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The Problem of Coming Out

Mary Rasmussen

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THEORY INTO PRACTICE / Spring 2004
Sexual Identities and Schooling
Mary Lou Rasmussen
The Problem of Coming Out
This article focuses on contemporary research per-
taining to the closet and coming out within and
around educational settings in Australia, Britain,
and the United States. The research tends to forge
a relationship between inclusivity and coming out,
a relationship that often situates the closet as a
zone of shame and exclusion. Lesbian and gay pol-
itics often tend to reinforce this relationship. Many
educational researchers are perturbed by “the com-
ing out imperative” and point to some of the limi-
tations of this discourse in diverse educational
contexts. This article considers these limitations
as well as the possibilities that may surface when
coming out becomes a pedagogical practice in the
college classroom. In sum, this article considers
how teachers and students might benefit from be-
ing mindful of the moral, political, and pedagogi-
cal issues that necessarily influence educational
discourses of the closet and coming out.
Closeted - the experience of living without disclos-
ing one’s sexual orientation or gender identity (also
referred to as being “in the closet”).
Coming out - becoming aware of one’s sexual orien-
tation or gender identity and beginning to disclose it
to others. A person may be selectively “out” in some
Mary Lou Rasmussen is lecturer of education at Deakin
University, Australia.
THEORY INTO PRACTICE, Volume 43, Number 2, Spring 2004
144
Copyright © 2004 College of Education, The Ohio State University
situations or to certain people without generally dis-
closing his or her sexual orientation or gender iden-
tity. “Coming out” is a process that takes place over
time, in some cases over many years. (Bochenek &
Brown, 2001, p. xiii)
A S DESCRIBED ABOVE , there is a sense that “the
closet” and “coming out” are easily under-
stood. A person may be considered closeted if they
live without disclosing their sexual orientation or
gender identity. Alternatively, someone who de-
clares their sexual orientation or gender identity
publicly may be construed as having come out.
Such neat definitions inevitably overlook the diffi-
culties of dealing with these issues in discourses
related to sexualities and schooling. In this article
I do not seek an end to coming out. Rather, I en-
deavour to flesh out some of the complexities at-
tached to discourses of coming out and the closet,
complexities that are inevitably mediated by the
particular bodies that are engaging these discourses.
This consideration of coming out discourses
is broadly focused within and outside educational
settings; as such it is not pitched at a particular
educational cohort. My principal argument is that
students and teachers in diverse educational set-
tings may benefit from engaging the varied moral,
political, and pedagogical issues that influence the
production of coming out discourses. This argu-
ment is also explicitly directed to all teachers and
students who, regardless of their sexual or gender

identities, may have different investments in the
in/out binary. Putting aside the issue of different
people’s motivations in deploying discourses of
coming out and the closet,1 it is important to rec-
ognize that these discourses are absolutely funda-
mental to contemporary understandings of
sexualities and schooling, and, therefore, they war-
rant closer scrutiny.
The Coming Out Imperative
One of the first U.S. texts to directly tackle
issues related to sexualities and schooling was Har-
beck’s Coming Out of the Classroom Closet (1992).
This anthology includes several chapters that advo-
cate the value of coming out, including Griffin’s
“From Hiding Out to Coming Out: Empowering
Lesbian and Gay Educators” (pp. 167-196). The
notion that coming out is necessarily empowering
did not originate with Griffin, and did not end in
1992. This emphasis on coming out continued in
Sears’ and Williams’ text, entitled Overcoming Het-
erosexism and Homophobia: Strategies That Work
(1997). In the introduction to this text, Williams
argues “the single most effective way to change ho-
mophobic attitudes is through one-to-one personal
contacts. . . . Thus we need more research to sug-
gest the best ways to encourage more lesbigay per-
sons to come out to their relatives, friends, and
co-workers” (p. 7). Williams’ emphasis on coming
out is also evident in his comments regarding clos-
eted academics. He notes “Many tenured full pro-
fessors who are gay or lesbian continue to cower
cowardly in the closet” (p. 4). Bridgewater (1997)
advocates “coming out as a prime method for reduc-
ing negative attitudes and acts of prejudice against
sexual identity minorities while increasing the well-
being of gays, lesbians, and bisexuals” (p. 65). Both
Williams and Bridgewater see coming out as impera-
tive in combating prejudice. Griffin (1992) also
mounts an argument about the individual therapeutic
value of being out as an educator.
