Outing

It is hard to pinpoint the first use of outing in the modern sense. In a 1982 issue of Harper's, Taylor Branch predicted that "outage" would become a political tactic in which the closeted would find themselves trapped in a crossfire. The article "Forcing Gays Out of the Closet" by William A. Henry III in Time (January 29, 1990) introduced the term "outing" to the general public.[1]

The Eulenburg affair of 1907–1909 was the first public outing scandal of the twentieth century. Left-wing journalists opposed to Kaiser Wilhelm II's policies outed a number of prominent members of his cabinet and inner circle—and by implication the Kaiser—beginning with Maximilian Harden's indictment of the aristocratic diplomat Prince Eulenburg. Harden's accusations incited other journalists to follow suit, including Adolf Brand, founder of Der Eigene. Many activists of the first homosexual movement denounced outing as "the way over corpses".[2][3] In 1928, Kurt Hiller argued that it would be permissible to out a member of a cabinet preparing an anti-homosexual law, arguing: "Our solidarity with the homosexuals of all classes and political viewpoints extends very far; but it does not include traitors to their own cause."[4]

Left-wing journalists outed Adolf Hitler's closest ally Ernst Röhm in 1931 and 1932. In response, Brand wrote, "when someone — as teacher, priest, representative, or statesman — would like to set in the most damaging way the intimate love contacts of others under degrading control — in that moment his own love-life also ceases to be a private matter and forfeits every claim to remain protected hence-forward from public scrutiny and suspicious oversight."[5] Left-wing journalist Kurt Tucholsky disagreed, writing in Die Weltbühne, "We fight the scandalous §175, everywhere we can, therefore we must not join the choir of those among us who want to banish a man from society because he is homosexual."[6][7]

Gabriel Rotello, once editor of OutWeek, explained outing as "equalizing", stating: "what we have called 'outing' is a primarily journalistic movement to treat homosexuality as equal to heterosexuality in the media"[39]

Signorile described OutWeek's aim as an awareness raiser of the presence of gay people and political issues. The goal would be that being gay and lesbian is not "so utterly grotesque that it should never be discussed." (Signorile, p. 78) Signorile posits that outing is not the airing of private details.[40]

Richard Mohr noted, "Some people have compared outing to McCarthyism..such outing feeds gays to the wolves, who thereby are made stronger....But the sort of outing I have advocated does not invoke, mobilize, or ritualistically confirm anti-gay values; rather it cuts against them." Thus Mohr argues that outing is "both permissible and an expected consequence of living morally."[41]

In the context of Ali Fazeli Monfared's murder, Tara Far, a human rights investigator in Iran and Kuwait, has described outing as "dangerous" within societies where the LGBT community is not protected by law, or families that do not accept the individual. Shadi Amin described the military exemption card as a danger to Monfared in her petition to the Iranian government to remove the sexuality information.[42]

There is no widely agreed definition of "fair outing". Warren Johansson and William Percy describe least four intermediate positions have been described to justify outing:[43]

1. Only the dead;
2. Hypocrites only, and only when they actively oppose gay rights and interests;
3. Outing passive accomplices who help run homophobic institutions;
4. Prominent individuals whose outing would shatter stereotypes and compel the public to reconsider its attitude on homosexuality.

Assessing to which degree the outer goes allows insight into the goal striven towards. Most outers target those who support decisions and further policy, both religious and secular, which discriminate against gay people while they themselves live a clandestine gay existence. A "truism to people active in the gay movement [is] that the greatest impediments to homosexuals' progress often [are] not heterosexuals, but closeted homosexuals," said San Francisco journalist Randy Shilts.[44]

British activist Peter Tatchell says "The lesbian and gay community has a right to defend itself against public figures who abuse their power and influence to support policies which inflict suffering on homosexuals." In 1994 Tatchell's activist group OutRage! alleged that fourteen bishops of the Church of England were homosexual or bisexual and named them, accusing them of hypocrisy for upholding the Church's policy of regarding homosexual acts as sinful while not observing this prohibition in their personal lives. "Outing is queer self-defence," Tatchell said in a 1995 speech to the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement conference. "Lesbians and gay men have a right, and a duty, to expose hypocrites and homophobes. By not outing gay Bishops who support policies which harm homosexuals, we would be protecting those Bishops and thereby allowing them to continue to inflict suffering on members of our community. Collusion with hypocrisy and homophobia is not ethically defensible for Christians, or for anyone else."[45]

Signorile argues that the outing of journalist Pete Williams "and its aftermath did indeed make a big dent in the military's policy against gays. The publicity generated put the policy on the front burner in 1992, thrusting the issue into the presidential campaign," with every Democratic candidate and independent Ross Perot publicly promising to end the ban.[46]

The military forces of the world have differing approaches to the enlistment of homosexual and bisexual individuals. Some have open policies, others prohibit, and some are ambiguous. The armed forces of most developed countries have now removed policies excluding non-heterosexual individuals (with strict policies on sexual harassment).

