Individuals who have different sexual or gender orientations, including lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, and transgendered, often face an enormous amount of stigma and mistreatment. It’s common in the workplace or at school to hear insults such as “that’s so gay!” or “It’s a tranny!.” For teenagers who are just realizing their sexual or gender orientation, the problem is particularly acute. It is hard enough going through puberty without adding elements that may be considered taboo by many people. The presence of rigid attitudes, black and white thinking, and absolutism, along with a lack of empathy, result in co-workers and family members who are unable to accept someone who is different, such as someone who is LGBT. When a person is surrounded by people who are disapproving, the person will have great difficulty with the coming out process.
The potential obstacles to coming out are myriad: family disapproval, loss of home, anxiety, suicidal ideation, bullying, spiritual, physical, or emotional abuse (sometimes even sexual), loss of job, being passed over for promotions, losing friends, inability to find a church where s/he will be accepted. Family disapproval is a serious problem even when the person is already an adult — sometimes the only workable solution is to break off contact entirely. It seems unthinkable that parents would put a child out of their home, leaving them to take care of themselves, but it happens. Bullying and abuse are common for LGBT students. Fear of such consequences can lead to anxiety, depression, and thoughts of suicide. Sometimes the person is so miserable that suicide seems the only way out. This is a tragic event, especially because it could have been prevented. Additional barriers to coming out which may cause many people to remain in the closet include loss of job, losing the chance to be promoted, mistreatment and harassment on the job, loss of friends, and difficulty finding an accepting place to worship.
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"LBGT and Coming Out".
Even if the general community — whether school, work, church, or another place — appears to be accepting of LGBT persons, coming out may still be a complicated and frustrating decision, depending on the person’s upbringing. Most people come out to just one person first. If he or she has an LGBT friend, this is often the first person who is told, since it is unlikely that another LGBT person would have prejudice (although it sometimes happens that people of different sexual orientations are prejudiced against transgendered persons). It may take a great deal of time before s/he chooses to expand the circle of people who know. Often family member are the last to know, at least openly.
If someone I know told me that s/he was LGBT, I might be surprised, especially if the person is a very close friend. I would do my best to be supportive. I might be a little hurt that my close friend had kept the secret even from me, but after thinking about it, I would realize that it didn’t mean that s/he didn’t trust me, it was just due to the stigma surrounding sexual orientation and gender identification.
The most difficult for me would be a friend stating he or she is transgendered. However, it wouldn’t be due to prejudice or stereotyping; it would be due to my fear of saying the wrong thing. This is something that has actually happened to me. I didn’t know what pronoun would be preferred at different stages of the process. Eventually I just asked directly, what would the person like to be called? This was a male-to-female trans person. Although the person generally dressed in men’s clothing at that point, she expressed her desire to be referred to as female, so I tried to remember to do this. I had a lot of curiosity about the process of sexual reassignment, but I didn’t know how she would feel about discussing it. So again, I just asked. She actually liked to talk about it, as long as the other person was not judgmental. I made a point of being accepting, and as a result, she gave me information that help me understand others in the future.
