Coming out of the closet involves risks, it's like a game of Russian roulette, pull a trigger and hope to survive, the game seems simple, but it’s not, peers, family, and strangers become chambers and their reactions are the bullets ready to be launched, the game becomes a matter of life and death. The process of coming out involves strategy and planning, there are risks, however, the risks are premeditated and calculated; this game of Russian roulette slowly turns into a game of chess. Family, strangers, and peers morph into pawns, the chamber becomes a chessboard and the individual becomes a player; the individual swiftly and deliberately formulates their next move. The individual’s movements are composed of a series of stages: 1). The Opening/Development stage, 2). The Promotion/Under-promotion stage, 3). The Gambit/Middlegame stage, and 4). The Endgame stage. These stages become the catalyst for how an individual will reveal their identity to the mainstream world.
The initial phase of the individuals “coming out” process refers to the Opening/Development stage, this is the discovery of the individual’s sexual identity and the process of obtaining additional information in order to grasp a better comprehension of the identity in question. The initial …show more content…
This notion of either acceptance or denial for the individual seems to combine both the ideals of Herbert Mead’s generalized other and Charles Cooley’s looking glass self. Mead’s concept is defined as the internalized sense of the total expectations of others in a variety of settings, this concept allows for the individual to apply norms and behaviors learned in specific situations to new situations, Cooley’s concept is defined as an individual’s way of viewing themselves based on the perceptions of how others view