The sense of empowerment linked with the
coming out process is echoed in a number of nar-
ratives of teachers who have come out in their
schools, triumphing in the face of homophobia.
Boutilier (1994) provides a fairly typical example
of the sentiments expressed in teachers’ coming
out stories:
Rasmussen
Coming Out
I have found that the process of bringing lesbian and
gay literature into the classroom, like coming out,
leaves no room for turning back. The experience has
reaffirmed my personal commitment to challenging
myself to face the worst of my fears. (p. 141)
A U.S. secondary teacher, Boutilier makes referenc-
es to self-affirmation, overcoming fear, and, finally,
her hope that she might motivate others to create an
educational system that more accurately reflects the
breadth and depth of human experience.
The Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education
Network (GLSEN), the largest U.S. organization
specifically advocating for the rights of lesbian,
gay, bisexual, and transgender teachers and stu-
dents, publishes a range of coming out guides for
youth, their allies, and educators. These guides cau-
tion students and teachers about potential problems
that may be associated with coming out in school
settings. Though akin to Boutilier’s coming out nar-
rative, these guides tend to reinforce the assump-
tion that coming out is a valuable—if sometimes
difficult—task, and that the act of coming out is
likely to benefit the individual and their peers.
The image conjured up by Williams of clos-
eted professors “cowering cowardly” points to an-
other side of coming out and the ties that bind the
closet and exclusion. Students and teachers who
fail in their duty to come out may be marked as
lacking, while those who do come out may be cele-
brated as role models promoting tolerance and in-
clusivity, empowering themselves and others.
Nowhere is the coming out imperative starker than
in the National Coming Out Day program. Orga-
nized by the Human Rights Campaign,2 the pro-
gram is an annual event in hundreds of U.S. schools
and colleges. The booklet (2001) produced to pro-
mote National Coming Out Day calls on people to
be honest and open about their sexual orientation—
one corollary of such a statement being that those
who don’t come out are yet to prove themselves as
honest and open. Yet such an emphasis on coming
out of the closet may conceal the complexities inher-
ent in self-describing according to contingent sexual
and gender identities.
As I will demonstrate, people resist coming
out for a range of reasons. The implication that
those who do not are somehow disempowered or
dishonest is one of the problems associated with
many of the discourses that call for teachers and
145
THEORY INTO PRACTICE / Spring 2004
Sexual Identities and Schooling
students to come out of the closet. This approach
to coming out also perpetuates a narrativization of
gay and lesbian life where people are constructed
as having no agency in the adoption of their sexu-
al identity because, as the Human Rights Cam-
paign states, “Sexuality and gender identity are not
choices any more than being left-handed or having
brown eyes or being heterosexual are choices”
(2001, p. 11). When the largest and most well-
resourced lesbian and gay organization in the Unit-
ed States argues that homosexuality is not a choice,
an important slippage occurs. The notion that sex-
ual identity is somehow essential becomes conflat-
ed with the idea that coming out is also somehow
essential.3
There is an imperative for lesbian and gay
identified people to come out in educational set-
tings, and I have argued this imperative can place
people in an invidious position. When coming out
discourses are privileged, the act of not coming
out may be read as an abdication of responsibility,
or, the act of somebody who is disempowered or
somehow ashamed of their inherent gayness. In
the next section, I draw together educational re-
search that questions the coming out imperative,
or, alternatively, indicates why coming out may be
a problem for some.
The Politics of Coming Out
Several researchers have drawn attention to
the difficulties that may be associated with com-
ing out, especially for young people. For example,
Telford’s (2003a, 2003b) study of young gay iden-
tified British university students points to the dif-
ficulties people encounter in endeavouring to come
out when they enroll at a university. Drawing on
interviews he conducted with young gay men, Tel-
ford highlights the ways sexual identity can be-
come compartmentalized in young people’s lives
due to pressures placed on them by family and
peer groups. Pressures not to come out might be
allied to a young person’s racial or ethnic background,
their family’s religious affiliations, or to family
threats—real or implied—regarding the withdrawal
of financial support. As Telford states, “Fears about
being cut off financially seemed to be an important
factor for the young person when deciding to come
out” (2003a, p. 137). If family members fund a young
146
person’s education, coming out might compromise
their access to tertiary education. Such pragmatic con-
siderations necessarily complicate young people’s
negotiations of the in/out binary.
