Happy Coming Out Day, Tufts!
Tomorrow is National Coming Out Day, but today, the Tufts LGBTQ and allied community will be celebrating Coming Out Day on the Lower Campus Center patio starting at noon.
Come out - as gay, gender queer, an ally, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, straight, queer or just a person who objects to discrimination. Today is about LGBTQ visibility, free expression of identity and creating a safe and open Tufts.
I've heard many a time that Tufts is a liberal and LGBT-friendly campus, and therefore, LGBT-related activism is no longer needed. I personally would not argue that Tufts is actively LGBT-unfriendly or conservative. Nor would I argue that awareness, safety and honesty belong solely to liberals or conservatives.
Merely because Tufts is considered liberal and LGBT-friendly does not mean that activism is not needed. Just last year, on Coming Out Day, we as a community saw that homophobia is still actively present on our campus. As usual, we painted the cannon in rainbow colors, but someone wrote the word "smut" on top of our symbol of pride.
And while many Tufts students are aware and quite accepting of lesbian, gay and bisexual folk, other members of our community are still left in the margins. Transgender, gender queer and other non-normative identified people face unique challenges on our campus and in the surrounding areas on a day-to-day basis. We are not a fully educated campus when it comes to the wide variety of people's gender expression, sexual orientation and sexual expression.
Whatever your beliefs on gender identity, gender expression or sexuality, I hope we can all acknowledge a person's right to exist in a mentally and physically healthy environment. I also hope that those who consider themselves members of the LGBTQ and allied community will work to educate themselves regarding all members of their community.
While I consider myself an activist, National Coming Out Day is not about activism; it is about honesty. It is a day in which the LGBTQ and allied people make themselves visible and encourage understanding, awareness and a sense of community.
By celebrating our pride today, hopefully those who are currently living "in the closet" will be inspired to step out if that is what is right for them. It is also about encouraging a broader understanding of the queer community here at Tufts. By being visible, we hope to inspire those who still harbor bias to interrogate their feelings.
Coming out does not need to be a political act, and for many, it is not. People come out every day: Any time a person uses the words "boyfriend," "girlfriend," "wife" or "husband" or references their sexual and/or romantic desires in a gendered fashion, that person is "outing" themselves. They may be coming out as straight, but they are still coming out. It is the LGBTQ community that is asked to keep quiet.
For many of us, coming out is not as easy as saying, "I went to a movie with my girlfriend last night." On a daily basis, LGBTQ folk are faced with the many decisions: Is it safe to come out now? How should I do it? How will they react? Coming out is not a one-time thing; it is a continuous process in our heteronormative society that assumes everyone is straight or gender-normative unless they say otherwise.
By coming out today, we are not being activists, but merely doing what straight and gender-normative people get to do everyday without thinking twice about it. We are also recognizing that we are privileged to be attending a largely queer-friendly institution, a place that protects sexual orientation and gender identity in its non-discrimination policy. We are privileged to be able to come out and have a coming out day.
Today we come out because we recognize that many people (even some at Tufts) do not have access to that privilege, meaning that many may lose families, friends, jobs or even lives by coming out. Today, we exercise our privilege to raise awareness about all of those who are silenced, discriminated against, hurt and/or killed because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.
This is not about sex - it is about mental and physical health. Sexuality and gender are things that extend far beyond the bedroom. Who someone loves, who someone dates, what pronouns someone uses and the community to which a person belongs help compose a person's identity. Being allowed to be honest about that identity is what Coming Out Day is all about.
Today, I come out as queer. My gender is queer, my sexual orientation is queer and my politics are queer. I am über-queer, if you will.
What does that mean? It means I am different, non-normative, strange and deviant - but proud. I am a butch, gender-confused person who is madly in love with a high-femme hottie.
Today, I ask you to join me and come out to the Lower Campus Center patio at noon. Let's celebrate!
Sofia Nelson is a junior majoring in political science and a member of the Queer-Straight Alliance.
