Ahead of National Coming Out Day, Taylor, one of Mermaids’ Youth Advisory Panellists, shares his mixed feelings of disappointment and hope surrounding this calendar moment.
As National Coming Out Day presents itself on the horizon once again, I am faced with polarising feelings. One half of my heart takes on a cynical perspective. Have we not progressed enough as a society to leave the need for a day celebrating declaring your identity to the world behind?
The geopolitical state of the world grounds me when that question arises, with an atmosphere scarily echoing fascism erupting across the USA and marginalised communities being used as a political scapegoat across Europe brings reality crashing down upon my shoulders extremely quickly.
National Coming Out Day is observed every 11th October, to support anyone in the LGBTQIA+ community who has chosen to ‘come out’ in any sense to their community or society. The day was first celebrated in the US in 1988, in the spirit that personal identity is political, with an emphasis on the most basic form of activism being coming out to family, friends, and colleagues, and living life as an openly LGBTQIA+ person.
I had hoped by now that National Coming Out Day would be rendered null and void. I had hoped society as an entirety would no longer need to push us into their neat little boxes and force our hand into publicly declaring which box we had minimised our identity into.
In 2025, the awareness day can serve as a stark reminder of the many ways in which the acceptance of before is seemingly dwindling away with every news headline, every guidance publication, every counter protests to the protection of our mandated rights and our dignity.
This decline in acceptance is one that I have experienced both personally and through shattering headlines. I have witnessed friends dampen down their transgender identity to be safe, I have altered my own style and how I socially present myself to be more palatable to the people around me because passing as a cisgender man is safer than fully expressing myself. I have been the subject of implicit doubt when I enter a public bathroom. Stories across social media echo this feeling, with masculine presenting women being interrogated upon entering the women’s bathroom due to daring to present in a way that society questions and labels as an ‘anomaly’.
ILGA published their latest Rainbow Map in May of this year, revealing that the UK dropped 6 places, into 22nd, a mere 4% above the average for Europe.
A decade ago, the UK topped the ILGA map for acceptance. It is truly a shame how far we have fallen in terms of acceptance and safety.
The rise in protests driven by hate and misplaced frustration has become a staple in the British media. For example, the ‘Unite the Kingdom March’ captured widespread attention from major media outlets in September. For days afterwards, social media was flooded with videos, notably a video of Elon Musk appearing on a big screen behind James Yaxley-Lennon.
And yet, London Trans Pride in July was the largest trans protest in the UK’s history with over 100,000 in attendance, and the mass lobby against the EHRC’s guidance in June is believed to be the biggest LGBT+ mass lobby in the UK since the fight against Section 28 in the 1980’s. Tens of thousands of people have taken to the streets in support of Palestine this year. Yet, these marches have received little media attention in comparison.
It’s so important that we continue to speak up for the rights and dignity of all people, when we are being failed so spectacularly by a hostile media. It’s for this reason the other half of my heart takes a more positive path.
We can use National Coming Out Day as a declaration of resistance, loudly and proudly telling society that we do not fit neatly into their cisgender, heteronormative ideals.
The Stonewall riots and subsequent activism that shaped this optimistic path inspire feelings of ability; the ability to create change and to break the moulds that society, especially currently, seems adamant to reduce us into. Identity is complex, and National Coming Out Day feels just as complex sometimes.
In the spirit of this, National Coming Out Day can serve as a much-needed reminder that resistance is the way forward: resistance to social expectations, resistance to media-fuelled hate and resistance to regression.
To me, this resistance manifests itself in many ways. We should continue attending marches to fight for much needed change, speaking out on social media about issues the media ignores, and making our stances known to the people around us.
For many of us, resistance is simply existing authentically; refusing to bow down and reduce ourselves into palatable people.
Whether National Coming Out Day is a day you mark in the calendar surrounded with doodles of pride flags or a day you’d much rather let pass with no second thought given, it still inspires resistance for many alongside the stark reminder of our social progression, or lack thereof.
For the most part, trans and LGBTQ+ focused charities like Mermaids are the ones driving the awareness for events such as National Coming Out Day. Now, more than ever, it is time to pass the baton of responsibility to those in positions of privilege and power. More voices show more resistance; stronger resistance leads to life changing shifts in belief and perception.