While Telford indicates the complications that
may mitigate against young people’s heartfelt de-
sire to come out, Snider (1996) disputes the idea
that coming out is necessarily a “heartfelt desire”
or a liberatory process. In particular, Snider has
been critical of the Toronto Board of Education’s
Triangle Program, a drop-out prevention initiative
targeted specifically toward lesbian and gay iden-
tified high school students. Pointing to the Toronto
lesbian and gay community’s failure to account
for issues of race in coming out discourses, Snider
poses the following questions in relation to cele-
bratory discourses on coming out:
How can the disruptive potential of coming out be
actualized for lesbian and gay youth confronting not
just homophobia but racism as well? Is the dominant
discourse subsuming the speech of lesbians and gays?
Moreover, does the dominant discourse within lesbi-
an and gay politics subsume the speech of lesbians
and gays of color? Finally, in what ways has the
coming out discourse altered underlying systems of
domination, and in what ways are these systems be-
ing reproduced within this discourse? (p. 300)
These questions offer an important challenge to
the coming out imperative outlined in the previous
section. Snider illustrates well the need to chal-
lenge dominant discourses of celebration and the
concomitant enforcement of coming out discourses,
silencing and shaming people for whom coming
out is not a realistic or preferred option. This cri-
tique of coming out, which is located within the
broader context of discourses relating to lesbian
and gay identity politics, is especially salient in
the context of this discussion of the problem of
coming out. The “problem” is not located in an
individual’s desire to identify as lesbian or gay,
but rather in the sense that dominant discourses
relating to lesbian and gay politics tend to offer no
moral alternative BUT to come out.
The complex intersections of race and sexu-
ality in coming out discourses are apparent in
Akanke’s (1994) discussion of her decision not to
come out to peers when she was a university stu-
dent, and to remain closeted in her interactions with
school authorities as a lesbian parent in Britain.

Akanke, who identifies herself as a Black Jamai-
can woman, states:
Being “closeted” is not a choice I wish to make.
Nevertheless, because of the pervasiveness of rac-
ism, it is one that I choose to make. Being Black,
however, is not a choice. As a Black woman my
color is my most obvious feature, not my sexual pref-
erences. (p. 102)
While Akanke expresses a preference for a life
lived out of the closet, she goes on to argue that
outing herself would be foolhardy, as it may com-
promise her relations with her Black community.
She further remarks that the support of that com-
munity “far outweighs any desire to openly assert
my sexuality” (p. 113). Akanke feels there is no
escaping discrimination based on her color, but
discrimination based on the grounds of her sexual
identity is something she feels she has more agen-
cy in trying to control.
Snider and Akanke demonstrate that univer-
salizing discourses compelling people to come out
often fail to consider racism. Similarly, in her dis-
cussion of the process of coming out in Asian com-
munities in the United States, Varney (2001)
critiques celebratory narratives that permeate main-
stream queer youth groups “where people are urged
to be proud and out to everyone” (p. 94). What
this research suggests is that people’s relationship
to the closet and coming out is affected by factors
such as race and age.
In conclusion, people’s ability to continuously
negotiate their identity is necessarily mediated by
varying circulations of power relating to age, fam-
ily background, economic position, and race. The
dominance of coming out discourses in lesbian and
gay politics, within and outside educational set-
tings, belies the idea that coming out is not neces-
sarily an option, or a desired objective, of all people
who are non-heterosexual identified. Next, I turn
to a consideration of how coming out might relate
to classroom pedagogy. While this component of
the article pertains specifically to teacher educa-
tion, the issues raised might also be instructive in
debates about coming out in K-12 school settings.
Coming Out and Pedagogy
The difficult terrain that students and teach-
ers navigate in determining how to manage their
Rasmussen
Coming Out
various identities and their potential coming out
within and around school settings has been em-
phasized by Evans (1999). She points out the “in-
teractive nature of identity negotiation” (p. 240)
and argues that the construction of divisions be-
tween public and private spheres must be constantly
renegotiated by teachers and students who are not
heterosexual identified.
My focus now turns to the constant negotia-
tions of coming out in classroom settings. In two
articles published in the same issue of GLQ: A
Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies, Khayatt (1999)
and Silin (1999) emphasize the interactive nature
of identity negotiation. They also consider the pos-
sibilities and problems posed by the act of coming
out in educational spaces. While both of these arti-
cles raise important issues relating to the problem
of coming out, they also navigate readers toward
difficult terrain.
