Say it loud

All Souls celebrates National Coming Out Day with storytelling

On Oct. 11, we celebrate National Coming Out Day, also known as the day when all your out gay friends jokingly post on social media that, surprise, they are gay! But the day serves a larger purpose in the ongoing fight for equal rights and protections. The Human Rights Campaign explains the reason for the season this way: 

“One out of every two Americans has someone close to them who is gay or lesbian. For transgender people, that number is only one in 10 … When people know someone who is LGBTQ, they are far more likely to support equality under the law.”

Even if your friends’ posts about National Coming Out Day seem lighthearted, their journey to coming out was probably bumpy at best. Everyone in the LGBTQ+ community has a two-part coming out story. 

First, there is coming out to yourself. This is often a slow journey of self discovery, not unlike the putting together of a 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzle with no picture for reference and pieces hidden across many years. Clues may be found in reruns of Roseanne, close readings of Fried Green Tomatoes and early Ani DiFranco albums, but it can take a long time for the full picture to come into focus. Or maybe that’s just me.

Then, there is coming out to people close to you. Saying it out loud is the part where you risk rejection. No one likes this part. In movies, this is a difficult conversation over the dinner table. In real life, it’s family members finding out before you’re ready. It’s you letting them find out because you’re not ready or equipped to have the difficult conversation. It’s family members shutting down or shutting you out. And it’s you pretending not to care. Or maybe that’s just me. 

All Souls Unitarian Church will hold space for these deeply personal coming out stories on Oct. 9. Members of the LGBTQ+ community are invited to share their stories of coming out, whether they are stories of coming out in years past or they are stories of coming out in real time. The event is free and open to the public, but it is not a Moth Radio Hour-type spectator event. 

“It is intended for members of the LGBTQ+ community to connect with each other,” Bonita James says. “It will be in an intimate setting.”

James, director of communications at All Souls, expects the stories will cover the gamut of human experiences. So often, coming out stories are fraught with painful rejection, estrangement and wounds that don’t heal. But they are also stories about discovery, falling in love and finding acceptance within a community. 

In planning the event, the first of its kind at All Souls, James was forced to reckon with her own coming out process. Her story, she thought, was fairly anticlimactic. Her parents were accepting when she came out to them. She fell in love and was recently married. Everything was great. 

But as she reflected on those earlier years, before she came out, she realized she didn’t always have it so good. She remembered being outed by classmates before she had even acknowledged to herself that she was gay. For James, putting the puzzle together was the most painful part of coming out.

“It’s a moment of bravery knowing I’m sharing my story,” James says.

National Coming Out Day honors the bravery of LGBTQ+ people who have come out, those still in the process of coming out, and the allies who stand with them. a

*  *  *

Coming Out Stories  

All Souls Unitarian Church

2952 S. Peoria Ave.

7–8:30 p.m.

Free and open to LGBTQ+ community