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The term ‘coming out’ has become universally associated with revelations about one’s sexuality, and in recent years one’s gender identity as well. But when you strip it down the core concept it is actually something everyone does in their daily lives on a constant basis, sometimes in large significant ways but often in rather small almost unnoticeable ones.
At its very basest root ‘coming out’ is the emerging of something which was previously concealed. The sun comes out in the morning as the planet rotates shifting new sections of the globe out into open exposure to the sun. Animals come out of their dwellings to search for food. Information comes out after it is investigated and reported.
The term took on a tone of personal status, and began its journey to the meaning it holds today, in the ‘debuting’ of young women from wealthy or aristocratic families when they reached adulthood declaring them as available to be courted and wed, most recognizably in the form of the debutante ball.
These fancy dress events began in the 1780’s as a way to deal with the ‘daughter problem’ created by the reformation which ended the practice of cloistering unwed upper class daughters in convents. The debutante ball…