(Hat tip Kawlture)

Excerpt:

The process of “coming out of the closet”–when imagined as an act of political resistance–can, indeed, be seen as an emancipatory intervention.  It is often considered the only means of survival for queer people. But, what would it mean for us–for queer people–to move from a mode of survival when our survival has always been connected to our ability to daily “come out” from a “closet” that some of us may, or may not, have ever inhabited? What does it mean for us to move from a state of traditional protest to that of radical resistance when our sense of self and communal agency is ostensibly acknowledged and thought to be actuated only after we “come out”, only after we name and define ourselves over against heterosexuals, only after we speak out (even if we really want to keep some things “in”), only after we march in pride parades (even if we feel shame because some pride parades seem to absent other essences of our identities), or only after we live openly and always marked as a lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or questioning person (even if the labels themselves seem to limit the fluidity of and/or experiences of our sexed and having-sex selves)? I wonder, then, if it is really useful to speak of our processes of self-disclosure, our moments of self-identification as LGBTQ/queer people, and the practices through which we become self-aware by way of the “coming out” metaphor. Does “coming out of the closet” properly function as the most useful way to name one’s quest towards self and communal liberation and expression? Does the usage of the “coming out” and “the closet” metaphors facilitate or impede the liberatory potential of a radical counter-hegemonic confrontation with heterosexism and heteronormativity?  Should we consider nuanced and innovative interventions, which speak, more succinctly, to a queer politic? In what follows, I problematize the functionality of  “coming out” and argue for a turn to a new intervention, or what I am naming, the practice (and politic) of “inviting in.”