National Ask if You Can Come in Day

National Coming Out Day is this Friday, October 11th. It’s a pretty great day. 

In my lifetime this day has changed. In college it was a crucial day of activism and expression. Now it feels more like one of many days to celebrate LGBTQ+ lives. At both churches I serve, PRIDE is a big Sunday in June. We celebrate with rainbow communion and special music. National Coming Out day comes and goes without much church attention. I’ve been wondering why?

Is it because the new generation doesn’t really come out anymore? I have plenty of LGBTQ+ youth and young adults in both churches I serve and they have never “come out” to me. They just are. They talk to me openly about their relationships, regardless of gender “status.” (I don’t even know what to write here!)  Status? Orientation? They ask me for relationship advice and they school me in things I have never considered in the false binary world of my youth. But they do not come out to me. They just tell me about who they are in love with. Sometimes I don’t even know if they are LGBTQ+ and it doesn’t matter.

Or does our community skip right by national coming out day because we’ve discovered it is our job to reach out in love, not expect someone to “come out” to us. I didn’t really have the language for this inkling until I saw this post:
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I’m not suggesting we get rid of National Coming Out Day. But I am also wondering if straight folk, and especially religious folk, should stop expecting the queer community to explain who they are to us. It must be exhausting to explain again and again that you do not fit neatly into a binary, heteronormative world. 

Maybe we need to knock on LGBTQ+ identifying folks’ doors and ask if they would be willing to let us in so we can learn about their lives and their loves and their identities and their experiences. Maybe we need another day--National ASK IF WE CAN ENTER DAY. 

We must create safe spaces in which LGBTQ+ individuals  feel welcome to “come out,” but maybe we also need to ensure LGBTQ+ individuals feel safe letting us in. The Christian community has to ask the hard question, do you trust us to enter into your life? And if the answer is no (which it may very well be, because the church has done some horrible things to LGBTQ+ folk), we must ask, “What do we need to do? How can we change?” And we have to listen and take to heart the responses we receive.  

This isn’t always easy or comfortable work. I have a nonbinary parishioner. They are a parent, a spouse, and a bright, deep thinker. I love having conversations with them, because I am always learning about our shared and differing experiences. We compare notes on parenting children. As a mother of teens, I affirm their parenting of their magnificent little one. In turn, they affirm my struggle to raise teenagers to be good, compassionate humans. In this safe relationship, I am expanding my understanding of what it means to be a nonbinary person/parent/spouse. They correct me when I mess up their pronouns for the tenth time. I feel ashamed of my messing up, but that is not for me to lay at their feet. It's for me to work on. But mostly I am deeply grateful I have been invited in to learn and grow even if it requires clumsy work on my part.

This National Coming Out Day, knock on the door of someone you love who identifies as LGBTQ+ and ask simply and open heartedly, “What can I do better? What can we do better?” I pray their response is honest. I pray you/we/all of us can hear it. I pray that we can all form one community. I pray that one day there will be no more closets to walk into or come out of. 

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