Aaron Schock's coming out story is a reminder that there are still individuals and communities trapped in this anachronism
entered gay Washington social circles around the same time, around the same age, and both as Republicans. I returned to town from working in Iowa for John McCain’s presidential campaign. I was spooked by the news of sad, old, Larry Craig tapping his foot in an airport bathroom and quickly determined that I needed to come out of the closet, take a break from the Palinized party I had been working for, and start fully living the life I had been denying myself.
Schock returned in a different context and, unfortunately for him, never believed he had the opportunity to do the same. He was the youngest member of Congress with the hottest of klieg lights on him. I presume his expectation was that he would live as he always had in Peoria and Springfield, closeted, and focused on his work.
This may sound cheeky, but it is the crux of the conundrum that faced Schock. He said himself in his coming out post: “I’m sure I knew other gay people in those years of growing up, but I don’t think any of us were aware of it.” So put yourself in his shoes as he lands at Reagan National as the nation’s youngest congressman. You’ve spent 27 years burying your sexuality. Living in tiny towns far from the meccas where gay peers had fled to feel seen and known. Having never, or only fleetingly, been even tempted to come out of your shell because you hadn’t seen a path to do it or anyone to do it with.
Then you get off the plane in Washington, D.C. at the beginning of the city’s Obama-era gay boom. Gay men you could see yourself with are everywhere. People like you had been coming to D.C. for decades — just as staff, not Congressman — so these guys know you better than you know yourself. Many of them
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