{"id":37149,"date":"2025-09-30T15:26:04","date_gmt":"2025-09-30T22:26:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thecentercv.org\/?p=37149"},"modified":"2025-09-30T15:29:11","modified_gmt":"2025-09-30T22:29:11","slug":"coming-out-and-into-community","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thecentercv.org\/en\/blog\/coming-out-and-into-community\/","title":{"rendered":"Coming Out, and Into Community"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t

\u00a0<\/p>

\"\"<\/p>

Coming Out, and Into Community<\/strong><\/p>

By Jade<\/p>

I think back to when I came out to my mom at the age of twelve \u2013 my hands clenched, heart racing, eyes on the floor. Middle school was hard; I felt different from the group of friends I had grown up with \u2013 othered, excluded, and alone. In the moment I decided to share that piece of myself, I was seeking acceptance and the reassurance of my mom\u2019s love.<\/p>

Instead, I received a look of fear and what I read as disappointment. \u201cYour life is going to be so hard,\u201d she cried. Although I wish her first words were \u201cI love you\u201d, over time I\u2019ve realized that her reaction came from a place of fear. She was scared for me \u2013 for the challenges she imagined I\u2019d face.<\/p>

Coming out hasn\u2019t been a single, defining moment in my life \u2013 it\u2019s been a journey of self-discovery, disclosure, and acceptance. I came out as gay when I was young, and years later I came out as trans.<\/p>

For many of us, coming out is both an act of courage and a lifelong process. Each disclosure is a leap of faith, a hope that the person on the other side will hold our truth with care. And yet, coming out is only half the story. What if we focused on the idea of\u00a0coming in<\/em>?<\/p>

Coming in<\/em> to communities that embrace us fully. Coming in<\/em> to spaces where authenticity is celebrated, not just tolerated.\u00a0Coming in<\/em>\u00a0means embracing the many dimensions of our lives. Coming in<\/em> to power, by owning our narratives and shaping spaces that reflect us.<\/p>

For me, coming in<\/em> has meant finding friends who truly see me, a workplace that affirms me, and chosen family who remind me every day that I am enough. It\u2019s meant stepping into a world where my story has become more than the moments of hardship that my mom worried about. Those moments have been agents of change, leading me to where I am today.<\/p>

On this National Coming Out Day, I invite you to reflect on your own moment of coming out and the beauty of coming into community. If you\u2019re new on this journey or well into it, I\u2019m here to say that you\u2019re not alone.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For many of us, coming out is both an act of courage and a lifelong process. Each disclosure is a leap of faith, a hope that the person on the other side will hold our truth with care. And yet, coming out is only half the story.
\nWhat if we focused on the idea of coming in?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":37150,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,55],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","category-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecentercv.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecentercv.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecentercv.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecentercv.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecentercv.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37149"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thecentercv.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37149\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecentercv.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecentercv.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecentercv.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecentercv.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}