#public outing

just this morning, about an hour or so ago, i saw a bi creator on my twitter timeline talking about how they might have to hide their identity as a queer person from their family if their work gained a significant amount of traction and how, if/when that happens, they would likely end up being decried as a “straight person profiting off of queer narratives” (only somewhat loosely paraphrasing that quote because i don’t wanna reveal too much about the author in question for the sake of their privacy) and being harassed and victimized by the same “activists” who were all but calling for kit connor’s blood and ultimately forced him to come out before he was ready by accusing his very fucking existence as an actor and as a goddamn human being of being “queerbaiting”.

obviously, this is a huge issue in and of itself; it’s awful, and nobody should have to go through that crap. anybody who’s got at least two brain cells rattling around in their skull to rub together like sticks over a campfire in order to form a coherent thought can understand why that’s an issue and why forcibly outing someone has harmful repercussions for the entire queer community at large—and yes, vilifying someone who’s stayed closeted to protect themself to the point that they’re eventually forced to decide that coming out is the lesser of two evils in that situation is still forcibly outing that person even if they’re the one who ultimately ends up disclosing their identity, because forcing someone to choose between a rock and a hard place isn’t really a choice at all. many other people on this website have, correctly, pointed that out already, and we could all sit here and repeat that until the heat death of the universe.

the thing that really pissed me off about that tweet was seeing someone else in the replies say that, and i quote, “Identity gatekeeping is such a slippery slope.” no, it’s not! it really fucking isn’t!!! it’s not a “slippery slope”, it’s just plain unacceptable! someone’s identity is absolutely none of anyone else’s goddamn business!!! yes, we are living in a time of unprecedented access to a wide variety of knowledge and differing human perspectives, and in certain cases, yes, that can be a wonderful thing, but jesus christ on a flaming unicycle and the holy mother’s marvelous trapeze act—y’all, i cannot stress enough that just because the internet has revolutionized the spread of information absolutely does not mean that all information is fair game!

people still deserve the right to keep personal information about themselves to themselves unless and until they are comfortable with the idea of sharing it!

it does not matter if they’re a celebrity or not. it does not matter how many followers they have. it does not matter how popular whatever the thing they’ve worked on or contributed to is. whatever the fuck it is you’re thinking of, i promise you it does not fucking matter! their personal business is their business, and nobody else has the right to demand access or knowledge to that end—full stop.

it’s not a “slippery slope”, it’s just a straight-up cliff, and, whether they’re closeted or not, we have got to stop pushing members of our own community off of it.