My late father was career Army and he fought in the front lines of two wars and was decorated both times. When I was four years old, he cut wooden hooks from trees in the woods behind our house and stained them and hung them on the wall above his bed where he used them to mount two shotguns.
For safety reasons, neither shotgun was loaded, but they both had two shotgun shells laying in the groove of the barrel so they could be quickly loaded if needed. This actually made it more apparent to onlookers that you could readily be shot in short order with either of these guns than if they had been loaded.
My parents used the family room with attached half bath as their master suite. We rarely used the front door, so in practice everyone entered the house through the side door on the house which opened into their master bedroom because it wasn't actually supposed to be a bedroom.
This meant that anyone who came to our house had a good view of the shotguns hung above the bed, even if they didn't enter the house. It was also common knowledge that dad was a veteran.
Looking back on it, this is likely a factor in why our house was never broken into when there was a rash of break-ins in the neighborhood. Probably word got round that if you valued your hide, it wouldn't be wise to break in to that house where the decorated veteran slept with two shotguns on the wall above his head.
My father did not run around telling people "I will kill you if you break you into my house." He wasn't a blowhard or a braggart.
In fact, he told me when I was growing up that you should never carry a weapon if you weren't fully prepared to use it. By fully prepared, he meant both adequately trained and psychologically ready to pull the trigger and actually kill someone.
I was told in no uncertain terms that carrying a weapon you were not fully prepared to use was stupid. It's a means to escalate a dangerous social situation by making the other person scared and angry and providing them with a weapon should they take yours from you.
This has strongly shaped my practices for dealing with social threats. Unlike other people, I have not seen buying a gun as a means to calm myself in the face of knowing there were people in my life who were a danger to me.
LGBTQ individuals face real threats to their safety and welfare simply for being LGBTQ. I do not have data specific to LGBTQ individuals and the process of coming out, but I know a few things about dealing with danger generally.
If you know of better sources of info than this, I recommend you run with that. If you are scared to come out and feel like doing so is dangerous and you are not seeing that fear addressed elsewhere in a meaningful manner, this is my attempt to put together generally useful info that seems reasonably reliable if judging from my experience helping Genevieve successfully escape an abusive situation that was life-threatening for her.
But the reality is that LGBTQ people do sometimes get murdered for simply being LGBTQ. So do not let anyone tell you that you are paranoid, overreacting, etc.
Don't argue with anyone who is not taking your fear seriously. If they are dismissive or acting like you are nuts, arguing with them just deepens your problems because it can help convince them you seriously need help from a mental health professional.
Earnest Hemingway was treated as delusional, hospitalized and given electroshock therapy for talking about his concerns that the FBI was tailing him. Years after his suicide, it came out that he was, in fact, being watched by the FBI.
If you can find people who take your fears seriously, that's good. But if you can't, do not let anyone talk you into believing you are merely delusional and do not argue with them and give them fodder for becoming part of the problem.
I will suggest that coming out is probably a point of vulnerability similar to how you are in the most danger when leaving an abusive relationship. Coming out involves leaving the closet and if there are people around you inclined to react badly, they will be more dangerous at that time than usual.
If you have ever watched Law and Order, the first thing they do when someone is murdered is ask about the whereabouts of the person's inner circle: Their spouse or SO, immediate blood relatives, business partners, etc.
Most murders are committed by people the victim knows and they are usually very close to the victim. This is true because you need a strong motive to commit murder and thereby risk going to jail. The people closest to you are likely to be the biggest source of meaningful threats.
Go over it mentally. Who in your inner circle are you most concerned would hurt you and why?
Think about how to handle those people. They probably represent about 80 percent of any danger you face.
Moving away from them may help or it may not. Even it it helps, it probably is not enough by itself.
I have read things on the internet where, for example, someone who was trans moved to another country to get away from their mother and then Mom decided to go visit them for a month without so much as asking if that was okay. They did not know how to turn Mom down and did not know how to cope.
If someone is a problem for you and close to you, you may have no choice but to find some means to cut ties to them or otherwise directly confront some of their problem behavior. Trying to politely avoid the matter may not actually resolve it.
The reality is that if someone has it in for you, they may succeed in hurting you even if you do everything right. The first thing you need to do to deal effectively with dangerous people is accept that they are, in fact, trying to hurt you and that is on them.
