This is probably a sign of my advancing age, I'm probably a prude by today's standards, but I simply don't find these subjects for semi-public or even public discussion with strangers.
If I would meet some stranger or some person in a work setting their sexuality would not be on my list of things I would be interested in, either we don't know each other that well or we have at best a working relationship, a job to get done, and to move the subject to sexuality would be - according to me - inappropriate.
As much as we'd like to believe we have no biases, we do. Straight is the societal default. People who are not straight and just want to answer a question about their dinner run the risk of a bad reaction if the person they're talking to just happens to be homophobic.
Someone might prefer to get that reaction in a controlled setting, when they've emotionally prepared themselves for it, not during the course of answering a routine question about dinner. So that's why someone you're just starting to get to know might prefer to specifically tell you that they're gay, rather than waiting for it to just come up as an incidental fact during conversation.
This isn't about them assuming that you specifically care about their sexuality. It's about them being able to determine if you are a person with whom is safe to share details about their life... innocuous details that a straight person would take for granted as being safe to share.
Unfortunately, that doesn't mean there isn't any bigotry and associated violence against gays, lesbians, trans people etc. I wished that were true, alas here too we have our share of people who simply won't recognize reality. But I'm fairly sure that the people who are at risk of such violence here have their own ways of ensuring the chances of encountering people who are prone to acting on their bigotry in non-safe settings are reduced to a minimum, it's out in public where the risk is largest, and that increases as you get away from the larger population centers.
The bigger issue in 'coming out' here is to deal with such people in a family setting, that's where bigotry can and still does cause significant hardship.
(I know a lot of people "come out" as various things in a mere bid for attention... I'll leave that issue aside.)
If I knew someone casually for a while who never talked about his/her sexuality, but one day they said "I never said this before, but I'm a heterosexual", I'd certainly feel awkward about it. Why did he/she say that to me?
To take it further, why phrase it "I am ..." instead of "I have ... desires"? If the latter sounds awkward, why is the former any less awkward?
Also, parents and relative reacting badly on finding out ypu are gay are not exactly unheard of. There are also plenty of accepting parents, sure. But as heterosexual, they already assume you are one and you dont have to guess whether it will be breaker for them or not.
Also, yes it is weird that sexuality and identity are intertwined, but that is not something that is new and it is something that is tied to all sexualities, including heterosexuals.
> To take it further, why phrase it "I am ..." instead of "I have ... desires"? If the latter sounds awkward, why is the former any less awkward?
I wish we could do that too, but if I told that to people now I'm gay and a freak. Society won't care one way or the other, because queerness is political now. You're either with "them" or against "us", and never the two shall meet.
That's just my view on it though. I'm only 1 (one) gay person out of millions, so take my anecdata with a grain of salt.
That is an uncommonly insightful and empathetic characterization.
Though I also approve of the intention of GP to understand the situation from their parents' perspective.
It can also have the effect of making a relationship more close...sharing something intimate with someone can strengthen a friendship (or, obviously, break it in some cases).
All of society is structured around your identity. Like the fish, you can't even see the water because you have always been in it. I'm unlikely to help you see the water, but let me at least try.
If you meet a friend, he might comment he saw a movie with his new girlfriend. He shows you a photo on his phone and you say she's really cute and nice catch. He asks if you want to grab a beer later. You say you have to pick up your wife from the airport later and pick up the kids from their school.
All of this, the girlfriend, the comment she's cute, the wife the kids, they are your life. It is who you are. If someone asks what you are doing later, it's all you have to say, because that's what you do. It is your identity.
I have a partner. We have lived together for 14 years. In order to tell you anything about myself, I have to tell you about him too. It is my life. It is what I do. This is who I am.
Coming out is something you do with each and every new person you meet. I am not rubbing your face in my sexuality. I'm just talking about me. If I tell you I went out for lunch, but avoid telling you with who, that is in the closet. If I tell you it was with my boyfriend, that is out of the closet.
So yup, done hiding here, and not going to start again because some people might be clueless or treat me as less.
Edit: nice, downvotes. Did I make you feel silly for listening to taking points from bigots?
It's distressing the degree to which people want to blame others for their identities while regarding their own as some kind of fundamental default of nature. It's only "identity politics" when it's somebody else's identity.
Edit: to the people down voting my mother-in-law, she is a kind and caring woman!
Many children have been disowned by their parents because they fell in love with someone from the wrong family. There is no shortage of thousand year old stories and plays describing this exact situation. So, the idea that "Like the fish, you can't even see the water because you have always been in it." doesn't really resonate with me. That doesn't mean our society is free from discrimination and unfair treatment, but painting people with a broad brush serves to alienate those who might be your allies, and is ironically the very thing you are advocating against.
