Architectural Photographer Tonda McKay is the guest author of this week’s blog. 

As a long time out lesbian, she has worked tirelessly for the LGBTQIA+ community.  She believes deeply in the importance of National Coming Out Day not only for ourselves, but for the entire queer community as well. 

I never had the luxury of gently “coming out” to my family. A family friend “outed” me and I lost everything. Both sets of parents, my job working in the family business, my house, even my car my parents had bought me. Everything. I was raised in Tennessee and my father was a devout Southern Baptist.  My mom was just following the cultural norms of the day. 

I barely remember the second march on Washington for gay rights, that is the reason behind National Coming Out Day, as I was trying to survive emotionally and financially from the aftermath of my family’s complete shunning. It would be 3 years before I would start the road back to reconciling with my mother and my father who still does not talk to me.

Why was it so hard for me to come out back in 1986?

Because few people wanted to step up and live a life that was out and proud. When people feel you are one of a very few that choose to live authentically they feel safer to discriminate against you.

National Coming Out Day on October 11 will be in its thirty-second year in 2020, the first one was celebrated on October 1, 1988. The reason National Coming Out Day exists is to honor the second march on Washington DC for gay rights that occurred on October 11, 1987. Over half a million LGBTQIA+ people marched on Washington DC to demand equal rights. 

I have heard many in the queer community over the years wonder why there is such a day. It is not meant to be an invasion of privacy, but a celebration, much like the Pride marches. In many parts of the country, many young queers don’t know the momentous decision it used to be to out yourself. Many in the southern and rural United States still know how hard it is to come out.

Why would the community create a day that asks you to push the door open to your private authenticity and purposely tell people your sexual orientation or gender preference? 

As Robert Eichsberg, one of the founders of National Coming Out Day, said, “Most people think they don’t know anyone gay or lesbian, and in fact everybody does. It is imperative that we come out and let people know who we are and disabuse them of their fears and stereotypes.”

So, why has NCOD lasted 32 years celebrating one march? Those were dark days in queer history where it was easy to let hope recede to despair.  Much like the Trump administration today, the Reagan presidency was ignoring another pandemic, the AIDS crisis, and doing little to stop it while tens of thousands died.

The Supreme Court was not on the side of equality,  but had just handed down the Bowers vs. Hardwick decision in 1986 upholding the sodomy laws of Georgia. The majority opinion stated that the Constitution gave no protection for homosexuality. It would be 17 more years before the Supreme court would make amends for this awful decision.

The organizers of the march asked for seven primary demands (Wikipedia):

• The legal recognition of lesbian and gay relationships. (Realized 2015)
• The repeal of all laws that make sodomy between consenting adults a crime. (Realized 2003)
• A presidential order banning discrimination by the federal government. (End to employment discrimination realized 2020)
• Passage of the Congressional lesbian and gay civil rights bill. (Not achieved)
• An end to discrimination against people with AIDS, HIV-positive status or those perceived to have AIDS. Massive increases in funding for AIDS education, research, and patient care. Money for AIDS, not for war. (ADA 1990)
• Reproductive freedom, the right to control our own bodies, and an end to sexist oppression. (In danger of losing reproductive freedom and sexist oppression is still alive and well)
• An end to racism in this country and apartheid in South Africa. (While this did end in South Africa, racism is still the a glaring problem for the US.)

So many of these demands were realized in the coming years, but yet we are still struggling to keep the ones we achieved and to obtain the ones we have not. I have personally been astonished at the gains in the queer community, even though for me it has been a very long fight. I have over 35 years of being out and proud. I did it not only for my sanity but for others who might get some measure of comfort from knowing they are not alone. In this day and age of social media, when you can reach out and find community with a few keystrokes, it’s easy to forget how lonely and alone it could seem years ago. 

Even if you suspect another person of being gay they would not confide in you because of their own fear. If you looked too queer (as I often did) and met others, but they were not “out,”  even if they liked you, they would not want to be associated with you for fear of being labeled queer as well. The reason to celebrate on a certain day was to take away the stigma of being gay, lesbian, bi, trans, non-binary or however, you identify by showing how very many of us exist in everyday life-then collectively we are all safer.

I personally have never thought about coming out to anyone on National Coming Out Day, because as a lesbian who has been very out since I was 20,  there is really no one to come out. I often joke, “find me someone who doesn’t know and I’ll come out”.

The Origin of National Coming Out Day

As for the origins of National Coming Out Day, I was there and went through each and every heartbreak as the gay community won and loss freedoms. I understand how necessary it is for us to stand up and be seen. Why do you think the current administration took the question of sexual orientation off of the census? When we are uncounted, we are both unseen and unheard.

I vividly remember the Hardwick decision, staring at the television,  incredulous that the Supreme Court upheld the act of police breaking into a man’s home and arresting him for having consensual sex with another man. It was right before I was outed to my parents, so I stood in front of them silent as they barely noticed the crushing decision, feeling the anger rise and the blood drain from my face. I was there when we lost so many beautiful gay men and heard the cries of “it’s Gods judgement” for being gay from the evangelical right while the lesbian community remain unscathed by it.

I marched with NOW and went to the national convention and had the pleasure of meeting Eleanor Smeal–who was one of the speakers at the March in 1987. Smeal, the former president of NOW often said, “If God’s judging gay men with AIDS, and lesbians don’t get it does that make lesbians the ‘chosen’ ones?” I personally have lost jobs and opportunities and family members because of my being out. I never even conceived of a time when I would legally have a fiancee like I do now.

When we come out we make it clear that we exist EVERYWHERE

I have often thought, “How many would it have taken to come out and live proud before me to have made it easier for me?” To have made it where my family would not have had such an extreme reaction? I know many did do that before me, and it paved the way for me to even dream of a day of being as accepted as the LGBTQ community is now. Because of that I know that my anger, and marching, and stubborn insistence of being who I am has helped the people who are younger than me.

No matter how long you have identified as a member of the LGBTQIA+ community we all honor the memory of those people on National Coming Out day when we come out. I do believe that it is each and everyone’s right to “come out” and live authentically on their own time in their own way. Know that the reason most people today can casually decide to come out, is from the people who came before, who sometimes lost everything. They lost their families, their jobs, and their very lives.

This day came from the realization that our collective silence was leading to the mass death of a whole subset of the LGBTQIA+ community during the 1980’s.  No one in the community could stand quietly anymore. Those are its origins and unfortunately today there is the realization that even now, as this administration targets our transgendered brothers and sisters it erodes ALL of our rights. 

You Don’t Have to Fully Come Out to Participate in National Coming Out Day

So, if you can and feel comfortable with it, come out to someone on National Coming Out Day on October 11. It does not have to be some sweeping Facebook post. Pick one person, even if they are a stranger to say “Hey, we are everywhere and in every part of society” Don’t view it with trepidation but make it a celebration of who you are and a way to live free and authentic without fear because you are not in this alone. Never live a life of inauthenticity to make someone else not have to feel “uncomfortable” accepting you. You are not alone.

Tonda lives in Nashville, TN with her fiancee Rev. Anne-Marie Zanzal who provides individual and mutual group support for people coming out later in life to the queer community.  You can find Tonda’s award winning photography work at www.tondamckay.com.