[100 Things] In or Out: Thoughts on the Binary of the Closet

[eumelia]

Another well known white man whose sexuality has been a source of speculation and assumption for years finally confirmed the "rumours".

I am impressed, because the decision to be unambiguous is not an easy one, especially when the ethics involved may not be exactly what we assume them to be.

When I saw the news that Anderson Cooper had decided to brush off any remaining ambiguity regarding his sexuality, I mentioned it the office. My place of work likes to be up to date and we are a very gay friendly company, in fact the team I work with has the same amount of women as well as men, and three out of the team of eight are queer.

I mentioned it and one of my co-workers said, "about time". This co-worker happens to be straight.

Of course, then, a whole discussion about being when gay people are ready to tell other people, and celebrities who might be "uncomfortable" with their sexuality and a whole slew of other rather trite notions regarding when and why gay celebrities chose to come out.

I'd like to stay on the notion of "about time". This phrasing implies, quite explicitly, that Anderson Cooper should have been out and loud a long time ago. I hadn't really thought about that, despite the fact that if you worked in media, or followed the media, or followed the speculation regarding gay celebrities for whatever reason (me, I like knowing who my people are), you knew who is gay and who isn't, up to a point.

Anderson Cooper decided to be explicit about his sexuality because, as he wrote in his email to Andrew Sullivan:

[...]I’ve begun to consider whether the unintended outcomes of maintaining my privacy outweigh personal and professional principle. It’s become clear to me that by remaining silent on certain aspects of my personal life for so long, I have given some the mistaken impression that I am trying to hide something - something that makes me uncomfortable, ashamed or even afraid. This is distressing because it is simply not true.[...]

Emphasis mine.

Related, when Quinto came out (and I wrote about it on DW and LJ), he made it a moral issue. Which, personally, is my stance on it as well. I make it my business to make sure the people I interact with know who they are talking to. The assumption that I am straight, simply because it doesn't occur to other people that there not everyone is straight (also known as heterosexism), is one that I am confronted in practically every facet of my life.

When Cooper says the mistaken impression that I am trying to hide something, he is talking about a requirement mandated by straight society.

To be out is an ethical stand point. But it isn't something LGBT people actually owe straight society to do.

Emily Emanuel of Tiger Beatdown writes about exactly this in a post titled: People in Glass Closets: Anderson Cooper and Straight Responses to Coming Out.

Emanuel discusses the little micro-aggressions well meaning liberals choose to condescend onto queer people when it comes to public people coming out of the closet.

You should read her whole post, but the one thing that resonated with me in this post and every time another celebrity "Casually Come Out" (I don't totally agree with everything that's written here, but that's a post for another day) is this:

[..]when heterosexuals ask, “why does Anderson Cooper have to come out as gay,” I reply: “because you do not have to come out as heterosexual.”

Heterosexuals do announce their sexuality in public, all the time, of course. Walking down the street holding hands, kissing their lover, wearing wedding rings, clothing and other aesthetic codes. But it is not a movement from unacknowledged to public, it has no risk or social consequences in itself. In his coming out letter, Cooper notes that he didn’t come out because a reporter’s private life shouldn’t matter. Indeed. But part of the point is, being heterosexual isn’t private – it’s public.

When I was younger I lived on the ambiguity, it made me feel safe, I had the privilege of it and I didn't consider it something I needed to do in order to have integrity.

My tune changed as I was burned and my rage coalesced.

Regardless I am no longer ambiguous and that's a choice I made. The fact that I have to make that choice, that it is a staple in the life of LGBT people at all, tells us the demand that is placed on us by straight society and the assumptions that are forced onto us.

The other side of the coin is the demand from LGBT people for ambiguous or speculated celebrities to be upfront about who they are in the name of an agenda to promote LGBT visibility, rights and companies who want to shown as inclusive. A legitimate desire, I am dying for more LGBT representation in the mainstream media.

Still, the demand comes from a place to maintain a binary of making sure and deciding who is In and who is Out. Inside and outside what, I couldn't say.

I think it is a big deal that these celebrities are choosing to be unambiguous. I think we should also start unpacking why it is white men who have successful careers within the mainstream media that are getting the attention. Jodi Foster and Wanda Sykes notwithstanding, why so few celebrity women are coming out in the same manner and why the whole phenomena is so overwhelmingly white.

#2 Entry of the Queer Bundle.

Comments

[lilacsigil]

I was really pleased by Cooper's statement - he was coming out for other LGBT people, not for straight society. And it's none of straight society's business.

[eumelia]

Word.

I don't know if I conveyed that point strongly enough. Need to work on that.

[ironed_orchid]

But it isn't something LGBT people actually owe straight society to do.

YES!

That's the bit that bugs me in some of the write ups when public figures come out.

[eumelia]

It's a whole performance which can bring a lot of comfort to other LGBT people, but I sometimes feel is done to make the straight people more comfortable, making sure that they know exactly who is straight and who is not.

[ironed_orchid]

Yes, because that is so important.

And why bisexuals and other queers who don't care about gender are so threatening. STEALTH GAY!

[bluflamingo]

But it isn't something LGBT people actually owe straight society to do

I used to be on the board of my city's LGBT forum, and this is why I left - our chair was invited to be on a televised debate about whether LGBT people should be out, and he wanted to say yes. For some good reasons, including some stuff about supporting other LGBT people, but also because he thought straight people ought to know, and he couldn't seem to avoid implying 'so they don't feel threatened or tricked by us.'

Which, yeah, I'm out for lots of reasons, but dictating what LGBT people should do to cosy up to homophobes? Not so much my thing.

[eumelia]

That's exactly it! LGBT people shouldn't have to come out to make straight people feel comfortable about whether they know "for sure" or not. It really reiterates the binary of being in and/or out, because as far as I was aware most of the people "casually coming out" weren't "hiding".

[silveradept]

Would it be too cynical (or untrue) to say that trend is mostly white because white people (and white men, especially) have enough other privileges on their side that they can be LGBT? After all, they're still White People, just with rye seeds on top instead of sesame seeds. PoC become trickier when also LGBT because of the intersectionality - from the White Privileged Perspective, it means not only having to be careful about the racial comments you make, intentionally or no, but the LGBT comments you make, too - at some point, that person is going to be so many different minority things that you won't have anything to bond over to make fun of other people with. (Err, still too cynical?)

I also suspect that women coming out invokes Lesbian Panic, where all the women will decide they want to be with each other and leave dudebros and Nice Guys and Men in general out in the sexual cold.

Is it too much to ask for society to be okay with people, whomever they are, rather than putting things in place that require people to be Unambiguously Out as role models to others and as visible signs that No, Really, There Are Other People Than The Default?

[eumelia]

I think the point of white and male privilege is sound, but also the way the media operates deciding to put the focus on white men and thus homogenising queer representation (such as it is) in the mainstream media.

Creating a palatable face for the "rest" of society.

[silveradept]

Ah, so it's also like how just about everyone on camera is conventionally pretty or makeup'd to appear that way, unless the role specifically says otherwise. Makes me think our media wants to remove as many possible points of difference so ad to highlight the one they want you to pay attention to. In so doing, of course, they create as many problems ad they try to bring focus to.