#queerlive

LGB history has organized itself around metaphors for becoming visible, such as “coming out.” This was characterized as both a matter of personal liberation and as a demand for demographic recognition. While such metaphors for becoming visible have been important politically and personally to many, we have to remember that the imperative to make oneself seen is different than loving one’s own queer life. The “come out” visual imperative is not equally effective, available, safe, pleasurable, or political for all—especially for subjects living at the intersections of multiple marginalized identities or for those living in contexts different from the United States, Western Europe, and their urban centers. Some would cast tactics of opacity and camouflage as self-denial, self-loathing, or fear. Such a chauvinist disregard for other contexts, for the complexities of other lives, and for the insurgency of these tactics is merely another imposition of normativity, albeit swathed in rainbow. Disclosure cannot be compulsory, for the politics of visibility also benefit protocols of surveillance.