Come Out!
October 11 was 🏳️🌈Out🏳️🌈Day🏳️🌈2025
I always think about Keith & Keith and the spring of 1977 when both of my friends opened the closet door enough to say - "I'm Gay." One after handing me Patricia Nell Warren's
and the other after asking "Have you read The Front Runner?" The 1974 novel was a window into possibilities that warmed, thrilled, and warned of life for those embracing their Queerness. Even a decade after The Summer of Love - it was still a hushed process of testing waters, fearful anxiety, joyful exuberance in discovery, covering for each other, and healing in that sunshine & shadows space. In short - it was some of the most Courageous times of our lives.
But more to the point - they referenced a work of literature in which they could see themselves.
Representation is vital. Full STOP.
It's fitting that Coming Out Day was on the last day (the exclamation point of) Banned Book Week. In 1977, we found ourselves in the pages of a NYT Best Seller from 1974. It meant everything to us. It gave us words to use as code, as passwords, and for ally discovery.
Now - in 2025 - we have to find that courage again because as author Charlie Jane Anders says on their blog HAPPY DANCING:
They Want To Ban Books To Keep Us From Coming Out
Fuck them. Read. Find yourself. Come Out when you can - we'll be right here waiting to welcome you home.