#NationalComingOutDay
October 2021 is turning out to be an interesting month.
Not only are we celebrating Black History Month here in the UK, as well as Mental Health Awareness Week, today I find out through the wonderland that is Twitter that the 11th of October is #NationalComingOutDay.
Now, I’ve had a prickly relationship with the concept of coming out of the closet. In Tagalog, the translation we use for this term is “ladlad”, which means to expose and to open without any inch of the object left closed. The inherent violence that is easy to ignore here became loud and clear to me when I finally did have to voice out the confirmation of my queerness. The first time I did so was back in October of 2017 (yeah!), drunk and to someone who probably shouldn’t have been the first person to have ever heard me say “I’m gay”. Yes, I was a mess for a pretty long time afterwards but we’re okay now!
Fast forward to 2021, where younger queer kids of today have done so much to make the world a safer place for one another. I, for one, cannot be happier for them.
Where I experienced a lot of hard steel conservatism, a lot of younger queer people today are doing so much to defeat that ignorance. Some question the relevance of coming out as a concept that needs to be used, which connects to conversations of a heteronormative society that deems everyone automatically straight. Others find the comfort and familiarity of a tradition necessary, and in turn others offer their support. Even more support pour for those who aren’t sure yet, weighing out the safest option for them.
And the sentiment is starting to spread. Just today, I came across a tweet from Lynda Carter, the original live-action Wonder Woman, whose words of support not only recognises what sort of impact her role as the superhero character has done to queer kids of the 1970s (and beyond), but it also makes me understand what the day is trying to achieve.
Empathy, and the ability to listen and provide space for one another.
So in celebration of #NationalComingOutDay and the forthcoming 80th Anniversary of DC Comics’ Wonder Woman (21st of October!), I would like a poem from me, reminiscing about the time I was nine years old and unbothered by sexuality, but filled up to the brim with wonder.
Replica
The attention those gauntlets would catch
out in the streets. Shine full silver,
their outlines solar, framing
power muscular yet refined.
Imagine unboxing the delivery
through a flurry of excitement,
donning the headband – sorry, tiara,
and seeing it as reconciliation
between the young man
who wants to grow into full man
by looking past tremors of his own hate,
studying the dullness in violence,
understanding that mercy is a constant task
and that the truth isn’t always as golden
as a one-word definition,
mixed with the plucky eight-year-old boy
wearing a mask from Toy Kingdom,
a makeshift lasso made out of
shoestrings, ribbons and shorts strings
latched at the garters of his basketball shorts,
who will only spin to transform
to fetch a remote or pour water into pitchers
at the right call for help: Wonder Woman!(Previously published in TLDTD Journal, September 2021)
Love to Wonder Woman, love to my queer friends.