October 11 is National LGBTQ Coming Out Day. As someone who has identified as a member of the LGBTQ community for many years, it is a day to remind others that we exist. We are your peers, your customers, your employers, your family members, etc. I also find October 11 to be a day to look back and to look forward. I look back to those queer people I knew and knew of who were so brave to live their whole lives when being who they were was against the law. In the 1970’s I identified as bisexual because that was the tag that described who I was. As I look to the lovely young people who are coming up I realize they do not have direct knowledge of where we have come from, nor do they have as many limiting expectations of how they fit in the world. As I look to these young people I realize the tag ‘bisexual’ evokes a binary image that is quite constraining. I am less binary than I once thought. The young LGBTQ persons who I call friends have shown me that’s OK. So, here I am, an aging queer person who has benefited from those who have come before me and who is inspired by those who are the leaders of the future.

Happy LGBTQ Coming out Day