It's not somehow your fault that someone doesn't like it that you are LGBTQ and may dislike it intensely enough to actively try to hurt you, especially if they have some personal connection to you. Pretending you are not LGBTQ doesn't make them stop being a corrosive influence on your life.
Feeling compelled to live in the closet due to fear of worse things is, itself, corrosive. It's harmful to you and your life.
Don't try to pretend it isn't. Don't try to pretend "It's not that bad." or something.
It's not going to magically go away if you are nicer to them or cooperate with their agenda for you. The fact that they HAVE an agenda for you is inherently harmful and problematic and that fact won't change because you are trying to avoid a worst case scenario.
Abusive people will try to get you to believe that if you follow the rules, behave yourself etc, then you won't get hurt. Abusive people will try to convince you it's your fault if you get hurt.
The truth is that if abusive people hurt you, it's because they like hurting you and it's not somehow something you brought on yourself.
There are ways to limit the damage. There are best practices for how to interact with such people.
Ideally, you simply move them out of your life because abusive people are fundamentally bad for you and that fact cannot be changed without them somehow changing in a big way. People can change, but trying to mollify an abuser into treating you better isn't how that happens.
It only teaches them that being abusive works, so it only deepens the problem. It doesn't resolve it.
When people leave the closet, that sometimes goes badly. How badly usually seems to be directly related to the kinds of people closest to them.
The good news is that you can move those people out of your life and bring other people into your life. You can change your inner circle, which may be a necessary first step for finding a safe way to admit to people you are LGBTQ.
Put your safety first. Take any concerns you have seriously. Operate on a basis of "Better safe than sorry."
Do your research and make plans for how to deal with the people and issues that most concern you. But I encourage you to work on coming out, even if it will take time to arrange to do so safely.
You won't really be healthy in the closet, though it may be reasonable and necessary to delay coming out until you can deal with a few things.
For safety reasons, neither shotgun was loaded, but they both had two shotgun shells laying in the groove of the barrel so they could be quickly loaded if needed. This actually made it more apparent to onlookers that you could readily be shot in short order with either of these guns than if they had been loaded.
My parents used the family room with attached half bath as their master suite. We rarely used the front door, so in practice everyone entered the house through the side door on the house which opened into their master bedroom because it wasn't actually supposed to be a bedroom.
This meant that anyone who came to our house had a good view of the shotguns hung above the bed, even if they didn't enter the house. It was also common knowledge that dad was a veteran.
Looking back on it, this is likely a factor in why our house was never broken into when there was a rash of break-ins in the neighborhood. Probably word got round that if you valued your hide, it wouldn't be wise to break in to that house where the decorated veteran slept with two shotguns on the wall above his head.
My father did not run around telling people "I will kill you if you break you into my house." He wasn't a blowhard or a braggart.
In fact, he told me when I was growing up that you should never carry a weapon if you weren't fully prepared to use it. By fully prepared, he meant both adequately trained and psychologically ready to pull the trigger and actually kill someone.
I was told in no uncertain terms that carrying a weapon you were not fully prepared to use was stupid. It's a means to escalate a dangerous social situation by making the other person scared and angry and providing them with a weapon should they take yours from you.
This has strongly shaped my practices for dealing with social threats. Unlike other people, I have not seen buying a gun as a means to calm myself in the face of knowing there were people in my life who were a danger to me.
LGBTQ individuals face real threats to their safety and welfare simply for being LGBTQ. I do not have data specific to LGBTQ individuals and the process of coming out, but I know a few things about dealing with danger generally.
If you know of better sources of info than this, I recommend you run with that. If you are scared to come out and feel like doing so is dangerous and you are not seeing that fear addressed elsewhere in a meaningful manner, this is my attempt to put together generally useful info that seems reasonably reliable if judging from my experience helping Genevieve successfully escape an abusive situation that was life-threatening for her.
Take Your Fear Seriously
This can be hard to do because people around you probably do not want to hear that you actually fear for your life. Many people will downplay the threat and outright tell you that you are overreacting.But the reality is that LGBTQ people do sometimes get murdered for simply being LGBTQ. So do not let anyone tell you that you are paranoid, overreacting, etc.
