By Sasha Tan '26
Coming out continues to be a large stressor for too many people. Risking one’s safety, coupled with the heaps of pressure that comes with labeling and self-discovery, can lead to an array of mental health issues. I recently conducted a survey on the SAS student body surrounding their experiences with coming out and labeling. 88% of respondents reported pressure to label whilst coming out, and 67% of respondents reported a somewhat negative reception post coming out. One respondent stated, “Even though I had a good experience, I still felt pretty judged and am scared to tell people who aren't my friends that I'm queer. I usually just let people figure it out.” The data makes it clear just how stressful the increasingly complex process of self discovery and identity is. This could be in correlation to the lack of accessible resources for coming out and labeling, and how it’s a concept society has made to figure out for your own.
Though this is something that is accepted in and out of the LGBTQ+ community, accessible resources surrounding this topic are essential yet lacking. Though there are some resources surrounding coming out and labeling, most of them fail to include intersectionality. In other words, these resources can be improved by recognizing factors like race, nationality and religion. A lot of cultural connection can be severed if there is a negative post coming out response, especially in traditional families. Coming out can be very different for transgender students, as it becomes forced rather than a choice: come out or deal with severe gender dysphoria. Or that responses tend to veer more negative if the person coming out is not white, because of how whiteness has been tied to queerness. Most media representations of queer people have been white, leading to Eurocentric representations of queerness becoming mainstream. So, when someone who is not white comes out, it’s sometimes seen as stranger because of its lack of conformity to the status quo. Queer women fall victim to sexualization due to lesbophobia and the sexualization of sapphics. These are all points of consideration for future resources surrounding coming out and labeling.
Pressure to label is also an increasingly present phenomenon. Because of the complexity and fluidity of gender and sexuality, finding a correct label l continues to be a major roadblock for many members of the LGBTQ+ community. With more and more focus on “identity-based discourse” within online queer communities, there come to be so many sub-labels it becomes difficult to find one that fits. More complex and lesser-known labels tend to be ambushed with disapproval by outsiders. In addition, when your label dares to drift out the over simplified version of sexuality and the gender spectrum, it’s met with unsolicited comments and questions. The reality is that most people will spend several months at minimum trying to find a label that fits in labeling and relabeling throughout the process. Perception changes, and it is totally normal to re-label at different periods of life. For some people having an exact label fits them and their identity, while having no label at all fits others. In other words, there is no correct way to discover sexuality or label yourself. Your label does not have to conform to the norms of an oppressive and colonial society. But identity is merely an expression of oneself and is not for other people to understand, especially because what is deemed normal is woven in with colonial and heteronormative ideals. The pressure to label can be summed up as pressure to present yourself in a way that is understandable for privileged people.
Senior Editor: Clara Li '24
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