“A man doesn’t drink from a straw. Never!” the experience of coming out as gay to oneself and to others

Abstract

We examine in this paper the individual and social process of coming out as gay. Through a sociocultural and developmental psychology theoretical lens, we unfold the process as a liminal experience that starts within the individual and is continuously negotiated in between the person, the social others, and the broader society. Through interviews and autoethnography, we look at this process through the experiences of three young men coming out in Denmark. The findings highlight how coming out is a complex process that starts before one comes out to others and continues to develop as a meaning-making process as the person starts coming out to others, where others’ responses are internalized and continue to form this person’s identification within society.