Somewhere over the rainbow

According to Wikipedia, 19th-century gay rights advocate
Karl Heinrich Ulrichs introduced the idea of coming out
as a means of emancipation. Public Domain.
Via Wikimedia Commons.

From the news: "At age 90, Kenneth Felts decided to come out as gay during the pandemic."

 

Good for him, and I wish him all the best. It's sad to me that it took so long, but definitely better late than never. Mr. Felts' experience serves as a good reminder that, no matter what our circumstances, it's best to live our lives as we see fit and not be hemmed in by others' unfair, unreasonable, or bigoted expectations. 

 

Or our own.

 

If you don't think coming out still matters, consider this: There's a commercial for an HIV medication, Biktarvy, in heavy rotation on TV these days. It features in part a black male couple holding hands, dining out together, and kissing. 

 

There's are a couple of scenes in the commercial that feature cityscapes, one of which I think is a bridge on the Riverwalk in San Antonio. As I used to live in San Antonio, I wanted to confirm this, so I did a search yesterday to see if I could find out where the commercial was filmed.

 

In doing so, I came across suggested search strategies such as these:

"Biktarvy commercial disgusting"

 

"Biktarvy commercial complaints"

 (Keep in mind my original search was "Biktarvy commercial location.")

 

And suggested posts labeled:

"The worst commercials to grace your TV in the past decade" (no mention of Biktarvy as far as I could tell)

 

"Is targeted advertising just another form of racism?" (from Reddit)

And there was a link to a message board labeled "Country Conservatives" (you can find this on your own; they're not getting any additional web traffic from me) where the commercial was "discussed" using phrases like "gross," "disgusting," "they can fornicate with no fear of STDs," "Big Pharma," "why is so much of our money spent on medical 'necessities'?" and "yet another loss for moral standards."

 

So, yeah, coming out still matters. It matters a lot in fact. If nothing else, it matters to ignorant, unfriendly, even hateful people who may vote and decide your fate about medical care and the drugs available to treat your medical conditions.

 

Maybe coming out in its own way educates them--or maybe it just serves notice that we're here, that we live amongst them, and we're not going back into the shadows to keep them happy or make them comfortable.