In his article, “Teaching As a Gay Man,” Silin
poses the following questions: How is pedagogy
changed when we dismantle the wall between pri-
vate and professional experience? What risks do
we take? What goals do we achieve when we open
our lives for public inspection? (p. 96). Silin, a
teacher educator who works in New York City,
partially responds to these questions by stating that
being gay in the classroom “encourages the au-
thentic voices I hoped my students would assume
in their own classrooms” (p. 96). While Silin is
aware that the relationship he has with his stu-
dents is a confessional one, he also notes that it is
simultaneously self-constitutive. In other words, he
constructs himself as a particular sort of gay man
through the act of conversing about his gayness
with his students.
Silin also observes that the stories he tells
his students regarding his sexual identity “change
over time and are transformed by the times” (p.
99). I wonder if his awareness of the relationship
between time, and the stories he tells his students
about himself and his sexuality, is somewhat at
odds with his desire to encourage the assumption
of authentic voices in his students. I wonder how
he or his students would determine which voices
relating to their sexual identity are authentic, giv-
en the propensity of these stories to continue to
change over time? Perhaps teacher educators would
147
THEORY INTO PRACTICE / Spring 2004
Sexual Identities and Schooling
do better to focus conversations on how sexual
identities “change over time and are transformed
by the times.” Such a focus on the differences,
discontinuities, and similarities between and with-
in people’s sexual stories may alert students and
teachers to the idea that people’s sense of self
doesn’t develop and then stagnate; rather, it con-
tinues to change and transform over time. Students
may consider the notion that sexual identities aren’t
imposed on them; they change over time, and stu-
dents are involved in negotiating these changes.
Later in the same article, Silin argues that
confessing the personal in the classroom involves
an exchange where “we give up being like our
students or even liked by them in order to foster
authentic dialogue with them” (p. 99). There is no
doubt that coming out in the classroom does dis-
mantle taboos about what is and is not pedagogi-
cally appropriate in educational spaces, enabling
Silin to shift “some of his discomfort about teach-
ing onto the students” (p. 96). I, too, am an advo-
cate of the provocative abilities of discomfort in
the pedagogical process (Harwood & Rasmussen,
2004), but I question the methods Silin deploys to
provoke discomfort. I wonder if Silin could strive
to be more discomforting by not only refusing to
occupy “the position (students and institutions of-
ten require of their teachers) of objective purveyor
of truth” (p. 105), but also refusing connections
between statements about identity and authentici-
ty. Such a position would enable him to challenge
the role of teacher as truth teller about all subjects,
including gayness.
In response to Silin’s article, Khayatt (1999)
interrogates the “pedagogical benefit of coming out
in the classroom, particularly through a declarative
statement” (p. 108). She argues that the process of
coming out to students through the use of a declar-
ative statement (such as, “I am an out and proud
gay teacher”) may be pedagogically unsound
not least because one’s identity is continually in flux
[italics added], and the act of freezing one’s identity in
place to render the declarative statement true, even for
a moment, does not do justice to the teacher presenting
herself or himself in class. What it does is to define the
teacher as standing for an entire group. (p. 108)
If teachers’ and students’ sexual and gender
identities are continuously in a state of flux, as
Khayatt suggests, then how is it possible to state
148
one’s outness in the classroom without freezing
one’s identity? Besides, what happens if and when
your identity does change?
As Telford (2003b) observes, Khayatt’s mo-
tive in questioning the pedagogical value of com-
ing out “is not advocating living a closeted life. . . .
Her point is that unsettling heterosexuality may be
as well, or better, achieved through the curriculum
and by refusing to behave as if queer sexuality
were a secret requiring a declaration” (p. 106). This
argument is compelling insofar as it makes a valu-
able distinction between pedagogical discussions
that unsettle heterosexuality and the act of coming
out. Clearly, these differing pedagogical strategies
may have different effects. For example, the act of
coming out may have the reverse effect of rein-
forcing heterosexuality because of its tendency to
underpin the heterosexual/homosexual binary.
