out of the closet

out of the closet

Meaning

• go public about something private or hidden
• to express an extremely private matter in public
• to make the fact that a person is queer, public

Example Sentences

1. He was in his late teens when he came out of the closet.
2. She came out of the closet quite late herself but now speaks about how others should make the move much sooner in their lives.
3. The counsellor advised him to come out of the closet to be able to get rid of his depression.
4. It took her long before she came out of the closet and expressed her interest in the biotechnology industry.

Origin

In the American society, homosexuality was removed from the American Psychiatric Associations' diagnostic and statistical manual in the year 1973 after it was concluded that it is neither an illness nor requires a cure. Stuart Flexner used it in his literary work titled ‘Listening to America' in the year 1982. The origination is speculated to have come from the phrase “having skeletons in the closet”. The phrase literally refers to a person's initiation into the gay world and sexual life in the current form of usage and is the most popular way of saying that a person has queer orientation. Although the literary meaning could mean to have any dark secret be made public either by consent or accident.