Coming Out Quotes

“He's not afraid of anything he feels. He's not afraid of saying it. He's only afraid of what happens when he does.”
― Casey McQuiston, Red, White & Royal Blue

“Fortunately, Park seemed more bemused than offended. “Do you disapprove of human-werewolf relationships, Agent Dayton?”

“No. Of course not. I—that’s not what I meant. I just didn’t understand...” Cooper trailed off, thoroughly uncomfortable, and Park took pity on him.

“She’s not my type because I’m gay.”

The silence was sharp. Vaguely Cooper was aware his mouth was hanging open. He shut it quickly. Then opened it again to say, “Oh, that’s nice.”
― Charlie Adhara, The Wolf at the Door

“Sometimes coming out isn't about us. It's not fair that we have to carry the emotional burden of sharing our secret and making sure the person we're coming out to is okay, but we make concessions for the people we care about. Besides, I may have run the scenarios for this conversation but my mom had been running scenarios about my entire life since the day she had learned she was pregnant with me.”
― Shaun David Hutchinson, Brave Face

“To anyone who has discovered they aren’t as straight as they thought they were, and to the people who made them realize it.”
― Eden Finley, Fake Out

“Have you ever accidentally swallowed a piece of celery without chewing? The feeling of its weight lodged in your throat, scraping its way down. You think you’re gonna choke, but your throat takes over and digests it, and it takes all the wind out of you. You need to lie down, catch your breath, maybe even take a nap.
That’s how it feels to come out each time.”
― Aimee Herman, Everything Grows

“Because the truth is always hard. Because being queer is hard, and coming out is hard, and it never stops being hard. The world keeps shoving into you. But you stand tall anyway. You take up space anyway.”
― Robyn Schneider, You Don't Live Here

“If I were gay and I heard everyone around me constantly calling everything they don't like gay and yelling 'fag!' at the drop of a hat, maybe that would make it hard to come out even to people I care about.”
― Meredith Russo, Birthday

“When I decided I was a boy, I realized that if I wanted to pass, I'd have to learn to walk differently, talk differently, dress differently, basically act differently than I did as a girl. But why did we need to act at all?”
― Ellen Wittlinger, Parrotfish

“What happens when we say something out loud? Does it become more real? Is it any less really when we keep it to ourselves?”
― Aimee Herman, Everything Grows

“In that moment, I wanted to tell this stranger, this Merle, this girl from the tiny island of Montserrat, that I had commensurate preferences too, but I couldn’t be a brave warrior like her.
I wanted to tell her about Morris.
I wanted to sing his name out into the night.
His name is Morris. He is my Morris and he always been my Morris. He’s a good-hearted man, a special man, a sexy man, a history-loving man, a loyal man, a man who appreciates a good joke, a man of many moods, a drinking man, and a man with whom I can be myself completely.
Yes, I was in the throes of a Malibu-and-Coke-soaked madness, a madness that could lead to the demise of my life as I’d hitherto known it. But I was on the verge.”
― Bernardine Evaristo, Mr Loverman

“Make no mistake, hiding one's true self away in a closet and creating a facade of heterosexuality is not without its consequences; one being that no-one ever knows the real you. The closet may appear to have a degree of safety but from my experience they are very unhealthy places and do all kinds of destructive things to individuals psychologically, emotionally and behaviourally. The damage of fear, shame and self-loathing from an existence inside the closet is often projected unknowingly in the external life of the individual. They live with a false sense of safety, sometimes arrogance, behind the façade, unaware of the unconscious signals they give off that all is not well in their inner world.

In or out of the closet; there is a price to pay. Each individual must weigh up the consequences of honesty and openness or secrecy and deception for themselves. When I see the impacts the closet has on individuals, there is never a moment of doubt; I made the RIGHT choice.”
― Anthony Venn-Brown, A Life of Unlearning – a preacher's struggle with his homosexuality, church and faith

“It was the feeling of finally finding a puzzle piece that fit into place. Of bursting through the surface of the water and taking the breath that had been burning in my lungs. Of remembering the word that'd been on the tip of my tongue for decades. This was the feeling I'd been missing all those years.”
― Shaun David Hutchinson, Brave Face

“And then her arms were around my waist and her head was against my chest. I put my forehead on ger shoulder and hugged her back.
"I could never be mad at you for being who you are,”
― T.J. Klune, Wolfsong

“Welcome to the team. Shoot, I forgot the rainbow confetti to throw all over you.”
― Molly Ringle, All the Better Part of Me

“How do you tell your folks something you know they won’t be okay with?” there was a sorrow in her eyes that showed in her sad smile.”
― Moira Daly, The Last Summer

“I guess I'd just been thinking about it for so long that I forgot changing your gender was not even a question for most people. They just took for granted being a boy or a girl. I couldn't imagine what it would be like to be so sure of yourself.”
― Ellen Wittlinger, Parrotfish

