[Interview to be found in the summer issue, in stores or by subscription.] After coordinating the collective work Pédés, published in 2023, Florent Manelli joined the têtu· Connect team. He has not let go of the pen. In Au-delà du placard (Les Liens qui libèrent), he explores the post-coming out: liberation or the Caudine Forks?
Dans la communauté LGBT+, le coming out est généralement présenté comme un passage obligé vers la liberté. Cela n’a pas changé ?
All the point of my book is to tell how much coming out reflects our social dysfunctions. Society still expects a LGBT person to go through coming out, as a mandatory step in any queer life. This can be easily explained by the fact that heterosexuality remains the implicit norm. But one also expects that this coming out be done in a certain way, in line with representations circulated in the media or the entertainment industry. From the introduction of my book, I recount my family coming out, which I did in a very solemn way in my parents’ kitchen, because that’s how I imagined my own coming out. After its publication, several people came to tell me: “Me too, I did my coming out in my kitchen with my parents!” Even in its form, there is something that tends to standardize the coming out and the queer experiences crystallized around this passage.
The exit from the closet—isn’t it the doorway to pride?
American historian George Chauncey has shown that coming out is above all entry into a community, the meeting with the gay group. From the moment I am out, I no longer fear being discovered if I push the door of a community space, whether a sexual health center or a festive venue. Coming out, therefore, first connects to the community. It also enables collective visibility and the transmission of the group’s experience, of its shared memory. Gradually, coming out has mutated into something more individual, a kind of personal story to tell in videos for social networks. When we individualize the act of coming out to such a degree, we weaken communal ties. In this mutation, it seems to me we lose what binds us in a political project.
Est-ce que le coming out reste un acte de résistance ?
Coming out still carries within it a cry of freedom, a desire to express what one is deepest inside. But its political resonance, it is expressed to very different degrees depending on contexts. Doing it in France or in Senegal obviously does not entail the same risks. And not all coming outs have the same effect, in terms of the collective narrative. It is obvious that someone’s coming out who benefits from certain privileges does not shake the system as much as someone who combines belonging to several minority groups.
Nombre de jeunes queers se passent aujourd’hui de l’annonce solennelle. Est-ce qu’on assiste à l’extinction du coming out ?
Part of the LGBT+ population no longer necessarily feels the need to come out, at least not in the way one could imagine since the 1980s. In the meantime, coming out has almost become a pop object. Some representations continue to depict it according to the old codes, solemn and emotional. This is the case, for example, in the series Heartstopper, when Nick first talks to his mother about his bisexuality. At the same time, other ways of doing it are emerging, more fluid and less dramatic. I think we are in an in-between phase. The symbol evolves, and it will continue to do so.
Ton livre rappelle que le coming out ne fait pas automatiquement disparaître la honte. On a trop vendu l’idée d’un coup de baguette magique ?
The effects of the closet operate in more or less intense ways and can pursue us even after we are out in all areas of our lives. There are consequences on mental health, on physical health, on minority stress… Shame often follows us for a long time and can be reactivated very quickly, for example by an insult. Before embracing our pride, we were nonetheless steeped in this culture of homophobia. To simplify coming out as a passage with a before and an after is thus somewhat fallacious. I don’t know anyone who, in the long term, regrets having come out. But coming out does not act like a magic potion that would erase in an instant all we have gone through previously.
Tu accordes beaucoup d’importance au “coming in”. Est-ce que l’enjeu principal n’est pas de vivre au mieux ce cheminement intérieur ?
Before opening up to others, we open up to ourselves. This moment is extremely important. It is the time when you struggle, when you try to understand, when you wrestle with yourself before you can tell yourself, inwardly: “Yes, I am gay.” All this process before revealing yourself to others is precious. We need reassurance, messages that tell us that by owning who we are, we do not condemn ourselves to loneliness or a doomed life. These representations are very important, because they send messages to children, to teenagers, but also to adults. In the 1990s, during which I grew up, there were very few positive representations I could identify with. We have progressed enormously on this front. The challenge today is thus also to ensure that self-discovery is gentler, better supported, with more resources available, more representations and spaces where people can recognize themselves.
