That actually happened to me once.
Can we finally get over the “gay” = “just sex”. If I come out as gay by saying “I like to have sex with men”, then I am talking about my sexuality. Heck one can say “I like to have sex with men” and it is referring to your sexuality, but it doesn’t even have to mean you are gay. Gay means more than just who you have sex with, right? Tim Cook can come out as gay by mentioning a boyfriend or partner, or even a husband. As one of the commenters above stated, straight people “come out” all the time by talking about things other than sex. People like to say how begin gay is just a small part of who they are. I’m gay and the sex part is just a small part of what that is. I have come out in various ways, sometimes by flat out telling someone I’m gay, but more often it’s in response to questions like “are you married?”. I have always replied with “I have a partner, his name is…”. Though in 2 days I will have to change it to “I have a husband…”. 
As for begin out. Many industries that have been “known” for gays can actually be surprisingly homophobic. Hollywood is still run by old white guys for the most part. But we have come a long way. I watched The Normal Heart the other night, and Mark Ruffalo didn’t just “play gay” (something that could be career suicide even just a few years ago in Hollywood), he embraced that role and made it real. God for him! I admire him very much after seeing that.
What pisses me off about CEOs is that they, for the most part, are seen as captains of industry, and supposedly worth their insane compensation $$$. Isn’t Tim Cook head of one of the richest corporations in the world? I get that he might just be very private, but come on, it’s like the years I spent “just not talking about” my private life at work. It was damaging to me, and it devalued my personal life while giving others a certain power they didn’t deserve. When I changed careers back in 2004, I chose to never downplay my home life just because someone else might have weird, outdated ideas about it. I have never regretted it, and it has empowered me to be who I am today. I moved back into firefighting back in 2009, and was out from day one. I even had one of my trainers ask me if I was worried about being out in such a traditionally conservative/macho workplace. I told him that I was out, and I could never go back in because as I learned reading Frank Herbert growing up: “Never give someone a stick to beat you with”.
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You’re fucking kidding me!
CNBC is still on the air? How is it outing someone if you tell it to an empty room?
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Good advice from a bad man (who disowned his gay son).
It’s a balancing act; keeping a secret weakens you and damages your self-worth, but feeling obliged to publish your sexuality can help people put you in a box. I realise that if everyone were as reticent as me, we’d never even have won the right to choose, so obviously I don’t have the whole answer. I just to play it as, yes, I’m gay, but that’s a boring, minor detail. There’s a certain amount of acting involved, because sometimes I have to “casually” let it slip, and sometimes others have to act cool when really they’re a little shocked. But over time the act becomes the reality.
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O.k. - I stand corrected. There are valid reasons for some people to care but I don’t immediately see them because I have no reason to care myself.
Wow, did not know that about Herbert. Sad, because his writing made me think he would be the opposite. Is this the same son that wrote all the prequels? If so, could it be he’s getting his revenge by making money selling horrible books using his dad’s name? LOL.
I’m not saying anyone should publish their sexuality. But I will never refer to my husband and our life together as a minor boring detail. I treat it exactly the same as if I were married to a woman. For the most part I think I talk about that aspect of my life as much as any other coworker.
I once had a boss, who was a lesbian, hire someone to work under me who she assumed was gay (she already knew I was shortly after I started working there). The first day I worked with him he let me know that she had already spoken with him about being gay, that she let him know I was too, that his partner had died the year before of AIDS, but not to worry, HE wasn’t HIV positive. I was stunned to say the least. I had never even considered something like this happening. The very definition of awkward. I was so pissed at her. This was inappropriate no matter who was gay or not. How do you have a professional working relationship with a subordinate when they’ve just been given the details of your life AND dumped the entire contents of their personal life into your lap. Oh it gets better, she then told me a few weeks later how he was intimidated by me because he had a crush on me. Yeah. It was all so unexpected that I just did what I could to keep things professional.
I don’t want to know the details of my coworkers sexuality, gay or straight. But I hope that younger gay people see that they can become a firefighter if they want to, regardless of if they are gay or not.
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Presumably CEOs and executives don’t come out as gay because it’s perceived as a risk when they inevitably go into politics.
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This just in: http://fortune.com/2014/06/30/tim-cook-led-5000-from-apple-at-gay-pride-parade/
Looks like the business press doesn’t mind at all.
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In the context of a dinner party, not at all.
But we’re talking about it, outside of that room, so it definitely was.
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