to violence because it visibly challenges the heteropatriarchal norms. Queer pride directly challenges the narrative that queer-identifying people are sinful and therefore shameful and brings out queer-identifying people into confrontations with the church14.
‘The true ugliness of the closet is its subtlety. It eats away at your soul bit by bit, and you don’t even realize it. If you never deal with it or come to terms with it, then ultimately the closet will destroy you.’15
It could be argued that freely expressing our identity is an act of resistance rather than of liberation. Coming out is not being free, coming out is to face homophobia (McCormick, 2013) because, according to Hames (2012), our queer lives do not slot in or assimilate, they disrupt the status quo. Representation is vital, enabling identity expression. The findings of Hames suggest that after 2005 when the University of The Western Cape (UWC) began hosting conferences that promoted inclusion, respect for diversity, and tolerance for difference, there was an increase in student confidence in expressing their sexuality because they knew their professors were ‘just like them’ (2012: 76). The deleterious effects of homophobia render a rather sobering picture of what is involved in ‘coming out’ (Suppes et al., 2021) and, considering the high levels of stigmatisation and vulnerability of queer-identifying people, even despite constitutional protections (Van der Walt, 2019), it is critical to question and stand up against the life-denying systems that entrench this reality. If we address the disparities that queer-identifying persons experience, we must assess whether the constitutional values that guarantee our freedom from unfair discrimination and our right to dignity have been adopted and embraced by the general population of South Africa.
The findings of Francis and Reygan (2016) suggest that the notion of being out and visibly expressing one’s queer identity extends beyond the binary in or out of the closet. They consider the lived experiences of the participants in their study which affirm a dynamic and multifaceted expression of self that claims and creates space (Francis and Reygan, 2016). They argue that
the concept of the closet has uses but is not uniform or universal. Francis and Reygan (2016) suggest that the closet denies continuity between the self and the other, separating the individual from the collective, presuming the necessity for agentic self-determination. The confines of the closet should not be completely negated but rather considered as a process of disrupting the normative. There can be power and agency in the closet, and therefore coming out becomes not simply a stage or a process of identity development, but, rather, is a constant assessment of the environment and active decision-making, repeated over and over again (Arndt and De Bruin, 2006).
Van der Walt encourages us to reflect on Foucault’s notion of power as ‘something present throughout the world and in all people’; Van der Wal interprets Foucault to understand ‘ power as a relational strategy that functions in such a manner as to achieve more power’; he continues:
‘Foucault shows that where there is power, there is resistance, and that not all power is negative’ (2017: 12). From this it becomes apparent that power is not innately possessed but rather is held by people or institutions and is therefore distinct from authority (Van der Walt, 2017). Perhaps when we come out we not only claim but also exercise power.
My own lived experience does not embody a rigid model of identity development and expression. For me, the closet is not defined by cowardice and denial, it allows me to act as agent provocateur, infiltrating predominantly heterosexual spaces and enabling me to undermine and subvert the oppressive heteronormative system that seeks to relegate queerness to second-class citizenship. Coming out is not necessarily synonymous with discovering my real identity and aligning it with my public persona, because it is society, and not me, that imposes the closet, thereby denying my fluid truth.
There is an assumption that if people live in the closet and do not come out, they are living unhealthy and inauthentic lives (Boe et al.., 2018). Hammoud-Becket (2007) concurs that assumptions are made that to live a truly queer life, coming out is necessary. While coming out is important and liberating for most queer-identifying people, it would not be necessary if social structures and systems did not impose heteronormativity, gender binaries, and rigid sexual identities (Boe et al., 2018).
Historically, coming out has been a process that allows gay white men to define themselves as marginalised (Ross, 2005) therefore QPoC may not want to identity as queer as their lives are already marked daily by systemic racism and sexism. They may not want to subscribe to the dominant narrative of coming out in order further to risk marginalisation (Boe et al.., 2018).
Decolonising the concept of coming out allows us to consider the aspect of inviting or letting in, by considering one aspect of identity that may be easier or safer to disclose than another, both of which depend upon the context and life stage of social support (Boe et al.., 2018).
While acknowledging the importance of coming out for the creation of community, as described earlier there may be alternate ways for queer-identifying people to define and identify their existence.
Hammoud-Becket (2007) postulates that there can be the conscious and selective invitation of people into one’s life, and that coming out can create pressure to make one’s gender and/or sexual identity public in performative and expressive ways; it may not be necessary to come out, however, to every person you meet to be out of the closet, or – free from Mitzrahim – the narrow place16. The closet could be filled with precious things, treasures that must be protected,
16 Slavery in Egypt confined the Hebrews to a narrow place, with constrictions on physical, emotional, and spiritual lives. The Exodus can be interpreted as the story of liberation from the things that hold us back.
but Hammoud-Becket (2007) offers us an alternative of, perhaps, not having to move out of the closet by making one’s queerness public but one might choose to whom to open the door and who to invite into our lives; this could be an alternative to coming out and thinking about ways to invite people in to share our precious jewels. Moore (2012) reflected on the possibility of liberation through other means including conjuring up different metaphors of disclosure.
Our politics and practices as queer-identifying people should be organised in response to the need to interrogate and disrupt the heterosexist identity categories and hierarchies of power that oppress us, not subscribing to the demand to organise our lives in response to them.
According to Moore (2012a) the process of coming out and naming our perceived non- normative alternative identity reinforces heterosexism. It is important to unpack the terms that order our lives in order clearly to detect what is situated in the language the represents us.
Moore (2012a) argues that by refusing to pronounce symbols and paradigms, namely the metaphors of coming out and the closet, we begin to move from mere opposition, survival, and getting by, to being and getting over. Shifting to the person-centred approach of inviting in honours the complexity of each person’s identity and social location. Coming in functions as a hospitable sharing, a choice to disclose to whom and when, defying the unspoken demand forced on queer bodies to name ourselves out of a fear of being named. Inviting in shifts our power of choice to invite individuals we choose to enter our lives rather than having to publicly exit the closet. Coming in can be considered as a process that frustrates the heteronormative hierarchies as it refuses to adhere to accepted categories and binaries (Moore, 2012b).