The Unending Closet

By Beck Galbraith ‘19

When I was younger, I imagined one day I would come out and it would be a big reveal, and suddenly, I and everyone around me would know everything about who I was. I could not have been more wrong. I have come out so many times in the past four years that I cannot even give an accurate guess. The first time I came out, it was to my sister over a bowl of Italian wedding soup and everything was the same the next day. There was no big reveal and not everyone found out at once. After coming out a few times, my mentality shifted from being thankful not everyone knew to wondering how they had not heard yet. Then, after coming out countless times, I came out as another identity. And then another. I’ve come out so many times, it’s starting to get a bit confusing; who knows which parts of my identity?

As I celebrate National Coming Out Day and LGBTQ+ Heritage Month, I have reflected on my coming out experiences and what coming out means to me. I realized, for me, coming out is not about figuring myself out or finally trusting someone enough to share with them; coming out is about allowing myself to stop filtering my expression around that person. Coming out can be a very important piece in a relationship, but I have found, more often than not, it does not matter to me whether I plan out a speech or I come out accidentally. I do not inherently trust the people I am not out to less, and my relationships are not automatically less meaningful. The labels I claim are not perfect representations of me, and they do not have to be. To put it simply, I come out for the opportunity to explore myself more deeply outside of my own head. I have felt real freedom from coming out, but the question of whether to come out in a specific situation will be one I ask for the rest of my life, and the answer will not always be the same.

While what it means to come out and the impact it has on the lives of LGBTQ+ individuals will continue to change throughout my lifetime, the importance of exploring yourself, your identities, and supporting yourself throughout the process remains just as strong. Claiming the identities queer and trans have been very important steps in my coming out experiences, but this October I would like to focus less on making sure everyone knows the labels I share with the people around me and more on exploring how I can be my most authentic self. For the past four years, I have been telling myself, “I came out to be more myself, not less.” Lastly, to anyone who is considering coming out, just remember coming out is a lifelong experience so you have plenty of time!