Quotes about coming out

Closet door

If you have a favourite Coming Out quote, please add it in the comments.

  • Some people are gay. Get over it!
    Stonewall Campaign, 2007

  • I’m not missing a minute of this. It’s the revolution!
    Sylvia Rivera, 17 years old, at the Stonewall Riots, 1969
  • We need, in every community, a group of angelic troublemakers.
    Bayard Rustin, American leader in social movements for civil rights, socialism, nonviolence, and gay rights
  • The only queer people are those who don’t love anybody.
    Rita Mae Brown, American feminist writer
  • To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson, American essayist, poet, and popular philosopher
  • It always seemed to me a bit pointless to disapprove of homosexuality. It’s like disapproving of rain.
    Francis Maude, politician
  • The Lord is my Shepherd and he knows I’m gay.
    Troy Perry, founder of the Metropolitan Community Church
  • Personally, coming out was one of the most important things I’ve ever done, lifting from my shoulders the millstone of lies that I hadn’t even realised I was carrying.
    Sir Ian McKellen, actor
  • It’s never wrong to love, but it’s always wrong to hate.
    Lady Gaga, American singer, songwriter, and actress
  • If Harry Potter taught us anything it’s that no one should live in a closet.
    J.K. Rowling, author
  • The closet does have a benefit. It provides safety. Which at times is important. But remember, as long as you are in there, two other things will be too. Fear and shame.
    Anthony Venn-Brown, former Australian evangelist in the Assemblies of God
  • Every single courageous act of coming out chips away at the curse of homophobia. Most importantly it’s destroyed within yourself, and that act creates the potential for its destruction where it exists in friends, family and society.
    Anthony Venn-Brown, former Australian evangelist in the Assemblies of God
  • Outing someone is like ripping a butterfly from its cocoon. You can damage them for life and rob them of THEIR life changing experience of liberation. For a successful emergence THEY have to struggle through the cocoon of fear and shame. THEN they can fly.
    Anthony Venn-Brown, former Australian evangelist in the Assemblies of God
  • Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.
    Oscar Wilde, Irish poet and playwright (1854–1900)
  • It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.
    e e cummings, American poet
  • When I say that I ‘came out,’ I mean that I resolved to never lie about my love for women, never deliberately pass for straight, and never deny a lover by calling her ‘him.’ To do so, I felt, would be to betray not only the women I desired, but my deepest self.
    Pattrice Jones, American ecofeminist writer, educator, and activist
  • If you help elect more gay people, that gives a green light to all who feel disenfranchised, a green light to move forward.
    Harvey Milk, Mayor of Castro Street, California; assassinated in 1978
  • The true ugliness of the closet is its subtlety. It eats away at your soul bit by bit and you don’t even realize it. If you never deal with it or come to terms with it, then ultimately the closet will destroy you.
    Gar McVey-Russell, writer
  • If we don’t get over our fears, they never will.
    Lisi Harrison, Canadian novelist
  • My silences had not protected me. Your silence will not protect you.
    Audre Lorde, American writer, feminist, and civil rights activist
  • Follow your inner moonlight; don’t hide the madness.
    Allen Ginsberg, American poet and writer
  • Beauty is about being comfortable in your own skin. It’s about knowing and accepting who you are.
    Ellen DeGeneres, American comedian
  • I’ve been embraced by a new community. That’s what happens when you’re finally honest about who you are; you find others like you.
    Chaz Bono, American writer, musician, and actor; born Chastity Sun Bono, his parents are entertainers Sonny Bono and Cher
  • The beauty of standing up for your rights is others see you standing and stand up as well.
    Cassandra Duffy, author
  • If I wait for someone else to validate my existence, it will mean that I’m shortchanging myself.
    Zanele Muholi, South African activist and artist
  • I believe that telling our stories, first to ourselves and then to one another and the world, is a revolutionary act.
    Janet Mock, Trans activist
  • I am proud that I found the courage to deal the initial blow to the hydra of public contempt.
    Karl Heinrich Ulrichs (1825-1895), German lawyer, writer, and pioneer of the modern gay rights movement
  • Openness may not completely disarm prejudice, but it’s a good place to start.
    Jason Collins, American former professional basketball player
  • People talk about coming out as though it’s this big one-time event. But really, most people have to come out over and over to basically every new person they meet. I’m only eighteen and it already exhausts me.
    Nina LaCour, author
  • Never dull your shine for somebody else.
    Tyra Banks, American television personality, model, businesswoman, producer, actress, and writer
  • You live with the fear people might find out. Then you actually have the courage to tell people and they go, I don’t think you are gay. It’s enough to drive you crazy.
    Portia de Rossi, American actress
  • My feelings for Ellen overrode all of my fear about being out as a lesbian. I had to be with her, and I just figured I’d deal with the other stuff later.
    Portia de Rossi, American actress
  • There’s a fine line between being private and being ashamed.
    Portia de Rossi, American actress
  • I highly recommend inviting the worst-case scenario into your life.
    Portia de Rossi, American actress
  • When I watched Ellen come out in ’97, my jaw was on the floor. I thought, There are some people who break the doors down, hold them open, and some people who walk right through.
    Portia de Rossi, American actress
  • I mean, if I’m going to go to all the trouble of being gay and everything, I might as well tell people.
    Michael Thomas Ford, American author
  • If you possess enough courage to speak out what you are, you will find you are not alone.
    Richard Wright, American author
  • People will stare. Make it worth their while.
    Harry Winston, American jeweller
  • I kissed a girl and I liked it.
    Katy Perry, American singer-songwriter

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