Resources for National Coming Out Day and Beyond

10/08/20

Are you an LGBTQA+ person considering coming out, or wondering about how to support friends or colleagues? Is there a lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, or asexual (LGBTQA+) person in your life? Or someone with another marginalized sexual orientation or gender identity? Do you work with LGBTQA+ students? Does your curriculum include topics about LGBTQA+ youth, adults, or families? National Coming Out Day is October 11. Many resources are available to you, both through IC and beyond, to assist you in supporting LGBTQA+ people during this time and throughout the year.

Timely tips for supporting those who are out, or those who may come out to you for the first time this week, are featured in the article featuring the LGBT Center director "Parents and LGBTQ Kids."

If you are contemplating coming out as a LGBTQA+ person, resources are available by contacting the Center for LGBT Education, Outreach, and Services.  Online resources are also available, including:

• Coming Out: Living Authentically as Black LGBTQ People
•  Coming Out: Living Authentically as LGBTQ Latinx Americans
• Coming Out: Living Authentically as LGBTQ Asian and Pacific Islander Americans
•  Resource Guide to Coming Out
• Coming Out as Bisexual
• Coming Out as Transgender
• Coming Out To Faith, To Spirit, To Self series
• Coming Out at Work
• Coming Out as Transgender in the Workplace
• Living Openly in Your Place of Worship
• The Asexual Visibility and Education Network

LGBT History Month is also celebrated throughout October; in honor of this event, Equality Forum has produced 31 video shorts that highlight and celebrate some of the leaders that have made LGBT history. There will be a new short introduced every day for the entire month of October -- each day's new video will be available at the LGBT History Month Featured Videos website. This series will highlight famous figures and will also introduce some that may not be as well known to the public.

The annual observance of National Coming Out Day was conceived of shortly after the second march on Washington for gay and lesbian equality on October 11, 1987.

 Coming out affects not just LGBTQA+ people but our friends, families, and allies as well. There are a variety of excellent resources for loved ones of LGBTQA+ people who are coming out. If you are in the process of coming out to your family, there are a host of organizations appropriate for particular needs:

•    PFLAG (the country's largest organization for parents, families, friends, and allies united with people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer): 

•    COLAGE for people with one or more LGBTQA+ parents

•    Straight Spouse Network for  heterosexual cisgender husbands and wives of LGBTQ people

Individuals with disabilities requiring accommodations should contact Luca Maurer at lmaurer@ithaca.edu or (607) 274-7394. We ask that requests for accommodations be made as soon as possible.

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