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Have you ever been outed?
This is a tough question.
I'm not trying to make anyone feel bad or relive trauma, but I want to give people a space to talk about it and share their stories if they need to.
- Have you ever been outed by someone else/accident/circumstance?
- What happened?
- Who/what outed you?
- Why?
- How did it turn out?
Also, while some people will undoubtedly have serious answers to this, I also think there are some stories that are less grave and more lighthearted or positive. Those are fine to share too.
Sort of. I’m Demi-closeted at work. I’m a teacher and so I don’t want to cause drama with parents who think I will turn their kids gay. When I talk to people about my husband I generally use gender neutral terms like partner or spouse, and “they” as a pronoun.
I had one student who was extremely personable and pried into my private life a lot - probably as a distraction technique. He was an occasionally frustrating but generally likable kid. He asked if I was married and about my “wife”, and while I didn’t correct his term something - I don’t recall exactly what - finally gave it away. Honestly it was probably my phone lock screen, which has had his face on it forever.
It went perfectly fine. Honestly I think he might have been teasingly calling me gay (which sadly seems to have come back into fashion in my area in that age group) at first, because he seemed taken aback when I confirmed he was correct. Oh well. He took it well. We didn’t really talk about it after that class, and I hadn’t heard anything about it from his parents or my coworkers so as far as I’m aware he never told anyone else.
I will say he slacked off less after clocking me. As much as I’d like to think it was because he saw me as a real person and respected me more because of it, it was probably because it was a tutoring course for a completion and he was starting to gear into it.