Keep It Like a Secret
Hardcore is more diverse than ever, and more LGBTQ+ people are rightfully finding their homes here. But the idea that things were “always this way” is not only wrong, it’s erasure.
I.
I knew I was gay in 1998, and by that point most of the people in my day-to-day life also knew. I was living in Chicago, in a two-bedroom apartment near Wicker Park, with Jason Gnewikow from the Promise Ring as my roommate. Jason was also gay, and by that point most of the people in his day-to-day life knew, too. To the hardcore scene where we came from, though, we were both still laying somewhat low—so low, in fact, that we’d only come out to each other the week after we moved in together.
If you don’t have a stigmatized identity that requires you to “come out,” this may not have occurred to you, but coming out is not a one-and-done event. One day it could be, “Mom and Dad, I’m gay.” A year later it could be, “I’m going to the Drug Church show with my boyfriend this weekend. You wanna go?” Coming out is an ongoing activity that demands you to make multiple mental calculations in an instant: Is it safe to…