Brown is advocating we lose the term "coming out," claiming it is antiquated and hands power over to others.

Fab Five member Karamo Brown has revealed, in an interview with The Advocate, that he felt “betrayed” that his son, Jason, kept his sexual orientation from him for so long.

Brown added that he “had to go on this journey quickly, really quickly, to educate myself and then to remember this is his journey.” In the end, it all worked out, with Brown learning more about pansexuality—Jason’s sexual orientation—and the two growing even closer through the experience.

But what to call that experience is also a sticking point for the Queer Eye star. If it were up to him, I wouldn’t have referred to it as his son “coming out” to him—let alone The Advocate’s profile itself using the term in its headline.

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“It’s actually a term that I advocate against,” Karamo told the magazine:

I believe that the term coming out is a bit antiquated and outdated in the sense [that] it gives the power to someone else to accept or deny you when, in actuality, what the process is, is that we’re letting people into our lives. When you do that, it gives the person the courage to know that you have the ability to set boundaries and decide who you want to let in your life. …I think it takes some of the pressure off. It gives the power back to the person who actually needs it. So it’s something that, as when I worked in social services, I taught my kids.

But I beg to differ. Brown’s logic feels flawed to me. Coming out, and staying out and proud, does not give the power over to anyone else. Quite the opposite, actually: It empowers the individual doing the coming out. It says, This is who I am, like it or not.

I’m an openly bisexual man. When I declare myself as such, that is not dependent upon how anyone else sees me. It is not dependent upon non-bisexuals being let into my life.

In fact, that is the very power of being out. I am bisexual even if everyone I know objects—or even if they aren’t aware of my identity, for that matter—just like a straight person is straight regardless of how anyone else feels about it.

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In some ways, it is even more courageous to be out to people who you have decided not to let into your life, be they people whose bigotry has disqualified them from being present in it, or those who don’t fit for other reasons. It shows you are not intimidated by their lack of understanding in a way that would prevent you from being honest about who you are.

A significant portion of why we have come so far as a community—recent backlash-driven backsliding notwithstanding—is because of an unapologetic, mass-outing that took place in response to the hostile culture in which our queer ancestors found themselves.

For those of us who are more or less professionally queer, we are already out to the world. Does that mean we have let the world into our lives?

Sure, one could argue that to some extent, that is what we’re doing, but only to such a degree. Coming out, a.k.a. telling someone about your sexual orientation or gender identity, means they know exactly one thing about you—and that is all it means. Letting someone into your life, meanwhile, is a much larger commitment that requires more sharing and more connection than simply being open and honest about your identity as an LGBTQ person.

Not to mention, I’m just not ready to change “National Coming Out Day” to “National Letting People Into Our Lives Day,” if only because that sounds like I need to be burning enough incense to choke out a room, while reading Tarot cards, pretending astrology is real, and backing Marianne Williamson while saying it. And I’m simply not that brand of queer man. At least not yet, anyway. Give me a few more years working in queer media, and I just might get there.

I’ll keep you posted. That is, if I feel like letting you that far into my life.