Coming Out: Playing The Role or Going Off-Script?
Dominique Duck
According to David Silverman from the Daily Beast, “4% of Americans are LGBT,” which means that 4% of the population has had to come out of the closet. Coming out of the closet is when an individual decides to come forward about their sexuality. Until recently, coming out of the closet was considered to be deviant because of the stigma associated with non-heterosexual orientations. Today, coming out of the closet is less stigmatized, but it is still difficult for because of personal struggles, fears of rejection and isolation from family members, and discrimination. Often when people think about gay, lesbian, and transgender individuals coming out of the closet, they think of teenagers. This research, however, addresses older people coming out of the closet. The purpose of this paper is to explore why older people wait so long to come out of the closet, along with the difficulties of coming out of the closet later in life. The main argument of this thesis is that middle aged adults struggle with coming out of the closet more than teenagers do. Along with this, I want to explore the differences between the two groups: the different reasons why teenagers and adults make their decision to come out or not, their thought processes, and their reasons behind coming out of or staying in the closet.
Dominique Duck graduated from Belton-Honea Path High School in Honea Path, South Carolina. She is a Sociology major at Lander University. She is a part of the Black Student Union. Her experiences include interning at SAFY of Greenville assisting families in difficult situations during a semester in Greenville, SC.