Nations that permit gay people to serve openly in the military include 3 of the 5 permanent members of the UN Security Council (United States, United Kingdom and France), the Republic of China (Taiwan), Australia, Israel, Argentina, and all NATO members except Turkey.[47]

In the United Kingdom the Ministry of Defence policy since the year 2000 is to allow gay men, lesbians and transgender personnel to serve openly, and discrimination on a sexual orientation basis is forbidden.[48] It is also forbidden for someone to pressure LGBT people to come out.

In the United States lesbian, gay, and bisexual people are allowed to serve openly in the United States military. As of 2021, transgender individuals are allowed to serve openly, and to transition during their service.[49] Military policy and legislation had previously entirely prohibited gay individuals from serving, and subsequently from serving openly, but these prohibitions were ended in September 2011 after the United States Congress voted to repeal the policy. The first time homosexuals were differentiated from non-homosexuals in the military literature was in revised army mobilization regulations in 1942. Additional policy revisions in 1944 and 1947 further codified the ban. Throughout the next few decades, homosexuals were routinely discharged, regardless of whether they had engaged in sexual conduct while serving. In response to the gay rights movements of the 1970s and 1980s, the Department of Defense issued a 1982 policy (DOD Directive 1332.14) stating that homosexuality was clearly incompatible with military service. Controversy over this policy created political pressure to amend the policy, with socially liberal efforts seeking a repeal of the ban and socially conservative groups wishing to reinforce it by statute.

Outing can be damaging or life-threatening to those with unsupportive families.[50][51] In response to a North Carolina bill that could out children to parents under the school system, various mental health experts warned of the potential damage, which could be life-threatening.[52]

After several Moroccans were outed from using gay dating apps, the Human Rights Watch requested that the Moroccan government do more to protect their LGBT community, as many of them were facing abuse and discrimination.[53]

Outing is dangerous in various Islamic countries where the LGBT community faces discrimination or death from outings, resulting in many LGBT refugees to Western countries.[54][55]

Roger Rosenblatt argued in his January 1993 New York Times Magazine essay "Who Killed Privacy?" that, "The practice of 'outing' homosexuals implies contradictorily that homosexuals have a right to private choice but not to private lives."[40] In March 2002, singer Will Young revealed he was gay, pre-empting a tabloid newspaper (reportedly News of the World) that was preparing to out him.[56]

Christine Jorgensen, Beth Elliott, Renée Richards, Sandy Stone, Billy Tipton, Alan L. Hart, April Ashley, Caroline Cossey ("Tula"), Jahna Steele, were outed as transsexuals by European or American media or, in the case of Billy Tipton, by his coroner. In many cases, being outed had an adverse effect on their personal lives and their careers.

In some cases well-known celebrities have been outed as transgender or intersex when no proof to substantiate the claims was presented, e.g., Jamie Lee Curtis.[57]

• Doxing, revealing generic personally identifiable information through the internet

• Cory, Donald Webster. The Homosexual in America: A Subjective Approach. New York: Greenfield, 1951.
• Gross, Larry. Contested Closets: The Politics and Ethics of Outing. University of Minnesota Press, 1993 ISBN 0-8166-2179-9
• Johansson, Warren & Percy, William A. Outing: Shattering the Conspiracy of Silence. Harrington Park Press, 1994.
• Marhoefer, Laurie (2015). Sex and the Weimar Republic: German Homosexual Emancipation and the Rise of the Nazis. University of Toronto Press. ISBN 978-1-4426-1957-9.
• Signorile, Michelango (1993). Queer In America: Sex, Media, and the Closets of Power. ISBN 0-299-19374-8.
• Stramel, James (1996). "Gay Virtue: The Ethics of Disclosure." Dissertation, University of Southern California.