Natalie Weiss

a discussion on coming out or staying in, and why it all matters

I think it’s an appropriate time to take a pause in the out. series for one post. Pause from the details of my story and speak to a greater audience.

I attended a Zoom workshop on Tuesday, October 27^th, 2020, hosted by Runner’s World and Hoka, entitled Running Proud: A Virtual Discussion About the Experiences of LGBTQ+ Runners. The event featured Addie Bracy, Chris Mosier, Matt Llano, Latoya Shauntay Snell, and moderator Beth Dreher. I was super bummed I had to head out of the session a little early because I had another appointment, but it was enlightening, empowering, and sobering to be a part of this event.

I was reminded that, amidst these posts where I am pulling back the curtain on my experiences with reckless abandon – and it may or may not be pressuring other people to do the same – coming out is an incredibly personal decision.

It is not always safe to come out.

It is not always wise to come out.

And it is rarely ever easy to come out.

When I was starting to really consider coming out to my family, I pulled up The Trevor Project’s website. In their Resources section, they have something called the “Coming Out Handbook.” Honestly, even as a 25 year old, reviewing the definitions of sex assigned at birth, gender, and sexual orientation was incredibly helpful. I still felt (and sometimes still feel) relatively new to the LGBTQ+ community, and reminding myself of these definitions and of different ways in which people identify helped me to feel less ignorant, even as a lesbian woman.

But the part of the handbook that really caught my attention was, unsurprisingly, the Coming Out section. It all made sense – planning ahead, testing the waters, imagining the time and place of coming out – but what broke my heart, because I knew I was at risk here, and because I knew so many kids younger than me were at risk too, was this line: “In situations where things are feeling unsafe or you expect that they might be, it could make sense to prepare a back-up plan for housing, food, school, and/or transportation, just in case.” I still find it absolutely baffling that parents disown their children for this. I don’t think I will ever understand.

But I say all of this to reiterate that notion: coming out is an incredibly personal decision. It is not always the right time to come out. You shouldn’t come out if you feel pressured to. This is your journey. You should come out when you feel ready. When you’ve made your plans. When you are ready to execute.

In the Runner’s World workshop, the panelists talked about these things. And they touched on mental health a little bit. It will become apparent in my story as I continue to post, but the state of my mental health ended up outweighing the fears I had about coming out. And, honestly, I was both ready and not ready at the same time to come out to my parents. I just literally could not do it anymore. I couldn’t sit there and pretend. I couldn’t hold in the part of me that has been with me since birth; I couldn’t hide it away any longer.

Coming out is always better than suicide. There are communities that will welcome you.

And I do think it’s worth asking, if you’re in the closet, “Am I really living?”

I believe we can die in more ways than one.

My final thought (for now at least) on coming out: it is never going to be a one-time thing. You don’t say, “I’m gay/lesbian/bi/trans/etc.” one time and suddenly everybody knows. I’ve come out at least nine times in intimate conversation, and many, many more times than that casually. And so, if you haven’t come out to anyone, you don’t have to come out in a very public way as your first “coming out” moment. You can come out to your dog. I know this from personal experience: your dog is going to love you no matter what. If therapy is something you are comfortable with (and, really, the only thing to fear about therapy is the cost *insert Face Screaming in Fear emoji*), coming out to a therapist is extremely valuable. (Not for personal promotion, but more for my additional thoughts on therapy, I’d really advise you check out one of my older blog posts, “RE: Therapy.”)

The point remains: don’t feel pressured to come out in one big swoop. Don’t feel pressured to come out to anyone who doesn’t deserve to know that information. Don’t feel pressured to come out until you are ready.

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If you’re still with me, I want to talk about one more thing I took away from the Runner’s World workshop. And this, maybe, is more accessible for our Allies out there. (Thank you, Allies!)

Luckily, I did not look at the comments on the posts promoting this event prior to attending.

It really is never a great idea to look at the comments on public LGBTQ+ posts.

In the comments, people questioned why this event was necessary. Haven’t we progressed enough? I don’t see a gay runner, I just see a runner. Comments like these, I think, came not from a place of bigotry, but more from a place of unawareness. You could find the bigots, of course, in the comments section, but it is easier to dismiss their opinions because, well, it is easy to see that you’re not going to get anywhere with those people, at least not anytime soon.

It is not as easy to dismiss the questions of those who truly just don’t know. They haven’t experienced discrimination, so they don’t know. They haven’t seen LGBTQ+ runners discriminated against, so they don’t know.

And so it falls to us, to the LGBTQ+ community, to educate and justify, once again, our existence, our identity, our experiences, our stories.

The fact that those comments – both the ignorant ones and the homophobic ones – exist proves the need for more conversation about these topics. It may be true that the running community in general is more accepting than society at large. It may be true that as a recreational lesbian runner, I can enter any event, show up, and run without anyone there being the wiser about my sexuality. It may be true that, in running down the street in my own neighborhood, I am much more concerned about being assaulted for being a woman than for being queer.

But being queer is being human just as much as being straight is being human. And the queer community deserves representation – in Runner’s World articles, in race marketing, in terminology used (looking at you, gender section in race sign-ups), in the dismantling of laws being passed against trans athletes.

It may not be the running community’s fault that LGBTQ+ runners still experience dread and paranoia, and discrimination may not be incredibly pervasive within running in America. But there is a society at large. There are greater things at play here.

So in a community as inclusive as running, it only makes sense that we lead the way for representation, for conversation, for acceptance. If we claim to be accepting, let us be accepting. If we claim to be progressive, let us be progressive.

If we claim to love, let us love.