National Coming Out Day

The Courage to Be Seen

I don’t usually write about topics like this. My lane is tax, tech, and travel, three things that don’t normally make people emotional (unless the Wi-Fi goes out during e-filing or you didn’t get that upgrade to first class). But October 11 is National Coming Out Day, and this one feels worth pausing for. Not because it’s political, it’s not, but because it’s about being human.

Coming out, in its truest form, is an act of honesty. It’s standing in your own truth and saying, “This is me,” without the filters, the code-switching, or the constant editing we all do to make ourselves fit. Even if you’ve never had to come out about who you love, you’ve probably had a moment where you had to show up as your real self, unvarnished, and hope the world didn’t flinch.

In our profession, we love words like integrity, ethics, and truth. But truth isn’t just something we file on a tax return, it’s something we live. My LGBTQ+ friends and colleagues remind me of that every day. Their courage shows up in quiet, everyday ways, long before it ever reaches a headline or a policy manual.

When I asked a couple of friends in the industry what being out and visible meant to them, here’s what they shared:

“Tax professionals are still asking if/how they can file a MFJ tax return for a same sex couple. It’s been legal on the federal level for a decade. If they could learn all of the legal changes from TCJA, Cares Act, OB3 and every other tax law change occurring in the past decade ..they can learn this too. Coming out means making these professionals recognize that claiming ignorance of gay rights while working with clients in the LGBTQIA+ community isn’t a lapse in knowledge, it’s a direct outcome of how they view an entire population of Americans.” - Natalie Kolodij, EA, CRETS

“When I got started in this industry as an educator, I didn’t think I could be out because I perceived a lot of organizations had conservative members who would not select me for speaking engagements. Now -- I don’t care. If someone has a problem with me being gay, I won’t offer my knowledge or support their organization. On the tax education side, I’m constantly disappointed in how LGBT taxpayers are erased from educational materials. It’s 2025—why can’t most of my colleagues showcase an example in a class using a same-sex married couple? Why can’t they use “spouse” instead of “husband and wife”? It’s an example of demonstrating in education how tax professionals need to work with a wide range of taxpayers—not all of our clients are straight and white.” - Thomas A. Gorczynski, EA, USTCP

Those words land not because they’re dramatic, but because they’re true. Every time someone in our field shows up as themselves, it chips away at that outdated idea that “professional” means “identical.” Spoiler: it doesn’t.

Authenticity doesn’t just make us better people—it makes us better at what we do. When you stop burning energy pretending, you free up space for creativity, empathy, and actual brilliance. And if you’ve ever tried to do your best work while hiding part of yourself, you know how exhausting that pretending can be.

But not everyone has the same support or safety to be open, and that’s worth remembering. I was lucky. My family has always supported me, and I don’t take that for granted. In fact, both of my parents signed as the witnesses for our marriage license. For some, coming out means risking relationships, jobs, or even safety. That’s why visibility and allyship still matter so deeply, they remind others they’re not alone.

On a day like this, it feels right to acknowledge a few people who helped make that visibility possible and who I consider heroes:

• Harvey Milk, one of the first openly gay elected officials in the U.S., who paid for his courage with his life and inspired generations to follow.

• Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, whose activism during the Stonewall uprising helped spark a global movement for equality and dignity.

• Edie Windsor, whose lawsuit against the federal government led to the end of the Defense of Marriage Act and opened the door for marriage equality.

• Jim Obergefell, whose Supreme Court case made same-sex marriage legal across the United States and whose love story changed the law of the land.

• Candy Marcum, a Dallas therapist who has spent decades helping members of the LGBTQ+ community (and beyond) navigate the challenges of life. During the darkest days of the AIDS crisis, she counseled many who were dying and could not afford therapy. She spoke about that and her life long social activism in a 2020 interview with The Body.

The rest of us, LGBTQ+ people, allies, colleagues, and friends, can do our part by making it easier for people to show up fully. That means listening more, assuming less, and remembering that the person across the Zoom screen might be carrying a story you don’t know.

So yeah, this post isn’t my usual mix of IRS code, tech, or travel rants. But maybe that’s the point. We all need reminders that what makes us human: empathy, honesty, and courage are far more interesting than what makes us compliant.

Writing this brought up more emotion than I expected. Maybe that’s because gratitude and grief often travel together: gratitude for those who paved the way, and grief for those who never got to see how far we’ve come.

But it’s also because this isn’t over. Equality isn’t something you win once and hang on the wall, it’s a continuous fight to move forward, to keep what’s been gained, and to make sure we never slide back into silence.

That’s why visibility still matters. Courage still matters. Showing up still matters.

So wherever you are, whoever you are, keep showing up as yourself. That’s where the good stuff starts, and where the change keeps going.