It's National Coming Out Day in some parts of the world

[icon_uk]

...which has been an event since 1988, in the USA, UK and, for some reason, Switzerland.

Initially for coming out as gay, but since extended to include coming out as being anywhere on the LGBTQA+ spectrum.

Now, some people find they come come out without effort, and that's fine, some people put it off, or never come out for whatever reason, and that's fine too (and of course, in some cases it's just not safe to do so), so there is no pressure to come out, but if the focus helps some people, then more power to them!

So how do the comics handle such things?

In recent times it's been a lot more straightforward, as identifying as nonstraight is not automatically the social outcast but 26 years ago... not so easy.

From the dim and distant mists of time, 1991 in fact, in Flash #53 where Wally is shooting the breeze with the now reformed Pied Piper....







Smooth West, reaaaaaal smooth!

This was actually pretty daring back then, Northstar wouldn't come ontil until 1992 (and then in a not so great story) and there were almost no confirmed-on-page-as-anything-other-than-straight characters around... lot's of subtext, or veiled references (Claremont referencing Destiny as Mystique's "leman") but nothing direct.

Just to make it clear, it's obvious (and elaborated on elsewhere in the issue) that Hartley knows full well that Wally is NOT going to be against hm for coming out, but it may take him a little while to process the news, and there are no hard feelings when they talk it over later!

So if today IS the day you come out, congratulations, and if it's not then there's nothing wrong with that either, and you are welcome on scans_daily regardless
 

Comments

[kamino_neko]

Yeah. It was...yeah. Having grown up with that, I still get giddy whenever a LGBT person is represented in a not-terrible way in media, no matter how common it gets.