This June, I need Gen Z queers to understand that some people are closeted.
I am saying this as a Gen Z queer, before yâall get your guns out to fucking shoot me.
But I need yâall to understand that if someone doesnât give you their government name in a queer space, itâs not because theyâre âmysterious,â and you do not have permission to take it upon yourself to figure out their âreal identityâ and go digging for them online like a private investigator. First, thatâs creepy and a violation of privacy and reasonable boundaries. Second, some of us keep our private and professional lives very separate because we need to keep food on the fucking table and a roof over our heads, and our private life could jeopardize that.
âWhy wonât you tell me about your parents?â âWhy canât I know your real name?â âWhere do you work?â
1.) Not all our parents would bake us a fucking cake when we come out. Some of us are closeted. Surely you understand this? You also do not need to know my parentâs names or occupations; we are both adults. I do not need nor want to mix you and my private life with my parents and my public life.
2.) Trans people do not owe you their dead name or government name
3.) Iâm not telling you for the sake of job security. I am a government fucking caseworker working amidst a fucking lavender panic!
âThereâs no way youâre a different person outside this; youâre still you at your core. What harm is thereââ
No, I am a completely different person. A different person with a different personality and different interests and a different name and presentation. I am a completely different person because I keep this life and my public life private to avoid fracturing 90% of my interpersonal relationships and 100% of my professional ones.
âYouâre not out? But youâre so confident.â
Seeâ thatâs part of the issue. Yâall assume someone is in the closet because they hate themselves or lack self-identity. Some of us know exactly who we are, but need to prioritize financial stability or else our entire life gets exponentially harder immediately.
You meet queer people over the age of 40 and one of the first/earliest questions is âwho knows?â
I need yâall to start bringing that energy. Because itâs not always safe for someone to be out and not everyone is safe to be out around.
There is a misnomer that âthe closetâ inherently means âdoesnât know theyâre queerâ and not âisnât out widely and publicly.â âOutnessâ is often a patchwork.
Even if someone who isnt out does share any life details with you, you keep those to yourself. You tread carefully and assume others dont know until told otherwise. And sometimes you lie and help keep that closet door shut. It is ok to feel super weird about it if someone comes out to you as trans but tells you to only use their preferred name and pronouns privately just the two of you. It's fine to feel uncomfortable when people ask you if a gay person has an opposite gendered partner. It is so valid to feel weird and bad deadnaming someone even though they requested it. It stops being valid if you do anything other than they asked. Feel your feelings, and keep them to yourself - someone else's identity isn't about you.
