Two years ago, I wrote about our kids coming out. Well, it’s National Coming Out Day again and I have stuff to talk about.
That last post was about preparing for your kid coming out to you, but I think it’s worth preparing ourselves for anyone we care about coming out to us – because there are two sides to it. The person coming out, and the person (potentially you) receiving it.
Coming out takes courage. Think about it. The person coming out is sharing their truth with you with the potential that you might not just reject their truth, but may violently reject them as a person. In the worst case, you could react violently and kill them. There’s literally no way for the person coming out to to know how you’ll react. That uncertainty, especially when coming out to a person they have a relationship with (friend, parent, spouse, partner, sibling, etc) has to be overwhelming.
Especially today, I think it’s worth thinking about how we would and should react when someone comes out to us.
How can we honor their truth and the courage it took to share it with us?