Happy National Coming Out Day! Strength and love to those who are struggling with being who they are.

 

Each action you take for equality serves as a reminder to people of all ages and degrees of self-acceptance that we are surrounded by support!

 

I'm happy, successful and I love myself!

 

It's OK to be YOU!

 

^You going to come out as an evangelical republican today MTS?

^You going to come out as an evangelical republican today MTS?

 

I have an 8 X 5 easel portrait of I and my partner on my desk, near my computer.  For about a week now.  No questions, amazingly enough.

wait, is it on an easel in your office?  If so...there are no questions because people already know.  :wink:

wait, is it on an easel in your office?  If so...there are no questions because people already know.  ;)

 

You got a lot of nerve, Queen.  I have one word to say to you.  GREECE!

Man you all are never gonna let them live that down lol

Man you all are never gonna let them live that down lol

 

Because its the biggest, gayest, most flaming thread in UrbanOhio history!

MTS we need to grab coffee.  when can we make this happen? 

wait, is it on an easel in your office?

 

 

No no...this is a 5 x 7 inch frame with pic in it, one of those desktop easel frames.  I also have three snapshots (two of him by himself and one of him holding me) scanned and put on legal sized paper tacked to the cube wall near my computer. 

 

 

If so...there are no questions because people already know

 

..hah..yes I think so!  I did come out to some people after my partner passed, and to my boss and his boss. 

 

 

Off work i am 100% out.  I am just beyond this "editing" thing now.  Im too old for that sh_t.

 

BTW, our local PFLAG had LtCol Feherenbach speak.  Saw him yesterday.  He gave a great talk and a good Q & A session followed up.  Good thing to have on Coming Out Day.

 

Here's his story:

 

Don’t Ask Don’t Tell’ Repeal Spares Decorated Air Force Aviator

 

 

 

For a long time I hadn't made any serious effort to conceal my orientation, just going about my life, going out in public with my boyfriend and even taking him to an off-premises company-sponsored event. My offical public coming-out was in 1981, when I was interviewed by a reporter from the Fort Wayne Joural-Gazette along with five other people in my living room on a fall Sunday afternoon. The following Sunday morning the article about living gay in Fort Wayne was the front-page, above-the-fold feature in the newspaper.

 

On Monday morning I was apprehensive as I went to work, but only a few people, including my homophibic, racist, mysogynistic Southern Redneck boss, tried to put me on the defensive. I responded to them non-confrontationally but directly, and that put an end to it. Only one person in the office became evasive and visibly uncomfortable in my presence, a married man whom I had always suspected was a big closet queen. A plain-spoken female co-worker confided to me, "We all kind of thought so, and now we just know for sure."

 

The overall effects of coming out formally and publicly were far more positive than negative. I received a lot of affirmation and encouragement from people from factory workers to executives for standing up, and I completely defused the efforts by my boss to get rid of me. He had come to the accounting department after I had been there several years, and I found out that soon after his arrival he had told another manager that he intended to have me out of there within six months. His homophobia was part of it, but also he resented that I knew the company's General Accounting Principles better than he did and I refused to go along with things he wanted me to do to cover for his incompetence and mistakes. After I came out, he would have had to prove that his reason for firing me was not based in homophobia, because strictly-enforced company policy forbid discrimination based on sexual orientation. Given his previous comments to people who would have stood up for me, he would have lost that battle and probably his job.

 

Coming out enabled me to deal with homophobic people from a position of strength. The feeling was exhilarating.

^

This was a good story with a positive outcome all around.

 

But I cant help but see this glass as half empty, of situations where guys like Robert Pences boss are the "winners", and the gay or lesbian person is forced out.  But, I guess, better to be forced out while you ARE out vs the mind-f_ck of being forced out while still in the closet.