Victor Ortiz, Jr. sat in a parked car on the San Antonio River Walk at age twenty-four, rehearsing a lie he thought would protect his father’s heart. He said he was bisexual though he knew it wasn’t true because the truth felt too heavy to carry into that moment. For eighteen years after, he lived behind that mask, pretending to be someone else while the man he loved remained hidden. This Coming Out wasn’t a declaration but a slow unraveling, a decades-long journey toward authenticity that only concluded when he finally texted his parents at forty-two to introduce them to Justin, his husband. His father replied with love. His mother has yet to respond.
More than 170 people responded when NPR’s *Up First* newsletter asked readers to share their Coming Out experiences this National Coming Out Day October 11, a date observed since 1988 to affirm LGBTQ+ visibility and rights. Their stories weren’t triumphant proclamations but layered reckonings with family, faith, fear, and self-worth. Anu Gupta, raised in an immigrant Indian Hindu household, had no Hindi word for what he felt as a boy. He came out at twenty-eight, not with fanfare but with a carefully written note read aloud on Christmas 2013. His parents were devastated. Two years ago, on Diwali, they stood beside him as he proposed to his fiancé with a ring his mother helped pick out.
Winnie Aghenu chose April Fools’ Day at seventeen to tell her little brother she liked girls a holiday of jokes masking a truth she could no longer keep. He hugged her and said he didn’t want any girl breaking her heart. Today, he remains her closest ally. Mel Barkalow, forty-one, didn’t “come out” so much as stop hiding: wearing rainbows, attending Pride not as an ally but as herself, flying a trans flag beside the American one in a conservative town where visibility risks safety. “Come out when it feels right and safe to do so,” she advises. “And if that is never, then that is OK, too.”
For Ash Schade, coming out as a trans man meant surviving conversion therapy as a child, a suicide attempt at twenty-two, and online vitriol when he finally shared his truth on social media. “While dying, I thought I’d rather be honest about my life and get a second chance than die with a secret,” he said. Threats forced him and his daughter to flee their home. Now in Michigan, sober and employed, he waits for bottom surgery but refuses to return to the lie. His advice cuts deep: “It’s better to choose happiness over safety. You’ll lose a lot of people and might have to start life over again. It’s better now than after life has already passed.”
These stories raw, tender, sometimes unresolved reveal that Coming Out isn’t a single act but a lifelong practice of showing up as oneself, even when the world pushes back. Victor still hopes his mother will one day meet Justin. Anu’s parents now celebrate his love. Winnie thrives in community with other queer Black women. Mel flies her flags anyway. Ash raises his daughter as “an average guy” a phrase that holds oceans of hard-won peace. Their collective wisdom echoes: seek support, extend grace, wait for readiness, prioritize safety but never stop believing you deserve to exist fully.
National Coming Out Day began as a political act but today, for many, it’s a deeply personal reckoning with love, loss, and the right to breathe freely in one’s own skin. These narratives don’t promise easy endings. Some families never reconcile. Some truths remain whispered. But in every story, there’s a thread of resilience: the moment someone chose themselves, even if quietly, even if alone. You Be You, Even If It Scares You.
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