Who’s Afraid Of Coming Out?

Kehlani’s coming out is a little bit of magic for this Friday of the pandemic. A Friday of losses. A Friday of many Fridays in a year of nameless days. At 25, the artist, activist and mom has also let us know that she’s a lesbian.

In their coming out (such a crude term, I feel), Kehlani said that they were lucky to have gone many years “under the radar” as “straight passing.”

I know what they mean by this. They means that people who ‘look straight’ (read: cisnormative) are less likely to face retaliation in their daily personal and professional lives. So-called ‘straight passing’ people may not field invasive questions or prying queries about who they’re dating, bating a sexual revelation. There is material, tangible social safety in ‘being’ or appearing straight. But it is not “lucky” to be straight. It’s lucky, I believe, to be gay.

No matter how much the world tries to put us on the outside of things, it’s lucky to feel on the inside of our world, always.

It’s lucky to build romantic friendships. Deep, loving, life-affirming friendships.

It’s lucky to know that our love and lives exist despite violence and degradation, that we repel the world’s ugliness with art and love and joy.

It’s lucky that we are committed to movement; evolving possibilities of emotional and bodily connection.

It’s lucky that our discoveries and braveries make the world and those around us a little bit more free.