the very reason I identify with the word queer rather than one of the expanding plethora of specific identities that people use. It doesn't force me to check a box and say exactly "what I am." All it really means is that I'm not straight, and that means that I can be almost anything. I've always felt queer, and I'm glad to have found a word that fits my feeling and doesn't limit it. My queerness is part of my emotional, sexual, and romantic identity, and manifests itself differently with every crush, flirtation, and love I've had. It suits the ambiguity that I find so often in relationships, explicitly romantic or otherwise, with ladies or guys or people whose genders are less simple than a binary.
As you might have noticed, patient reader, part of my queer identity is taking a really long time to explain myself. It usually takes me several minutes or paragraphs (obviously) to describe it to people, and it's not a conversation I feel that every person I meet is entitled to have with me, or would want to have with me in the first place. But having personal conversations with people about identity, sexual, gender, emotional, what-have-you, is one of my favorite parts about being queer. It's a way that we can learn about ourselves, about how we're all a little more complicated than gay/straight, boy/girl, and that relationships are often more ambiguous than just being platonic, or romantic. There are so many different ways to love and feel.
So that's my almost 1,000 word explanation of why I deleted my coming out status on Facebook. That's just not affirming for me personally. I'm blessed to have been raised in a family that loves me for who I am and that supports me even if I decided to identify as a watermelon. I also understand the fact that deleting my coming out status was a personal decision that I made for myself, and not one that I was pressured to make by someone else, out of fear of ostracization, or for my physical safety, and that this is a privilege not afforded to all. As for all of the folks who did choose to come out on Facebook on October 11th, congratulations to you all. And as for those of you still reading this, thanks for participating in my self-affirming-coming-out-on-the-internet journey. I hope this was positive or at least interesting for you too.
