What does It Mean When Someone is Said to "Come out of the Closet"?

I think we all have a right to live life happy and secure no matter what our sexual orientation. However, if you know you are gay or lesbian, why marry someone straight, under false pretenses, stay with them 8 to 10 years then walk out shattering their lives and dreams?

This is a lie that has devastated spouses and entire families. Why not be honest..instead of wasting someone else's life to hide your "secret"? Walking out the door on your spouse, leaving a note o tell them you want out of the marriage? Coward! You would have still been loved and respected, had you just been honest. This is unacceptable and selfish. It is not just about your happiness. Enough said.

@ysmina-- I agree. Some people are never able to come out of the closet. They spend their whole lives having to hide their true preferences. Some even get married and have children due to family pressures.

@burcinc-- Coming out of the closet is not an easy thing. I'm gay and I have expressed my preference to my family and friends but I understand that not everyone can do that. I have an extremely open, loving and understanding family and group of friends. But despite this I was very scared about coming out in the open. I sincerely felt that I might lose a few loved ones by doing this.

I cannot blame or judge anyone who doesn't want to come out of the closet. It's their personal preference. They should do that when and if they feel ready.

Also, let's not forget that many gays, bisexuals and transgender individuals live in very conservative societies where coming out of the closet would put their lives at risk. Even here in the US, there are people who fear and hate gays.

I think everyone should come out of the closet. Why hide your sexual preference? People should accept you the way you are. I feel that those who hide their sexual preference are not just lying to others but lying to themselves as well.

@cloudel – Oh, that is just so wrong of her! I would never do that to someone. Coming out should be an individual's choice, and no one else should take it upon themselves to do this for them.

Sometimes, a person's peers figure out that they are gay before they are even willing to admit it out loud. If those peers are friends, then this can make coming out of the closet more comfortable for them.

I had a friend in high school who constantly got teased about being gay, but he had never come out to anyone. I'm not even sure if he was certain of his orientation at that point, but everyone else seemed sure of it.

Finally, after graduation, he came out. He was so liberated, and though he had been quiet and shy for years while enduring torture in school, he suddenly seemed like a totally different person.

Outing someone is frowned upon in any community. This happened to a guy that I worked with, and he was furious.

Basically, rumors got started that he might be gay because he didn't want to be set up on dates with females, which is what my coworkers were constantly trying to do. He told them he wanted to choose his own dates.

Well, one nosy coworker spotted him out one night with another man, and she followed him. She actually confronted him about it at work, so his secret was out.

I couldn't believe she had the audacity to dig into his personal life like this, much less to expose it in front of everyone! Coming out was a choice he should have had the option of making, and she took that away from him.

@irontoenail - I can see your point, but you can never tell if someone is allergic to peanuts without them telling you (or having an episode right in front of you). If you are in a situation where it's necessary for someone to tell you they are gay (for example, you're flirting with someone and ask them on a date or something) well, I think it's polite to not make that assumption, just like you wouldn't assume someone was necessarily single.

And I can't think of any other situations where it would actually affect someone if the person they are interacting with is gay. So why should it be a big deal? I've never been able to understand why people make it a big deal. When you think of all the suffering people in the world it seems like there are more important things to care about.

@Mor - Unfortunately, I don't think that's ever going to happen. I don't think it's even completely a result of a homophobic society, it's a result of the nature of homosexuality being much more rare than heterosexuality.

In addition it's not easy to see when you first meet someone what their orientation is. So even if a person is completely open about their sexuality, they might need to "come out" to people when they first meet them, to define whether they are a potential partner or not. It would depend on the situation of course and some people might object to that idea, but I don't think it's any different from having to tell someone that you're allergic to peanuts. When it's necessary, it's just something that you have to do because the general assumption is going to be that you're not allergic to peanuts.

This is just the way things are, unfortunately. People will always assume that you're in the majority, because if they took nothing for granted, life would be even more difficult to negotiate.

I actually think it's a shame that there even needs to be a term for this. People shouldn't need to come "out of the closet" they should be able to exist without being put into a box that they need to remove.

I hope that when I have kids they will feel comfortable to be whatever they want to be for their whole lives and not feel like they need to make a big announcement because nobody has assumed anything about them in the first place, and, more importantly, nobody cares all that much what their orientation is in the first place.