I’m thinking about the idea that queer people, before they come out or are outed, are deceptive. It’s the idea that people hide their queerness with a front of heterosexuality, and constitute some desperate and threatening presence amidst innocent heterosexual society. It’s a society to which heterosexuality is supposedly owed, and for which queerness constitutes something surprising and aberrative, and certainly something everyone should know about.
But being who you are is not inherently deceptive, whether other people have knowledge of it or not. Heterosexuality is routinely assumed by default until stated or “proven” otherwise. That’s an assumption off the back of which figuring queerness as deceptive is rather unfair. And, hey, some people do actively put up a front of heterosexuality, which is no great sin in a society that can be hostile, violent, and deadly towards people who are attracted, or are perceived to be attracted, to those of the same gender.
It’s also hard to be deceptive when you’re confused or in denial about your sexuality, or just haven’t properly figured it out yet. The world acts to deceive people about own their sexuality by not giving them the tools to realise or feel okay about who they are. If you’re presented with heterosexuality as the only, or the only acceptable, possibility, it’s a pretty lonely and confusing road.
Who’s really deceptive? The deceptive ones are those people who say they’re okay with gay and then get distant or hostile once they’re aware that someone they know is queer. What’s deceptive is parents telling their kids they love them, that they have a secure home, and then kicking them out when the come out. No one is entitled to heterosexual friends or family. Anyone who assumes heterosexuality by default is deceiving themselves.
No one owes it to anyone to be heterosexual, or to give out the information that they are not. Existence is not deceptive. Denying, trying to preclude, the possibility of that existence is worse than deceptive.
Thank you for this! I get frustrated with the frequent use of “coming out of the closet” when someone first mentions the relevant aspects of their personal life in some particular space — as if their not having previously had occasion to do so means that they’ve been engaged in concealment. If other people have had mistaken assumptions up to that point, that’s their goof. Any “closet” around the queer person who hasn’t said anything about their identity was put up and maintained by society’s heteronormativity, but once noticed, it’s always presumed to have belonged to that individual instead.
I don’t think you can call it deception to be worried about your own safety (mental and physical) and for that reason leave aside telling certain people something about you. As Ellybee points out, closets aren’t created by the person who is in them, but by those outside who assume heteronormativity unless proven otherwise.
This gets leveled – from both sides – especially at bi/pan individuals. Sometimes even if we are out. If I as a pansexual woman, date a man, I am not being deceptive when I then go on to date a woman (or vice versa). I’m not even hiding my sexuality. But of course if I “switch sides” there’s somehow something deceptive that I’m doing.
I do think it’s quite sad how queer people are viewed as essentially untrustworthy by a lot of straight society. As you say, people hide their queerness because the world makes admitting to it so costly, and the pressure from that causes the only true deception: Deceiving oneself. The world makes it such that a lot of queer people try to fit in before having the guts to admit to themselves and the straight-focussed world that they aren’t like the mainstream.
I think this problem exists outside of the queer spectrum, too. Take the artist who pretends to love studying law to keep society and family happy, only to realise too late in life that they should have followed their dreams. Society is just not supportive of anyone outside of the mainstream and there can be costs aplenty as one starts to admit to oneself and the rest of the world that it’s time to come out.