The Closet

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For the small enclosed storage space, also known as a cupboard, see closet, for the film see The Closet (film)

The expression "being in the closet" has been used to describe keeping secret one's sexual behavior or orientation, most commonly homosexuality or bisexuality, but also including the gender identity of transgender and transsexual people. Being "in the closet" is more than being discreet or private, it is a "life-shaping pattern of concealment" where gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender individuals hide their sexuality/gender-identity in the most important areas of life, with family, friends, and at work. Individuals may marry or avoid certain jobs in order to avoid suspicion and exposure. "It is the power of the closet to shape the core of an individual's life that has made homosexuality into a signficant personal, social, and political drama in twentieth-century America". (Seidman 2003, p.25).

"Heterosexual domination may have a long history, but the closet does not" with the closet dating from 1950s post-war America, when the deliberateness and aggressiveness of heterosexual enforcement increased. "Gay people in the prewar years [pre-WWI]...did not speak of coming out of what we call the gay closet but rather of coming out into what they called homosexual society or the gay world, a world neither so small, nor so isolated, nor... so hidden as closet implies" (Chauncey 1994, emphasis added). In fact, "using the term 'closet' to refer to" previous times such as "the 1920s and 1930s might be anachronistic" (Kennedy 1996). (ibid, p.25 and 214)

In 1993, Michelangelo Signorile wrote Queer In America (re-released in 2003 by University of Wisconsin Press, ISBN 0299193748) in which he explored in depth the harm caused both to the "closeted" individual and to society in general by being in the closet. Signorile promoted the practice of outing: publicizing, intentionally or unintentionally, the sexual orientation or gender identity of another person who would prefer to keep this information secret. Often "outing" is used solely to damage the outed person's reputation, and has thus been controversial. Some activists argue "outing" is appropriate and legitimate in some cases—for instance, if the individual is actively working against gay rights.

Contents

1 Related terminology
2 Other uses
3 See also
4 Source
5 External links
6 Reading

Related terminology

"Coming out of the closet" (often shortened to coming out) describes voluntarily making public one's sexual orientation or gender identity.
"Being out" means living a life in which you do not hide that you are not heterosexual, or more generally that you do not hide your sexual orientation or gender identity.
The term Narnian has been used to describe someone who is metaphorically very deep in "the closet," possibly to the extent of not realising or admitting to oneself that orientation. Narnia is a land in the books of C. S. Lewis which can be accessed by travelling through a magical wardrobe.

Other uses

The term closet has been extended to indicate any identity or affiliation that a person keeps secret for fear of persecution or exclusion (e.g., a closeted communist, nerd/geek, atheist, satanist, etc.).

One relatively obscure extension of this metaphor is the "broom closet", a term which was used on the TV show Charmed, referring to people who hide the fact that they are Wiccans.

Brights are also urged to "come out," and Richard Dawkins [refers] to "closet brights."

Source

Chauncey, George (1994). Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World, 1890-1940. New York: Basic Books. Cited in Seidman 2003.
Kennedy, Elizabeth. "'But We Would Never Talk about It': The Structure of Lesbian Discretion in South Dakota, 1928-1933" in Inventing Lesbian Cultures in America, ed. Ellen Lewin (1996). Boston: Beacon Press. Cited in Seidman 2003.
Seidman, Steven (2003). Beyond the Closet; The Transformation of Gay and Lesbian Life. ISBN 0415932076.

External links

[National Coming Out Project]

Reading

Epistemology of the Closet (reprinted 1992) by Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, ISBN 0520078748.