06/14/2026
My brother came out to our family when he was eleven years old. I’ll be honest that it felt like almost a non-event (When he told us, we basically all said, with love, “Well, of course. We knew that!”), but that’s easy for me to say. I have an eleven year old son now, and so it puts the clarity, courage, and resilience my brother had at that tender age in a new light.
My brother has kept me clear and honest over the years about the experience of the LGBTQ+ community. He ensures that I don’t forget things like the fact that nearly half of LGBTQ+ workers in the U.S. aren’t out at work. Or how often q***r folks avoid or delay healthcare (including mental healthcare) because of stigma and discrimination. (He’s a fierce advocate and I’m immensely proud of him.)
He and others, including the LGBTQ+ therapists on our team at Galia, have helped me understand some other things too. Things that the q***r community have illuminated by so generously sharing their lived experience.
Perhaps the biggest one is that we are each closeted in our own ways. That’s not to compare stigma or suffering, but to acknowledge that we all have pieces of ourselves that we feel terrified to truly be known – pieces that we lock away sometimes even from ourselves.
Wherever we fall (or move) on the gender and sexuality spectrum, so many of us are terrified of our own desires, bodies, dark thoughts, histories, or qualities. So many of us are convinced that if we were really, truly known, we would lose belonging.
Living in shame is so destructive to our psyches because it convinces us that we are separate. And the idea that we as humans are ever separate – from each other, from the earth, from all that is – is the lie that withers us from the inside.
To be clear, living in shame is not the same as living in the secrecy that safety requires. Some of what we keep hidden is for our very survival. But when stepping into the light is possible for us, it frees us from the prison of separation.
Separation is the root of fear, and so togetherness is the root of courage. When I start to feel fear (which is often), I’ve started renaming it “separateness” and then trying to relax my shoulders. I try to remember that there is no such thing and to find a sense of connection anywhere I can – in what’s happening around me, in my memories, in my body.
As we celebrate Pride, I want to offer gratitude and deep joy to all who are part of the LGBTQ+ community. This community reminds us that there is no separateness, no other, no going it alone. May we all find the courage, in whatever ways are ours to find it, to step a little more fully into the light.
