Coming Out! Over and Over and Over Again.

Guest blog written by Melanie Holloway

It was National Coming Out Day recently and it got me to thinking about my own experiences. As a young teenager, I grew up under Section 28, a set of laws that prohibited the ‘promotion of homosexuality’ by local authorities which forbade teachers and youth workers from teaching or talking about LGBTQIA+ people and same sex relationships. It was the first anti-LGBT piece of legislation in over a hundred years in the UK. Representation within media was virtually non-existent (there was no world wide web in those days!) and when featured generally resulted in discrimination and homophobia. I had no role models, no one to talk to about the things I was feeling and it wasn’t until I went to university that things started to fall into place for me. 

But even then, it wasn’t plain sailing. Once I left university and entered the workplace I found myself going ‘back in the closet’. Twenty years of heteronormative conditioning will do that to you. It was hard to go against the grain of society and even now, nearly 30 years later research and data shows us that this is still true. In 2023, Just Like Us (LGBT+ young people’s charity) surveyed 3695 young people and found that a quarter (25%) went back into the closet when they started work and 14% said they rarely or never felt able to be themselves at work.

When I did my first round of coming out, I naively thought it would be easier to say I was Bi (knowing nothing of the culture of my community) but in retrospect, I only really considered that when telling my mum, to try and soften the blow for her. I think I was only Bi for about 5 minutes. So, I came out to those that knew me as being gay and it remained that way for about thirty years. When marriage equality happened in the UK in 2015, I started to immerse myself into my community, it’s culture and history, both personally and professionally. My personal journey of development has continued and in the last 18 months I have started to describe myself as a lesbian rather than a gay woman. I had never really liked the word, probably because of the slurs I have experienced in my lifetime, it became internalised lesbophobia. It’s still a work in progress but feels like a re-framing of coming out.

As to coming out, we already know that people within the community are constantly coming out, with every new job, health appointment, social gathering and everything else in between. Or not. It can be exhausting and maybe sometimes I let things go or don’t correct the person. It’s a fine balance of maintaining my mental health and well-being and being able to remain true to myself, living my authentic life. 

Perhaps it is time to shift the responsibility back onto society, that makes up the rules and culture that we all seem to have to live by. Society needs to change so that no one ever feels that they need to tell someone about their life or personal situation (I am very aware that there are many other people who aren’t LGBTQIA+ who also have the experiences of repeatedly coming out) or to somehow feel shame about who we are that means we can’t be out in the world. Younger generations do give me hope, it is somehow being played out differently, their own terms, the reclamation of being Queer.  But we can also shift the narrative for ourselves, and not view it as a closet, that is shameful but more of a haven where we choose who sits with us there. 

The best advice I can give you if you find yourself in a privileged situation where someone you know or love comes out to you, is to take the time to listen to them. Even acknowledging the huge step they have taken by thanking them for trusting you with this information will go a long way. And always believe what they say, the value of being seen should never be underestimated.

This blog was first published on the Voice At The Table website  

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