Know the origin of the term “coming out” and how it became popular in Brazil

Have you ever stopped to wonder where the expression “Coming out of the closet” comes from?

The explanation is simple, it comes from the American expression “come out of the closet”. What is not so simple is understanding why it entered the vocabulary of Brazilians to refer to a person who wants to “come out” as gay.

Another expression “skeletons in the closet”, “skeletons in the closet”, helps us to understand the reason. As the slang was used by those who hid something shameful, this unfortunately seems to fit like a glove, for a community (LGBT+) that needs to reinforce the pride they feel about themselves every day.

“The first movement is with ourselves. The first way out of the closet is for yourself and the second way out is for those people you think are important and the third way out of the closet is when you make it public and with social networks it becomes more evident, right”, explains the secretary executive of the Forum of Companies and LGBT+ rights, Reinaldo Bugarelli.

Anyone who thinks that this “coming out of the closet” is definitive is very wrong, because we can open this door wide, and there will always be someone who will want to touch it again. Whether at home, in a circle of friends, or especially at work.

As the dominant standard of our society is heteronormativity, our relationships are based on this “standard” and those who do not fit in, such as the LGBTQIAP+ community, are at all times challenging this system to simply exist.

“You can do this to help society, but at least we come out of the closet to survive, to say: Look, I’m here, don’t go over me, don’t ignore me in a policy, in a process, in a procedure, so at all times we need to be coming out of the closet to impose ourselves”, explains Reinaldo Bugarelli.

Those who also need to leave the darkness of this closet are the companies, according to Reinaldo himself, who says that companies need to see these people and thus create a safe environment so that this door no longer has locks.

“The Brazilian business world is still very closed to this topic, so today you have a group of companies that are paying attention to the theme of diversity, equity and inclusion. The company coming out of the closet doesn’t mean it’s perfect, which has a commitment to wanting to apprehend and interact with these issues”, says Reinaldo Bugarelli.

Advancing on the path of wanting to learn is undoubtedly a big step. In the not-too-distant past, coming out of the closet meant discussing intimate life. Who do you share your life with, or rather: Who do you share your bed with?

Today, leaving the closet, whether in Portuguese, or even more chic if you prefer to use English with “come out of the closet”, is a matter of citizenship, because the more people break this barrier, we can have an idea of ​​the size that the community has and so the strength it carries.

I make it clear here that I do not encourage anyone to “come out of the closet” since this is a private movement, because only those who are inside it can know the exact moment to leave it. What I can say from experience is that life out here is much clearer.