National Coming Out Day
Observed annually on October 11, by members of the LGBT communities and their straight allies, National Coming Out Day is a civil awareness day for coming out and discussing LGBT issues among the general populace in an effort to give a familiar face to the LGBT rights movement. This day was the inspiration for holding LGBT History Month in the United States in October. The day was founded in 1988, by Dr. Robert Eichberg, his partner William Gamble, and Jean O'Leary to celebrate the Second National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights one year earlier, in which 500,000 people marched on Washington, DC, United States, for gay and lesbian equality. In the United States, the Human Rights Campaign manages the event under the National Coming Out Project, offering resources to LGBT individuals, couples, parents, and children, as well as straight friends and relatives, to promote awareness of LGBT families living honest and open lives. Candace Gingrich became the spokesperson for the day in April 1995. Although still named "National Coming Out Day", it is observed in Canada, Germany, The Netherlands, and Switzerland also on October 11, and in Britain on 12 October. To celebrate National Coming Out Day on October 11, 2002, Human Rights Campaign released an album bearing the same title as that year's theme: Being Out Rocks. Participating artists include Kevin Aviance, Janis Ian, k.d. lang, Cyndi Lauper, Sarah McLachlan, and Rufus Wainwright.
Read more about this topic: Coming Out
Famous quotes containing the words national, coming and/or day:
“But the creative person is subject to a different, higher law than mere national law. Whoever has to create a work, whoever has to bring about a discovery or deed which will further the cause of all of humanity, no longer has his home in his native land but rather in his work.”
—Stefan Zweig (18811942)
“And the Stranger will depart and return to the desert.
O my soul, be prepared for the coming of the Stranger,
Be prepared for him who knows how to ask questions.”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)
“I thus could not live, and I admitted it, unless on the entire earth, all creatures, or at least the greatest number, were turned toward me, eternally vacant, deprived of an independent life, ready at any moment to respond to my call, given to sterility until the day I deigned to grace them with my light. In short, for me to live happily, it was necessary for those chosen by me not to live at all.”
—Albert Camus (1913–1960)