Count me in

National Coming Out Day is October 11th and there's a grassroots campaign called Count Me Out (pun on out of the closet, I'm guessing) that involves changing your profile picture of your social networking site to include the word OUT or ALLY, utilizing "the power of visibility".
It's such a small thing to do. Such a hard thing to do.
And coming out? Such a small sentence. Such a giant leap.
To come out today, to tell my friends my secret, could mean I am made the pariah for years to come.
I was a pariah for too long.
It's a good word, isn't it? Pariah. Such a powerful word. It means the lowest of the low, the bottom of the social ladder, far below merely unpopular. Perhaps a bit dramatic, but then, if I wasn't a drama queen, would I be writing this?
I can be part of my circles, part of the group, and then something happens to make me remember I am not like them. They don't know who I am. They don't even seem to notice that they don't know. And I think, if I was outed right now, would any of you laugh with me? Which of you would try to tell me to change, to choose 'right', to pray that I 'get better'? Which of you would simply avoid me like the plague?
Who would come around later? Who would betray me completely? Who would come up to me the next day and say hello, just to give me a tiny something to hang onto?
More importantly, who feels like this every day? Who literally can't afford to come out for fear of death, beatings, being thrown out of the house?
Because this happens. And maybe doing this one tiny thing, showing some closeted friend you don't even know about that you would not desert a friend for being gay, or transgender, or bisexual, or somewhere in between, would give this friend a tiny something to hang on to.
Here's a tiny something to hang on to. I care. And a lot of other people do too. You could grow up to be a lawyer or a doctor, saving innocent lives. Or you could grow up to be an ordinary person, with an ordinary job, married with kids and happier than you can imagine now is possible. You could be the one to save someone else from suicide. And there are people, maybe not people in your circles, maybe not anyone you can see, but there are people who want you to hang on and see how wonderful it can really be.
Another tiny something, by the Trevor Project, is this video. It gets better. Faces you will recognize from movies and TV donate their time to tell you this.
Chris Colfer, who plays Kurt on Glee (read my last post on this) asks you to hold on. Daniel Radcliffe of Harry Potter--a straight man--says, "this is the thing I'm probably most passionate about". Ellen Degeneres is devastated by the recent suicide of a teen outed by his roommate.
People care. I care. Show that you care. Join in and change your profile picture.