Don't argue with anyone who is not taking your fear seriously. If they are dismissive or acting like you are nuts, arguing with them just deepens your problems because it can help convince them you seriously need help from a mental health professional.
Earnest Hemingway was treated as delusional, hospitalized and given electroshock therapy for talking about his concerns that the FBI was tailing him. Years after his suicide, it came out that he was, in fact, being watched by the FBI.
If you can find people who take your fears seriously, that's good. But if you can't, do not let anyone talk you into believing you are merely delusional and do not argue with them and give them fodder for becoming part of the problem.
Assess The Threats to You
Threats will be specific to your situation. If you live someplace with a known pattern of hate crimes against people like you or if you live someplace where it's illegal to be LGBTQ, you may need to consider moving elsewhere before you can safely come out.I will suggest that coming out is probably a point of vulnerability similar to how you are in the most danger when leaving an abusive relationship. Coming out involves leaving the closet and if there are people around you inclined to react badly, they will be more dangerous at that time than usual.
If you have ever watched Law and Order, the first thing they do when someone is murdered is ask about the whereabouts of the person's inner circle: Their spouse or SO, immediate blood relatives, business partners, etc.
Most murders are committed by people the victim knows and they are usually very close to the victim. This is true because you need a strong motive to commit murder and thereby risk going to jail. The people closest to you are likely to be the biggest source of meaningful threats.
Go over it mentally. Who in your inner circle are you most concerned would hurt you and why?
Think about how to handle those people. They probably represent about 80 percent of any danger you face.
Moving away from them may help or it may not. Even it it helps, it probably is not enough by itself.
I have read things on the internet where, for example, someone who was trans moved to another country to get away from their mother and then Mom decided to go visit them for a month without so much as asking if that was okay. They did not know how to turn Mom down and did not know how to cope.
If someone is a problem for you and close to you, you may have no choice but to find some means to cut ties to them or otherwise directly confront some of their problem behavior. Trying to politely avoid the matter may not actually resolve it.
Head Games
If you tell someone "Lock your doors. It's a bad neighborhood." people think that's good advice. If you tell someone what they can do to try to mitigate their risk of harm when sexuality is involved, you are likely to get a lot of pushback and people decrying how you are blaming the victim.The reality is that if someone has it in for you, they may succeed in hurting you even if you do everything right. The first thing you need to do to deal effectively with dangerous people is accept that they are, in fact, trying to hurt you and that is on them.
It's not somehow your fault that someone doesn't like it that you are LGBTQ and may dislike it intensely enough to actively try to hurt you, especially if they have some personal connection to you. Pretending you are not LGBTQ doesn't make them stop being a corrosive influence on your life.
Feeling compelled to live in the closet due to fear of worse things is, itself, corrosive. It's harmful to you and your life.
Don't try to pretend it isn't. Don't try to pretend "It's not that bad." or something.
It's not going to magically go away if you are nicer to them or cooperate with their agenda for you. The fact that they HAVE an agenda for you is inherently harmful and problematic and that fact won't change because you are trying to avoid a worst case scenario.
Abusive people will try to get you to believe that if you follow the rules, behave yourself etc, then you won't get hurt. Abusive people will try to convince you it's your fault if you get hurt.
The truth is that if abusive people hurt you, it's because they like hurting you and it's not somehow something you brought on yourself.
There are ways to limit the damage. There are best practices for how to interact with such people.
Ideally, you simply move them out of your life because abusive people are fundamentally bad for you and that fact cannot be changed without them somehow changing in a big way. People can change, but trying to mollify an abuser into treating you better isn't how that happens.
It only teaches them that being abusive works, so it only deepens the problem. It doesn't resolve it.
When people leave the closet, that sometimes goes badly. How badly usually seems to be directly related to the kinds of people closest to them.
The good news is that you can move those people out of your life and bring other people into your life. You can change your inner circle, which may be a necessary first step for finding a safe way to admit to people you are LGBTQ.
Put your safety first. Take any concerns you have seriously. Operate on a basis of "Better safe than sorry."
Do your research and make plans for how to deal with the people and issues that most concern you. But I encourage you to work on coming out, even if it will take time to arrange to do so safely.
You won't really be healthy in the closet, though it may be reasonable and necessary to delay coming out until you can deal with a few things.