"Transgressive Sexuality/Coming Out Stories"

In today's class we covered the topic of Transgressive Sexuality/Coming Out Stories, where we discussed the power in storytelling, not only for those who are coming out about their sexuality, but for those who have their own personal stories to tell. We read an article called, Trauma, Stress and Resilience Among Sexual Minority Women: Rising Like the Phoenix: Kimberly F. Balsam wherein the author discussed how coming out was much harder for minority women as they already experienced various traumas and cultural victimizations of racism and heterosexism. There were two types of trauma identified in the article, indirect trauma which “occurs when hearing or learning about direct trauma,” insidious trauma which is “the daily ongoing stress associated with living with oppressions such as homophobia, sexism or racism,” and cultural victimization as the “impact of living in a heterosexist culture” (Root, 1992). Something that I found really important was that coming out and telling stories was not simply telling a story it was a form of strength and resilience for these women. They had the ability to decide whether they wanted to tell their story, disclose their sexuality, who to tell and how much they would share. Coming out also acted as a form of healing for the individual sharing their story, as well for those dealing with oppression, by developing strategies to confront oppressive situations. I would have to agree with the presenter today when she said that when one woman develops the courage to tell her story this enables other women to gain the strength to come out with their stories, which creates somewhat of a cycle, allowing these women to be silenced no more.

Although coming out is a form of resilience for these women, I believe that many women do not come out for the fear that they may be ridiculed and for some women killed for the stories that they may tell. This goes for women who may decide to come out about being abused, physically, verbally or sexually. Also, what about women who decide to come out about their sexuality in cultures and countries where homosexuality is not even spoken of, forcing them to remain silent? An example of this would be in South Asian countries where “lesbians” are unheard of and women face the risk of being murdered should they ever disclose such information. This is a violation of their basic human rights as outlined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, of, “everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status” and “everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person” (Universal Declaration of Human Rights).

Comic relief was seen as a way that women could tell their stories and an example used was when talk show host, Ellen DeGeneres disclosed she was a lesbian, however as shown in various clips there could be both negative and positive repercussions. Although a celebrity figure like Ellen coming out seemed easy, I personally feel as though using comedy as a way of coming out for these women, depending on the receiving individual/audience they may not be taken seriously and simply considered to be a joke.