The first prominent American to reveal his homosexuality was the poet Robert Duncan. Hirschfeld did not support self-denunciation and dismissed the possibilities of a political movement based on open homosexuals. In 1914, Magnus Hirschfeld revisited the topic in his major work The Homosexuality of Men and Women, discussing the social and legal potentials of several thousand homosexual men and women of rank revealing their sexual orientation to the police in order to influence legislators and public opinion. In his 1906 work, Das Sexualleben unserer Zeit in seinen Beziehungen zur modernen Kultur (The sexual life of our time in its relation to modern civilization), Iwan Bloch, a German-Jewish physician, entreated elderly homosexuals to self-disclose to their family members and acquaintances. In early 20th-century Germany, "coming out" was called "self-denunciation" and entailed serious legal and reputational risks. Historian Robert Beachy has said of him, "I think it is reasonable to describe as the first gay person to publicly out himself."
#Sticking out above the rest synonym series
History ġ9th-century gay rights advocate Karl Heinrich Ulrichsīetween 18, Karl Heinrich Ulrichs wrote a series of pamphlets-as well as giving a lecture to the Association of German Jurists in 1867-advocating decriminalization of sex acts between men, in which he was candid about his own homosexuality. Glass closet means the open secret of when public figures' being LGBT is considered a widely accepted fact even though they have not officially come out. By extension, outing oneself is self-disclosure. Outing is the deliberate or accidental disclosure of an LGBT person's sexual orientation or gender identity by someone else, without their consent. Oppositely, LGBT people who have yet to come out or have opted not to do so are labelled as closeted or being in the closet. LGBT people who have already revealed or no longer conceal their sexual orientation or gender identity are out of the closet or simply out, i.e., openly LGBT. Ĭoming out of the closet is the source of other gay slang expressions related to voluntary disclosure or lack thereof. Author Steven Seidman writes that "it is the power of the closet to shape the core of an individual's life that has made homosexuality into a significant personal, social, and political drama in twentieth-century America".
Coming out of the closet, often shortened to coming out, is a metaphor used to describe LGBT people's self-disclosure of their sexual orientation, romantic orientation or gender identity.įramed and debated as a privacy issue, coming out of the closet is experienced variously as a psychological process or journey decision-making or risk-taking a strategy or plan a mass or public event a speech act and a matter of personal identity a rite of passage liberation or emancipation from oppression an ordeal a means toward feeling gay pride instead of shame and social stigma or even a career-threatening act.
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