Closeted gays: I’ll out you, and I won’t feel bad about it

The queers are revolting — or at least they are online. In a recent shambles earlier this month, Gawker published a story which outed someone and in the resulting backlash the Executive Editor and Editor-In-Chief resigned. Why?

Someone has to out them. If not for the sake of our sanity, the very preservation of our community.

AIDS activist Larry Kramer wrote a play called “The Normal Heart” which described New York during the beginning of the Aids pandemic. The central villains are gays – closeted ones, or ones that have built a faux culture based solely around hedonistic sex. Closeted gays, Kramer says, were responsible for holding back medical research because the mayor of New York was secretly gay. The experience of the queer community in the 1980s has been called “Holocaustal”. And it can’t happen again.

Now obviously not every person who’s in the closet is ready to help destroy queer people. But it’s a risk we shouldn’t take.

It may seem easy for a white cisgendered man to say this, but trust me coming out in the Middle East was hardly a barrel of laughs. I was terrified — would I be arrested? Would I be deported? How many times have closeted sports players had to ask themselves that? In fact being outed isn’t fun either. Whether it was by my friends at school aged 15, or by my family on my dad’s birthday.

It was a shock for all of us when I was outed

Coming out means freedom, when you’ve done something bad it’s great to confess — Catholics even built a religion around the concept. So throwing off the shackles of the closet is redeeming. There are mental and physical benefits to coming out and the freedom that comes with it. Essentially, you need to get over it.

For any gay person considering coming out, whether they’re a CEO, a politician, or a miner, their struggle is a hard one. But by not coming out it makes it worse for the collective. By not coming out you’re saying “yes I agree that being queer is bad”. That’s it. It’s as simple as this — remaining in the closet in a country as liberal as the UK, you’re as bad as queer bashers.

Queers are bashed because we’re different. We always will be, it’s the consequence of being a minority that can’t reproduce. But that doesn’t mean closeted gays can pretend their not coming out is some sort of declaration that being queer is normal, and so you don’t have to announce it to the world. Because the heterosexual world, built by our oppressors, refuses to allow it to become “normal”.

Future generations of queer men, women, and all in between, will look to those in authority and those older than them for guidance. Closeted, older, you with your great job and nice wife will do fuck all. When I came out I was inspired by gays that shattered the Queer Ceiling, but the Pink Window can’t be broken while in the closet.

So while you’re breathing in poppers and pretending you don’t like boys in public, remember your heritage, even if you don’t identify with it. Remember people fought for you. You may dig some kinky shit, you might like girls to piss on you, but you can do it because people fought for you.

Even on Grindr you can’t be brave

As “out” gay people we’re free because someone stronger and braver fought for us. It’s a humbling feeling. But by not actually telling your peers, co-workers, friends or family you’re queer, you’re simply spitting on our heritage. One thing that history teaches minorities is that the majority will snatch back any power they concede the moment it’s not fought for. Remaining in the blanket of closetness is the same as ceasing to fight, and I can’t take the brazen rejection of our heritage — so I have no problem with outing people.

I’m not advocating a witch hunt, I don’t want to inspire the queer community to run into people’s homes and scream “Your son’s a faggot” in their mum’s face. But if perhaps you’re one of those people that refuse, steadfastly, to come out, then maybe it’s time someone gives you a nudge.

I can admit it — I’ve outed people despite being told it’s nothing to do with us.

Every oppressed minority knows sometimes a single person’s actions determines all of our treatment. So yes I’ve outed a couple of people. How did I know they were ready? Well they were fucking guys and participating in the heterosexual hegemony without challenge.

Sexual expression is not some sort of kooky experiment that lasts two minutes, or something you have to do it to boost your Chemistry UMS mark. It’s a carnal response to your animalistic desire. Clearly, the animal within you want to fuck someone of the same sex, you tacitly have accepted this identity by acting upon it.

So yes I will out you, and no I won’t feel bad about it. And when you’re ready to come out of the closet I’ll be right there — ready to push.