I’m coming out. Again.

🎶 I want the world to know. I got to let it show! 🎶

Photo by Alexander Grey on Unsplash

Actually, I don’t care what the world knows. It’s my life. If I want to be out, I’ll be out. If I don’t, I won’t.

But here’s the thing—whether I’m out or not, I don’t actively try to harm members of the queer community through my actions or inactions. I exist in my space as an openly gay man, surrounded by love and joy. When I move through the world, I choose who I engage with and what I want them to know about me.

This is how I choose to live.

But what I will not do is use my choices to harm others like me. I will defend. I will stand guard. And I will protect those who are being harmed.

And to those who hide in the closet, and to those of you who do not, while actively working against us—passing legislation to strip our rights, pushing policies to erase our existence, or fueling rhetoric that endangers us—I see you.

We see you.

There is no justification for harming the very community you belong to just to protect your own comfort, power, or privilege. If your survival depends on making the rest of us suffer, that’s not survival—it’s betrayal.

You don’t deserve our protection, our sympathy, or our silence about the closet door you’ve shut yourself behind.

I will not live in shame because you demand it. I will not live in fear because you require it. I will not be silent because you’re uncomfortable with it. Those are your problems. Not mine.

When I come out to a stranger or an acquaintance, it’s because the moment calls for it. And what that looks like? That depends on the situation. I’m not in your face—but I have no problem getting in your face when I see you hurting someone. If it requires me to throw my body in the way, to assert my gayness as a form of resistance, then I will. And I will do it with fierce pride and unwavering strength.

For those of you whose existence is fueled by hatred. We are not in your face, as you claim—we are simply living our lives. When you look our way, you’re choosing to intersect with our existence. You can choose not to engage and not to make us the focus of your outrage

These are all choices available to you—choices that no queer person is forcing upon you.

I am coming out again and again because you demand it with your invasion of our spaces and our lives. With your attempts to erase us. You enter our zones of influence because you are actively seeking engagement, in one of a million ways. And yet, you have the choice not to.

Yes, yes—I hear your tired “stop shoving it in our faces” rants. Turn your face in a different direction. You don’t like looking at the rainbow? Then turn your eyes elsewhere. It’s truly that simple.

But that’s not what you really want, is it? Because if you simply turned away, you’d lose your favorite role—the victim. It’s almost as if being the victim has become your identity.

“Oh no! Look what they’re making me see!”
“Oh no! Look how they’re forcing me to talk about this!”
“Oh no! Look at how they’re putting themselves in front of me!”
“Oh no! They’re forcing me to participate in their pride!”

But let’s be real—what you’re actually saying is:

“Oh no! Their love isn’t hiding in the shadows where I want it to be!”
“Oh no! They’re existing without my permission!”
“Oh no! I have to share the world with people who aren’t like me!”
“Oh no! Their visibility is ruining my illusion of dominance!”
“Oh no! I can’t control how they express themselves, and that frustrates me!”

It’s not that we’re invading your space—you just can’t stand that we take up space at all.

But deep down, you know none of those things are true. It’s not about us forcing anything on you—it’s about your refusal to look away. Because it’s easier to whine, play the victim, and stir outrage than it is to simply turn away, move on, and mind your own damn business.

So yes, I am coming out again—because you insist on it. Because your need to feel suffocated by our pride—by our very existence—is so overwhelming that you throw yourselves in our path, only to turn around and claim we are the ones invading your space. You demand our silence, yet you can’t stop looking, can’t stop engaging, can’t stop making us the center of your outrage.

Well.

Even after all your bashing, all your noise, all your desperate attempts to make me disappear… they fail. I’m coming out again. Because you demand it.

I am still here. I am still proud. And yes—I am still gay.

And nothing you do will ever change that.