Anonymous asked: Hi Lena,
I've been reading you for a while and there is one thing I have wanted to comment on. As a member of the queer community and a feminist, I am confused and hurt by your use of the word "coming out" for "feminist coming out day". I know that for many individuals, both female, male and trans, self-identifying as a feminist is difficult and sometimes challenging due to perceived stereotypes and opinions of feminists. However, "coming out" as a queer person is still a very very very different experience, one that is much more rife with personal identity issues, fear of harm or violence and can result in political, financial, or social consequences. When a feminist self-identifies, I do not think they recently had to worry about being fired from the military, or being unable to marry their partner in several states, or must worry that their families, churches or schools will disown then immediately for their 'choices'. As someone who identifies as both, I can say that "coming out" is a word that is very central to the queer community and should not be appropriated for something, that while challenging to do as well, has far less potential danger or symbolic meaning. I applaud your efforts to have more feminists acknowledge their beliefs openly, but would really ask that you try to consider your use of language and how it might come across to members of the queer community who would like to be involved but would not like their struggle to be marginalized or appropriated.
This isn’t the first time that someone’s expressed these sentiments, so I’d like to take the opportunity to thoroughly address them and open up a dialogue about the naming of the event. As someone who was involved in queer and trans activism long before working in women’s rights, the last thing I’d want to do is to appropriate the struggles of a marginalized group of which I consider myself an ally. I completely agree that “coming out” as a queer person is much more difficult than declaring one’s commitment to gender equality, which is partly why we planned Feminist Coming Out Day for March 8th, an existing holiday (International Women’s Day), rather than devoting an entirely new date to the campaign.
The About section of the event website hints at the origins of Feminist Coming Out Day, but here’s a more detailed explanation of its history:
The first Feminist Coming Out Day (which took place on March 8th, 2010) was a student-led event at Harvard co-sponsored by the Radcliffe Union of Students (RUS is the campus feminist group) and the Queer Students & Allies, of which I was the Women’s Events & Outreach Chair. I was nominated to that position in December 2009, right before my last semester of college. I’d been on the organization’s board before, back in my freshman year, when the group was still known as the Bisexual, Gay, Lesbian, Transgendered, & Supporters Alliance (I know — an alphabet soup!). But I was slightly hesitant to run this time for a couple reasons. First, I’d devoted my later college years to several women’s groups (not what I would call feminism, as these were mostly professional organizations uninvolved in political advocacy) and it wasn’t until I returned after my gap year that I started attending queer events again. Though I was writing more about gender and sexuality than I’d ever had before, I felt old and out of touch with the LGBT community at Harvard. Second, I wasn’t sure if I was running against an incumbent or someone who was queer. The reason this mattered is because I firmly believe that a person who identifies as part of a marginalized group is almost always better suited to serve that group than someone who is an ally (no matter how well-intentioned). Since the chairship was a newly created position with no queer nominees, I decided to run for it. The stated responsibility of the Women’s Events & Outreach Chair is to “enhance women’s involvement and representation in Harvard College’s queer community” while creating alliances with women’s groups on campus, so I submitted a candidacy statement which included the following excerpt:
Though both queer and women’s advocacy share strikingly similar ideologies, there’s still a tendency to view them as distinctly different causes. My experiences have taught me that it’s impossible to divorce the queer movement (or any like-minded movement) from progressive advocacy at large. (The Women’s Center, which opened my sophomore year, is a testament to the power of group action.) One of my goals for the QSA is to increase collaboration with other campus groups that share our aims. Given some of the abstinence-movement-related conversations I observed this semester over the QSA & RUS [Harvard’s feminist group] email lists, it’s clear that there’s a great deal of overlapping concerns in Harvard’s queer and feminist communities (and this is only one of many examples). I know firsthand that the QSA has always been welcoming to allies, but only through mobilizing this support can we more substantially influence campus dialogue and politics.
When QSA wanted to participate in Harvard Women’s Week, a week-long series of women’s programming, I came up with the concept for Feminist Coming Out Day, because sexual orientation and gender identity/expression are the perfect examples of how gendered expectations hurt everyone. (This was the same reasoning behind Rethinking Virginity, a conference I organized for the QSA in May.) While RUS, the campus feminist club, co-sponsored FCOD with us and helped execute much of the logistics, the idea originated from brainstorms I had with QSA board members. I can’t recall if anyone at Harvard mentioned concerns about “Feminist Coming Out Day” being an inappropriate use of the term “coming out”, but that’s likely because the QSA was planning it and in any case, there is significant overlap between the queer and feminist communities at the school (both because of shared social groups and academic interests). And since the QSA was already known for campus awareness campaigns centered around National Coming Out Day, which takes place in the fall, a similarly inspired/named spring semester event was not particularly controversial. In retrospect, it was presumptuous of me to think that what might work at a particular college would work similarly on a national scale. The reality is that the women’s movement as a whole has historically not been very inclusive of queer voices. It’s not surprising then that those not familiar with the event’s origins see it as an appropriation of the queer struggle for equality.
I have a sentimental attachment to the name “Feminist Coming Out Day”, but I’m not opposed to changing it (if not this year, then next) and would encourage anyone with similar concerns to the above poster to get in touch with me — in the comments or through email. At the same time, because the first rendition of “Feminist Coming Out Day” was very much about bridge-building and intersectionality, renaming the event and eliminating any references to the queer movement would feel like we were erasing the involvement of the queer activists and allies who inspired the original concept and made the first event a success. Since the Harvard QSA and RUS are collaborating again this year to plan a campus version of Feminist Coming Out Day (in conjunction with the national campaign), I think a renaming should only occur at this point if it’s agreed to by the current boards of both those organizations. I’d very much like to hear and pass on (to RUS and QSA) any ideas that would allow for a compromise that still acknowledges the event’s queer origins, especially since our outreach is targeted equally at women’s and LGBT rights organizations.
More burning questions or comments? Submit them here.
Want to learn more about Feminist Coming Out Day? Check out the official website.
