Sterling Jones (they/them), Rainbow and Inclusion Advisor
I’ve been invited to a Chappell Roan-themed birthday this week, and I am hyped. I’m the sort of person who’ll jump at any opportunity to dress up, so naturally I’ve been obsessing over my outfit all week. Do I want my look to be more “My Kink Is Karma” or “Super Graphic Ultra Modern Girl”? Classic or hyper-masc drag make-up? The options are endless.
But among this anticipation, there’s a nagging feeling of anxiety at the back of my mind.
You see, it’s my flatmate’s friend’s party. They’re wonderful, we’ve met before, but I won’t know everyone who’s going to be there, and that’s the source of my anxiety. It’ll be a new experience: new place, new people, and a new group of strangers to come out to.
For us queer people, with every introduction comes an invitation to come out.
My first time coming out of the closet was nearly ten years ago, and it was a big deal for me. It was terrifying, partly because I belonged to a conservative community, but mostly because pop culture told me that it was supposed to be. Every queer YA novel I’d ever read (The Geography Club, Something Like Summer, Simon vs The Homosapien Agenda, just to name a few) prepared me for a dramatic affair, a point of no return. From that moment on, I would start shitting glitter, and everyone on the street would recognise me as Queer™. It was with that in mind that a trembling, sixteen-year-old Sterling posted, “Well, here goes nothing… I am gay.”
It's a fear that’s stayed with me. I feel it when leaving the house with eyeshadow on, when I share my pronouns in a meeting, and when inevitably, I’ll be introduced to new people at my flatmate’s friend’s Chappell Roan-themed birthday.
But it’s not how I want to feel about sharing a part of me with the world. Coming out isn’t supposed to be an invitation for fear! It’s an invitation for connection.
There’s a tweet pinned up in my office, from author John Paul Brammer. It reads, “Remember what it felt like when you saw a queer person owning it, and it gave you permission to be yourself? You’re that person to someone”. And you know what? I do remember what it felt like. I remember what it felt like as a closeted fifteen-year-old to see a pair of queer lovers kiss goodbye (on the mouth!!) at Britomart Train Station before going their separate ways. It felt like hope. I remember it feeling like a promise that people like them, people like me, could find belonging and love. And it was a hope that I really needed to carry-on, back then.
So, here’s my invitation to you: join me in reclaiming coming out as a source of connection and community and unlearning this intergenerational trauma we share for the generations before us, for the generations ahead of us, and for each and every single one of us.