“The thing is, I don't really have any coming-out narratives of my own. I never felt as though anyone was entitles to a red-carpet presentation of who I am and how I identify. When I initially found myself attracted to women in college, for example, I simply showed up at the next family function with my first girlfriend in tow and introduced her as such. I didn't call each family member ahead of time and instruct them to brace themselves, nor did I write lengthy letters detailing the intricacies of my new desires. Likewise, when I'm meeting people for the first time at parties or other social engagements and they post the inevitable, "So what do you do?" I respond as routinely as possible: "Oh, I work in the sex industry. You?"
I'm not trying to be provocative; rather, I've always believed that being "out" is the most powerful tool of activism available to disadvantaged minority communities, sex workers included, I find that when you approach a supposedly radical issue (queerness, nonmonogamy, atheism, gender nonconformity) with the same nonchalance as you would a less controversial topic (accounting, marriage, the weather), you give the other party permission to treat it with the same accepting ambivalence. We're pack animals, and we're constantly comparing ourselves to one another. We look for approval from our peers, and in many cases we use their reactions and opinions to help guide our own. I often observe people, who I've just disclosed to, pause to shift their eyes and gauge the receptiveness of those around them before responding. It'd be a fascinating study if it weren't so disheartening.”
― Andre Shakti, Coming Out Like a Porn Star: Essays on Pornography, Protection, and Privacy

“Instead of being able to go out and buy a book about a closeted gay kid who's scared of becoming a stereotype while coming to terms with being gay that could have helped me understand what I was going through, I' needed to write my own.”
― Shaun David Hutchinson, Brave Face

“I didn't have to listen to a specific type of music or dress in a particular clothes or act a certain way, because being queer wasn't the nucleus of who I was, it was simply a modifier. I could be a conservative lawyer and queer; I could be an Olympic athlete or a famous comedian or the CEO of the richest company in the world. I could be me, and I'd find a place to belong.”
― Shaun David Hutchinson, Brave Face

“You know,” I said, “I think the thing that scared me most about admitting that I’m, you know, gay or whatever isn’t so much that people would taunt me by saying ‘Oh, James likes other boys,’ but that they would say stuff like, ‘Oh, turns out James isn’t a boy after all.’ You know?”
― Kenneth Logan, True Letters from a Fictional Life

“But what if Cam asks something harder, like why I didn’t come out earlier? Well, you see, Cam, I'm a pathetic loser and it took me over six years to say two little words. I feel utterly stupid every time I think about it. I know they’ll change everything, but they're still just words, and it is the twenty-first century, not the dark ages. That doesn’t seem to matter though. I'm still afraid that Cam and every other person in the world will start seeing me differently even though I'm still just me.”
― Jordon Greene, A Mark on My Soul

“Dammit, it should be easy to come out. I mean, Mom and Dad aren't a problem. I'm not worried they'll disown me or tell me some crap like I'm going to hell or take away my stuff. I'm just afraid they'll look at me differently. I don't know, like I'll be their gay son Noah instead of just Noah. I just want to be Noah Andrews, the simple, slightly nerdy, socially awkward guy, minus the big-ass secret.”
― Jordon Greene, A Mark on My Soul

“I was surprised at how much general fear and anxiety lurked inside me these days. I'd never been a fearful person, never even understood phobias like fear of heights of water or snakes or any of those things. And while I knew that my coming out as a transgender person was going to throw certain people for a loop, I somehow hadn't realized how much it would throw me.”
― Ellen Wittlinger, Parrotfish

“The funny thing about coming out is that it relies on the belief that the information you're keeping about yourself is shameful. If you were raised to be somewhat shameless, it's less of a one-time shock and more like a lifelong rumble.”
― Courtney Trouble, Coming Out Like a Porn Star: Essays on Pornography, Protection, and Privacy

“So what do you do?" There it was. I was so comfortable that I forgot this stranger had no idea what my job was. Whenever I get asked the work question, I pause to assess the situation. A few checks I go through before making my decision to either answer, avoid the question, or stretch the truth are: (1) Does this person feel safe enough to disclose to without there being excessive discomfort or conflict? (2) Am I emotionally prepared to handle discomfort or conflict if they happen? And (3) Do I have an escape route if things end up not going well?”
― Harley Hex, Coming Out Like a Porn Star: Essays on Pornography, Protection, and Privacy

“Sometimes people tell me they don’t want to label themselves by their sexual orientation.

I used to reject my gay identity. In fact I did everything to try and annihilate it. The last thing I would ever do would be to say...... “I’m gay”. Taking ownership of that was a terrifying thought and I believed it had tragic long-term as well as eternal consequences.

The closest I ever got to acknowledging my true orientation was admitting I had “a homosexual problem”. Accepting who I was, was a loooong journey. And once I’d accepted then learning to embrace and celebrate being gay.

We have multi identities. We can have different identities in different contexts. In some contexts some identities are paramount and others irrelevant. The highly self-aware person is conscious of the various identities but manages them wisely, recognizing each one is a part of the whole.

Personally, I’m proud to be a homosexual. No more shame, denial or secrecy. The shame has been washed away by self-acceptance and self-hatred replaced with self-love.

I am gay. Always have been gay. Always will be.”
― Anthony Venn-Brown, A Life of Unlearning – a preacher's struggle with his homosexuality, church and faith

“It is never really about what you are striving to get or achieve. It’s the journey.”
― Aimee Herman, Everything Grows

“You are finding your colors
Your wings are expanding
Don’t be afraid of your butterfly
Your flight is the best part of living”
― Aimee Herman, Everything Grows

“Maybe it's coming out of the closet with all of it, knowing even when the truth isn't hopeful the telling of it is.”
― Andrea Gibson, Lord of the Butterflies

“Another thing Norris and Eric had always had in common in a school that catered to mostly white and Catholic families was that dread that at any point their entire existence might get reduced to a single-letter word. N-word. F-word. Norris never judged Eric for wanting to avoid that if he could.”
― Ben Philippe, The Field Guide to the North American Teenager