When Surviving Becomes a Gift
Why LGBTQ+ Visibility Feels More Like Responsibility Than Victory
We'd been working at the same company for three months before he said anything beyond "morning" in the kitchen. It was 2001, before diversity officers existed.
Then one Friday, lingering after everyone else had left for drinks, he asked if I wanted to grab coffee. Real coffee, not the office instant stuff.
Halfway through, he set down his cup. "Can I ask you something personal?"
I knew what was coming. You develop a radar for these moments.
"I noticed you never... I mean, the others talk about their girlfriends, but you..." He couldn't finish. Twenty-one years old, straight out of college, hands shaking around his mug.
"I'm gay," I said. Simple. A little anxious. But clear.
He went completely still. Then: "Damn. Okay. I thought maybe, but..." He pushed his coffee around. "How do you... at work, I mean. Do people know?"
"Some."
"And they're fine with it?"
"Some."
The conversation died there. We sat in that uncomfortable silence until he mumbled something about needing to get home. But the next Monday, he found me in the kitchen again. "Thanks," was all he said.
I wasn't his victory. I was his evidence that people like us could exist at work and keep breathing.
The Note That Readers Liked on Substack
A few weeks ago, I posted a note that received more likes from the queer corners of Substack: "An openly lived LGBTQ life isn't a personal victory. It's a lifeline for others still searching for the courage to begin."
Something about those words made people stop scrolling. Like it. Subscribe to my newsletter.
Because it names what we've all felt but couldn't articulate—that sick-sweet weight of realizing your existence has become someone else's proof of possibility.
We're taught that coming out is about self-actualization. Personal courage. Individual triumph. Instagram-worthy pride.
Nobody mentions the moment you realize you've become an accidental lighthouse. That your bad days might convince someone else that happiness is impossible for people like us. That your joy becomes evidence in someone else's court case against despair.
What "Lifeline" Actually Means
I've been thinking about that word—lifeline. Not inspiration. Not role model. Lifeline.
Lifelines are what you throw to drowning people. They're urgent. They're about survival, not motivation. You don't throw a lifeline for someone's personal growth journey. You throw it because if you don't, they might not make it to tomorrow.
Harvey Milk knew this. That's why he recorded his will: "If a bullet should enter my brain, let that bullet destroy every closet door." Even his potential death was calculated for maximum visibility. Because he understood—when people are drowning in silence, being seen isn't vanity. It's triage.
The research backs this up in ways that make my therapist-brain hurt: LGBTQ+ youth with one accepting adult in their lives are 40% less likely to attempt suicide. One adult. One visible life. The mathematics of survival.
But here's what studies can't capture: the specific exhaustion of being someone's one adult. Of carrying that percentage on your shoulders while you're still figuring out how to carry yourself.
The Inheritance Nobody Warned Us About
Frank Kameny lost his job as an astronomer in 1957 for being gay. Could have disappeared. Instead, he became the first openly gay person to challenge employment discrimination.
Not because he wanted to be an activist. Because he wanted his job back.
But once you're visible, you don't get to choose what you represent. Every fired queer person after him became his responsibility, whether he asked for it or not. That's the thing about lifelines. Once you start throwing them, people expect you to keep your arms strong.
ACT UP understood this during the plague years. "Silence = Death" wasn't metaphor. It was math. When the government pretends you don't exist while you're dying by the thousands, visibility becomes the only treatment available. You march not because you want to but because the alternative is disappearing entirely.
It’s the inheritance we carry. Generations of people who had to be visible because invisibility was literally killing us. And now we're supposed to celebrate Pride like it's a party, not a funeral we're still attending.
The Weight of Being Witnessed
Every out queer person becomes an accidental therapist. We collect coming-out stories like other people collect stamps. Another colleague, years later, following the same tentative script. The stranger who messages after seeing your Pride post. The Monday morning kitchen conversations.
We hold these stories because someone has to. Because when you're the only out person someone knows, you become their entire understanding of what's possible.
Barbara Gittings knew this weight. First lesbian to appear in a photo with her actual name, no sunglasses. "As a teenager, I had to struggle alone," she said. So she made herself findable. Turned her life into a searchlight for kids like her teenage self.
Beautiful. Necessary. Exhausting.
Sometimes, though—and this is what saves us—someone sees you not as symbol but as self. A stranger at Pride who catches your eye and smiles, not because you're representing anything, but because you both exist in that moment, unburdened. Those glimpses feel like rest.
Coming Out Fatigue Is Real
Let's name what this actually costs:
The constant calculations. The emotional labor of being "good representation." The pressure to appear like a functional adult™ because someone might be watching. The guilt when you don't. The way your personal becomes political without your permission.
I see it in my practice constantly. Clients who feel responsible for everyone else's coming out journey. Who can't have a bad day without wondering if they're letting down some kid who needs to believe it gets better. Who perform resilience they don't feel because the alternative feels like betrayal.
The research calls it "minority stress." But that's too clinical for what it feels like. It feels like carrying other people's hope in your chest cavity. Like being a lighthouse when you'd rather be a candle: small, flickering, allowed to go out sometimes.
The Unfinished Business
Here's what that Substack note understood: visibility isn't victory. It's responsibility. It's collective survival masquerading as individual choice.
When I live openly, I'm not just healing myself. I'm part of this long chain of people who chose to be findable so others could choose to be alive. That's beautiful. And it’s brutal.
That colleague in 2001—he gave me something too. The understanding that my small office existence had become bigger than me. That my ability to just be there, openly, was a gift I'd inherited from people who couldn't.
We're not just the ones throwing lifelines—we're part of a long chain of breath held and released, survival passed quietly from one body to another, an inheritance that moves through us like shared blood.
Some days I feel the weight of being seen like stones in my pockets. Other days, it feels like wings. Most days, it's both.
💭 Where in your body do you feel the cost of being seen? What would it mean to let that weight rest, even for a moment?
Disclaimer: This newsletter is for educational and informational purposes only. It does not replace therapy, diagnose, treat, or prevent any condition.
My husband and I always think of ourselves as diplomats and ambassadors. The way we move through the world allows other people to connect, and a lot of times, *relax.*. And it is the weight of responsibility.
A straight friend of mine once told me how badly he felt for me, when he realized what we have to deal with. I reassured him that while it is a great weight to carry, we are very practiced and good at it. That doesn’t make it OK, but it doesn’t always feel a weight because we are simply used to carrying it.