Celebrate National Coming Out Day!

[sonnymax]

Today, October 11th, is National Coming Out Day. I want to take this opportunity to acknowledge and celebrate any board members, as well as their partners, friends or family, who have taken the courageous step to show the world who you really are. Over the past 30 years, I've had the privilege of helping numerous patients work on these issues, most often with positive long-term results. Funny enough, sometimes a person coming out to a parent is met with: "Uh, yeah. I've know since you were a kid," or "Tell me something I don't know," or "Thank God. I thought you were never going to tell me". 

Again, celebrate the right to be who you are.

[danasgoodstuff]

1 hour ago, sonnymax said:

Today, October 11th, is National Coming Out Day. I want to take this opportunity to acknowledge and celebrate any board members, as well as their partners, friends or family, who have taken the courageous step to show the world who you really are. Over the past 30 years, I've had the privilege of helping numerous patients work on these issues, most often with positive long-term results. Funny enough, sometimes a person coming out to a parent is met with: "Uh, yeah. I've know since you were a kid," or "Tell me something I don't know," or "Thank God. I thought you were never going to tell me". 

Again, celebrate the right to be who you are.

Hooray to all those who have successfully cleared this hurdle, good thoughts to all those still struggling to do so.  To thine own self be true.

[mjazzg]

Great that there's such a day. Celebrate, and recognise the bravery that's required for some. Also, give strength to those still finding their way to let the world know who they are.

[Kevin Bresnahan]

This topic reminds me of when my sister-in-law sat me & my wife down to tell us that she was gay. My wife and I were surprised she was being so formal about it. We even said to her, "You thought you had to tell us?"

We never knew how tough it was for her until many years later when we talked about that day shortly after her father, my father-in-law, died. Where we thought she was just confirming what everyone knew, she told us that many people put blinders on. She also told us that she was afraid that we would walk out and never talk to her again. After all, that's what had happened when she told her father. We were pretty shocked when that family history came out.

[clifford_thornton]

yeah, unimaginable weights that people shoulder. Being in a large city makes it seem "easy" but having grown up in a small town in Kansas, well, for a number of my peers it clearly wasn't. Respect and strength to anyone who's been put through the ringer as a result of wanting to be who they are.