However, I am concerned that Khayatt’s ar-
gument could also have the effect of implying that
coming out is always pedagogically unsound in
classroom settings. To my mind, this is an untena-
ble position. Within and outside educational spac-
es, people will continue to choose to come out and
others will refuse to disclose their sexual identity.
The pedagogical implications of the decision to
come out in the classroom will surely vary accord-
ing to the teacher, the school, the parents, and the
community who are all drawn into and impact on
this act of coming out. From a pedagogical per-
spective, coming out isn’t in and of itself inherent-
ly good or bad. While coming out does not
necessarily equate to unsettling heterosexuality, nor
does it necessarily define the teacher as standing
for an entire group.
As Khayatt goes on to observe, the telling of
one’s identity is not restricted to the form of speech
acts. She states, “telling may occur through the
ways in which our bodies are inevitably read by
students and/or through what we include in and
leave out of syllabi. Some of us are perceived as
queer regardless of what we say, while for others
the act of announcing one’s queerness does not
ensure this perception” (pp. 110-112). In clarify-
ing her particular objection to the use of declara-
tive statements, Khayatt explains:
Whenever I use a declarative statement to proclaim
my sexuality unequivocally to friends and colleagues,

it seems to end the exchange. We move onto another
subject, closing this one forever [italics added]. I
find that by assuming instead that they are aware of
my sexual orientation, it does not focus menacing
attention on itself but remains a natural part of the
conversation and continues to come up whenever rel-
evant. (p. 110)
Khayatt’s position is somewhat contradictory.
She is particularly critical of declarative statements
about coming out, but recognizes that these state-
ments take many forms. Thus, there is a distinc-
tion made in her argument between teachers who
are outed because of the tone of their speech or
students’ reading of their body, and teachers who are
outed because of the content of their speech. Given
such a distinction, is it then plausible to suggest that
one method of outing will attract menacing attention
and foreclose speech forever, while the other will
allow one’s sexual orientation to remain a natural
part of conversation? This prompts further questions:
How does discussion of sexuality becomes natural-
ized in conversation? Is it only possible to discuss
sexual orientation naturally if one has not made a
prior declarative statement? And do these guidelines
pertaining to coming out also hold true for people
who choose to identify as heterosexual?
In spite of any considered argument that one
might mount for or against coming out, it is also
worth remembering that regardless of the theory, in
practice educators cannot prevent “students forc(ing)
our polymorphous perversities into their prefabricat-
ed boxes of limited understanding” (Khayatt, 1999,
p. 112). For Khayatt the way forward is to ask “stu-
dents to grapple . . . with the articulation of the erotic
in the texts we assign, rather than ourselves as texts”
(p. 112). I am sympathetic to Khayatt’s desire to
complicate the curriculum through the introduction
of texts that will challenge students’ understandings
of sexuality and identity. At the same time, I am
skeptical of the value that may be placed on the per-
formance of being gay in the classroom, especially
when this performance is associated with the produc-
tion of an authentic gay voice. This is not to say that
being overtly gay or straight in the classroom is al-
ways undesirable.
Conclusion
In this article I have considered the problems
associated with the imperative to come out and
Rasmussen
Coming Out
argued that this imperative is often underpinned
by a broader movement within gay and lesbian
politics that tends to unproblematically valorize the
act of coming out. In addition, I have analyzed
arguments related to the pedagogical value of de-
stabilizing heterosexuality through curriculum con-
tent or through making declarative statements about
sexual identity within the college classroom. I have
considered how the coming out process is natural-
ized and made familiar, and suggested that far from
being familiar, it is constructed differently depend-
ing on the individual (i.e., their race, age, family
background) and the time, place, and space in
which that individual is located. Such an approach
to the complex issue of coming out enables a move-
ment away from the focus on when, how, and if
teachers should come out in the classroom. In clos-
ing it is worth restating that this article is not in-
tended as a call for the abandonment of coming
out discourses in educational settings. Rather, I
have argued for the value of taking a more com-
plex look at how coming out and the closet are
constructed via moral, political, and pedagogical
considerations related to the production of sexual
identities.
Notes
1. Though I think such a study would be a worthwhile
undertaking, it is beyond the scope of this article.
2. See http://www.hrc.org/Template.cfm?Section=
About_HRC for the Human Rights Campaign’s mis-
sion statement.
3. For an analysis of how such essentializing classifi-
cations can cause problems for LGBT young people
see Rasmussen, Rofes, & Talburt (in press).
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