To me it's pretty clear the person I was responding to had zero frame of reference to what discrimination feels like, which is why I said so. I really don't know how to get that through to a person with words alone. I think there needs to be a parallel experience to build on.
It's no broad brush to say that a person who thinks sexual orientation has no bearing on identity must be squarely within the favored majority.
I sympathize with you here, I really do: but making such broad assumptions is a bad way to foster real, productive conversations. Identity and queerness are deeply personal topics with all sorts of nuance and interplay between them. I appreciate that you're living your truth, but coming off with this "scorched earth" rhetoric isn't going to win you any fans.
> It's only weird to you because you are almost certainly straight, cis and male. Let me explain.
I don't think that's a fair assessment, and it's certainly not a true generalization. I'm not cis, but I completely understand how weird the concept of "coming out" is. Nobody wants to put you back in the closet, we just want to discuss how much the current paradigm surrounding sexuality sucks.
I agree that "coming out" takes some explanation. You're going to have an easier time explaining it to some people than others. A shared experience certainly helps! Otherwise you're left trying to explain what blue looks like to someone who's never seen it.
Why does the current paradigm suck? There is unprecedented LGBT acceptance, and that does not suck. There are no sucky paradigms around jeans vs. khakis because there isn't a cohort of people who would prefer if khakis were banned in public.
From great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandparent post:
> This was ironically one of the things that was hardest about coming out as gay, for me. Nobody ever treated me the same way again. I was either uncomfortably praised or silently judged, with practically no in-between. Suffice to say, my sexuality is on a need-to-know basis, now.
Maybe read it after applying the principle of charity, without assuming the writer is angrily banging on the keyboard, and instead is being thoughtful and trying to teach?
I wasn't thinking as much about normal conversations - "I was at lunch with my boyfriend", etc. It's one thing to say that, it's quite another to make statements to people about what sort of sex you want to have -- that's what I find awkward.
I guess the takeaway is that sex is pretty central to civilization and society, as it's a prerequisite to and determinant of family structure. It really is part of our identity.
Directly coming out to you, when they are comfortable and emotionally prepared for it, is a way to avoid a traumatic reaction during normal conversation.
Beyond that, when you've been forced to repress some part of yourself due to social expectations, it can be a big relief to be able to specifically tell people about that part of you, rather than just letting it come up obliquely during conversation when you happen to refer to a same-sex partner.
That's because the dominant mode of society in _most_ cultures involves a heterosexual identity; it's just so deeply embedded in culture that most people can't tell. For the longest time, it was (and still is in many cultures) socially acceptable for men to ogle women. Why? Because there was a tacit understanding that part of being a man meant being hypersexual, and because all men are attracted to women (in this trope), ogling women is just part of "being a man". This ties a man's behavior and identity with his sexuality.
Because the choice is either to hide important aspects of yourself, or else come out, whether that's explicitly by saying something, or implicitly by your actions.
In my case, if I didn't explicitly come out as nonbinary / trans, the change in my wardrobe and appearance was going to "out" myself regardless. It seemed healthier and emotionally safer to be upfront about it with the people I know.
In your example, a person doesn't have to "come out" as heterosexual, they can just introduce their spouse, or mention who they are dating. Maybe in an ideal world that would be the case for everyone, but it's not today.
> Why did he/she say that to me?
Isn't this just the process of getting to know someone? As you get to know someone, you share more information about yourself. I think it's a pretty normal desire for people you spend time around to understand you, and part of that is understanding the way you relate to other people.
I definitely agree on this point, and what I find fascinating is that in my (albeit very limited) knowledge of French, instead of saying a phrase like "I am hungry", you say "j'ai faim", which has the literal translation of "I have hunger".
https://www.wordhippo.com/what-is/the/french-word-for-9a6e76...
"When are you going to find a good girl to marry?"
"Mom, I'm gay".
For example.
Ideal solution, because the people who don't care also don't care to know. And those who do care definitely don't need to know.
I often wonder where this misconception originated: why do people think that "cis" is an acronym? What do they think it stands for? It's just a prefix; the antonym of "trans."
(And don't get me started on "Oh-bee-gee-why-en", often capitalised as "OB-GYN" in writing... Sheesh, what an idiotic spelling of "gynecologist"!)
This is really the best solution, to the extent possible. On the internet no one knows you're a dog, as the saying goes.
It honestly feels extremely regressive.