Coming Out Issues for African Americans
The world is before you, and you need not take it or leave it as it was before you came in.
-James Baldwin, Gay author
Coming out can be one of the most challenging events in your life, but also one of the most rewarding. Being attracted to someone of the same sex or understanding that your gender identity is different from your biological sex can be frightening. Some African Americans feel pressure to prioritize their different identities.
"Perhaps the most maddening question anyone can ask me is, 'Which do you put first: being black or being a woman, being black or being gay?' wrote Barbara Smith, author of "Blacks and Gays Healing the Great Divide" (Dangerous Liaisons: Blacks, Gays, and the Struggle for Equality. Brandt, Eric Editor, New Press, 1999). "The underlying assumption is that I should prioritize one of my identities because one of them is actually more important than the rest or that I must arbitrarily choose one of them over the others for the sake of acceptance in one particular community."
For many African Americans, coming out involves additional cultural factors that make the process more challenging but no less rewarding. Some of those challenges include associations with often homophobic churches, strong family foundations that emphasize heterosexuality, homophobia in the black community and racism in the broader gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community. Thanks, however, to brave GLBT African-American activists and their allies effecting change in the church and the community, there is more support and acceptance than ever before.
Being African American and coming out as gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender or same gender loving may be an extremely challenging experience, but many find that it is unexpectedly rewarding. You not only free yourself from the confinement of the closet, but you also free others from their ignorance about issues related to sexual orientation or gender identity. The presence of open gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender African Americans in the church and within the family will be key to changing the homophobic atmosphere in those institutions.
If we are going to change things, we have to become visible," said HRC's Donna Payne.
You will find that coming out is not a one-time event, but rather a lifelong journey.
Browse some resources to help take you, your friends and your family on that important path.