National Coming Out Day (NCOD) Logo created and donated by Keith Haring to the Human Rights Campaign. DLCS
National Coming Out Day (NCOD) is an annual LGBTQIA+ awareness day observed on October 11 and 12 in some parts of the world. Founded in the United States in 1988, the initial idea was grounded in the feminist and gay liberation spirit of the personal being political, and the emphasis on the most basic form of activism being coming out to family, friends and colleagues, and living life as an openly lesbian or gay person. They believe the foundational belief is that homophobia thrives in an atmosphere of silence and ignorance, and that once people know that they have loved ones who are lesbian or gay, they are far less likely to maintain homophobic or oppressive views.
In more recent years, the idea of the “lesbian and gay community” has been largely subsumed into the idea of the LGBT community, and the idea of “coming out” expanded to not only include the voluntary self-disclosure of a lesbian, gay, or bisexual sexual orientation, but also transgender, genderqueer, or other non-mainstream gender identity.
Coming-Out Day has (also) been held in The Netherlands since 2009. Even in a country like The Netherlands, that is incredibly safe and very tolerant and open compared to many other countries, it is necessary to pay attention to creating more awareness for this topic.
Unlike the Gay Pride and Roze Zaterdag in The Netherlands and The Belgian Pride in Belgium, there is no big central celebration on Coming-Out Day, but in several places smaller activities are organized by local gay and youth organizations, whether or not in cooperation with heterosexual sympathizers. Some information about activities in The Netherlands today: http://www.coc.nl/comingoutdag2018
I wish you a Happy and safe (inter-) national coming out day, because I believe it is very important that YOU can be yourself. I hope agression and ignorance will one day be minimised.
#ComingOutdag2018
#ComingOutDay2018
And.. ThX Wikipedia.
