"I'm Glad I'm Not Gay!'": Heterosexual Students' Emotional Experience in the College Classroom with a "Coming out" Assignment

Abstract

Specific discourses exist around coming out in gay and lesbian communities. Such discourses may help heterosexual students intellectually understand the dangers and delights of coming out, but do not enable them to experience related emotions. For heterosexual students to experience the fears of being identified as gay, an experiential written assignment was created for a Sex, Gender, and Society class in which heterosexual students write a coming out letter to a person of their choice. Although this letter is never actually sent, it becomes the raw data that the student uses to analyze his/her reaction to the assignment and pertinent issues related to it. We feel it is important for heterosexual students, as part of their assimilating knowledge about sexual orientation, to comprehend as closely as possible what the coming out experience might be like. We discuss how the assignment and ensuing discussions encourage heterosexual students to explore their homophobia and heterosexism and facilitates their empathy for GLBT students.

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