Come Out Come Out

Everyone has the right to decide for themselves how visible, how vulnerable, they want to be in the world.

Some of us want to run naked through the streets banging on a drum so that more people come see us.

Some of us are uncomfortable if the cat reads our journal page.

Both of these are fine options, and so is everything in between, as long we are the ones defining exactly how much of our entire self we want to show to the world around us.

But that is often a fantasy. We don't always get to decide. And it's worse if we're "different."

So let's talk about that.

In May of 2015, the Harry Potter series of books became the best-selling series in history. 

It has sold more than 450 million copies worldwide. To give you an idea of how many that is, the Bible has sold about 5 billion copies, or about 11 Bibles for every Harry Potter series sold. 

The Bible has been sold since 1450- the Harry Potter books since 1997.

Sit there and blink a minute at that one.

Many of you have read Harry Potter, or you've seen the movies. 

The story takes you on a journey. It's about the real stuff: good and evil, friendship and love, trust, and growth. It is about wizards and witches. It has spells and potions, goblins, centaurs, and werewolves, an amazing magical school and even a flying motorcycle.

And it all starts with a little boy who lives in a closet under the stairs.

Harry’s family is normal, as normal and dull as could be. The first book repeats this until J.K. Rowling is sure that you've got it.

Normal. Capitol N, small "ormal" normal. They work at normal jobs, and his cousin goes to a normal school, and they never stand out in any way. His family doesn't WANT to stand out in any way, thank you very much.

And then there is Harry, in his closet.

Yeah.

A little different. A little strange. If you asked his aunt and uncle, they would tell you that he was an unwanted and embarrassing edition to the family, that is, if they admitted he existed.

At 11, Harry would have agreed with them. And then gone back into the closet, because as long as he stayed in that little closet, life was safe. Lonely and sad. A little dull. But  safe. Just him and the spiders. 

When he came out of that closet for good, his life changed forever. It was dangerous, and exciting. It had new friends and bitter enemies, sparkly robes, and even a love interest or two.

Something about this sounds suspiciously familiar.

In 1869, one hundred years before the Stonewall Riots in New York City, a German homosexual rights advocate named Karl Heinrich Ulrichs first said that self-disclosure was a means of emancipation. He pleaded with homosexual people to be open about their attractions, and said that invisibility was a major obstacle toward changing public opinion.

But in 1896 homosexuality was still illegal in most places, and being honest could result in a prison sentence or stay in a mental hospital. As you can imagine not many people rushed to throw off their invisibility cloaks. In fact, the closet and even the spiders seemed like a fine idea in comparison to how openly LGBTQ+ people were treated.

Before 1950 the idea of “coming out” as lesbian or gay was directly seen as a mirror of a young debutant’s “coming out” in society. Coming out as gay meant that you entered into a society of your gay and lesbian peers. It was about being recognized and included within your own homosexual community, not the greater world. Coming out as LGBTQ+ usually meant leaving the greater world, because there was suddenly only a tiny place for you there, and it was in a locked room.

After the 50’s, and especially after the Stonewall Riots which fueled the gay rights movement, “coming out” became “coming out of the closet.” The emphasis changed from entering into a small welcoming circle of people just like you to escaping from the oppression of a small dark box.

Not entering into, but getting out of. Not a warm little cozy circle of friends, but a big wide world.

Coming out of the closet as non-straight wasn’t easy; for most of us it was often the most terrible thing we had ever done. A friend of mine told me “I’m not coming out of the closet. Girl, I am staying so far in here that they will hang coats in front of me and somewhere behind me there will be people looking for Narnia.”

My friend never did come out to the world. He couldn't budge from his closet under the stairs. He missed the Hogwarts Express. He missed the magic.

The world outside was too dangerous to risk.

For Harry Potter, coming out of his closet began with a simple phrase, “You’re a wizard, Harry.”

After years of not knowing what to call his differences, his label gave him a key to finding his own people.

But coming out means more than sticking a label on yourself. There is an AND here. Coming out means both defining yourself in one way AND proving that you are always more than that simple label or definition.

We all have our closets.

We all have the dark safe places where we sit, safe and alone, protecting ourselves from the world around us.

Maybe the world is really dangerous for us. For my friend standing behind the coats it really was. Or maybe we don't want to deal with it. Or maybe we don't want the losses to decimate us. Maybe we are protecting our children. Maybe we are protecting our jobs.

Maybe we don't want other people to define us.

We all have labels that fit parts of our lives, and some of them we try to wear in secret where no one can see.

Because the world has a way of stripping us down to our labels, of removing all of the other definitions and pieces that make us who we are and reducing us to a series of words so that we can be easily defined.

Understood.

Accepted or cast away based on what is currently popular or exotic and new.

But as Ash Beckham says, “Closets are nowhere for a human to live.”

Look at the labels you are wearing. The ones you have chosen for yourself and the ones you have been born into. The ones that just happened. The ones others have written on your skin with words and actions so painful that you think you will wear them forever.

Each label comes with its own closet building kit. Sometimes the spiders come along.

Each closet has the potential to close you in and lock you away in the dark until you can’t imagine how the light would feel. Or maybe just to sap your joy as you try to make sure that no one pays attention, that no one notices the label.

But labels and closets are magical, did you know that? The longer you hide who you are, the longer you let others and their expectations define the labels you wear, the larger they become. The more they weigh. The more they become your only definition.

The more you hide in the dark the safer that dark feels, and instead of knowing you, people only learn the shape of your closet walls.

Those walls get thick over the years. They’re built out of labels. They say lots of things that start with “I am.”

I am queer.

I am divorced.

I am an addict.

I can’t cook.

I am biracial.

I am the parent of an incarcerated child

I am a felon

I am fat

I am anorexic

I am sick

I am poor

I am rich

I am an abuse survivor

I am an abuser

I am profane

I am sacred

I am scared

I believe in miracles

Hundreds more. Thousands more. All the things we don’t want to talk about. All the definitions of ourselves that are only pieces of the whole and yet we let them become so much more. The labels become a story, your story.

You own that story. Not every closet must be opened to everyone at every moment. Some pieces of you are not safe for public consumption at a given point in time, and only you control when to open a closet door.

But closets are not for humans.
Closets are not for long term habitation.

If you cannot be who you are, where you are, begin looking for somewhere else to be. If the people around you wouldn’t love you if they knew, maybe you need new people.

You are who you are. You can’t be anyone else.

You have to be you because there isn’t another option. Respecting the worth and dignity of every individual begins with you.

Take off your invisibility cloak whenever you can. Be authentically yourself, in all of your messiness, and pain and brokenness.

We’re all broken too. It’s ok. You’re different, just like all the rest of us.

Be honest about who you are, be direct. If you can’t read, don’t take the book and tell the person “I didn’t get to it yet,” week after week. Say “I’d love to, but I can’t read.”

Don’t be sorry for who you are. Don’t apologize for it. If you hurt people, apologize for your actions, but not for your being.

There will always be people who are angry at you, maybe disappointed in you, for being who you are. That is their problem. They have learned to love your closet walls- give them at least a chance to love the real person inside.

No one else gets to write the story of your life. No one else gets to put their expectations before your reality.

You alone have your hand on the doorknob, but you are not alone in the room. There are so many closets. So many people listening for the sound of another door opening, waiting to come out themselves, waiting not to be alone.

Come out, come out wherever you are.

It's magical out here.