Outing means revealing to others that a person is gay, lesbian, or bisexual without that person’s permission to do so. Although most of us are aware of celebrity outings—who hasn’t heard the rumors about Jodie Foster, Rosie O’Donnell, and Lily Tomlin?—non-celebrities can be and often are outed as well.
CAN A HETEROSEXUAL PERSON BE OUTED?
Yes. Outing is often a favorite weapon of sexism, used to punish people who don’t conform to traditional gender roles. Thus, an outspoken woman or a woman who does not appear traditionally “feminine” is likely to find herself labeled a “dyke” no matter what her actual sexual orientation.
ARE ALL LESBIGAY PEOPLE VULNERABLE TO OUTING?
It would be hard to out someone like, say, Ellen DeGeneres or Martina Navratilova, women who have chosen to come out of the closet to the national media and who are all but household names.
Many lesbigay people, though, may be very out in some areas of their lives but not others. A lesbian who is out in the workplace, for instance, might still be closeted to her homophobic family or to her church.
Another way that people who already fairly open about their sexual orientations can be outed is by “upping the stakes” or increasing the level of publicity. For instance, even someone who is fairly out on a local level might not be comfortable being identified as gay in a national publication.
WHY DO PEOPLE ENGAGE IN OUTING?
There are several reasons why people may choose to out others. These reasons range from malicious to relatively benign.
One reason, clearly, is love of gossip. Who doesn’t like to hear a juicy story, whether it’s about Jodie Foster or Jerilyn, the mail clerk? And sex, of course, is the hottest item of all, especially if the sex is tinged with something popularly considered unusual or abnormal. This sort of outing is not done maliciously or with any conscious type of political agenda. Usually, the speaker (or reporter, or columnist, etc.) has an interesting story to pass along and does so, without stopping to think about how the “outed” person will be affected.
Another reason for outing is to score political points. Lesbigay groups have long used outing, or the threat of outing, to encourage deeply closeted, conservative gay or lesbian politicians to abandon their party line and not vote for anti-gay measures. Lesbigays have also used outing to undermine the credibility of anti-gay groups. When Focus on the Family’s “ex-gay” leader John Paulk was discovered soliciting men in a gay salon in Washington, DC, for instance, the lesbigay press quickly disseminated the story, casting even further doubt on the already shaky “ex-gay” ministries.
