Outing: The Supposed Justifications

Outing is conceptually linked to the notion of the “closet”; “coming out of the closet” amounts to publicly acknowledging one’s homosexuality, or at the least one’s participation in sexual activities with persons of the same sex. Outing makes someone’s homosexuality public; they are forced out of the closet, so to speak. Richard Mohr has described it this way: “outing [makes] publicly acknowledged the sexual orientation of a homosexual without regard to whether the person is willing to have this information publicly acknowledged”. Leslie Green provides this definition: “the practice of publicly exposing someone’s presumed sexual orientation, against his or her will, in circumstances where the revelation may be damaging.”