ABSTRACT
The purpose of this chapter is to explore visibility management of persons of minoritized gender, sexual, erotic, and/or relationally diverse (GSERD) identities, backgrounds, and experiences. The authors discuss the movement from the phrase “coming out” to a focus on visibility management, which emphasizes the complexities of this process occurring many times and intersecting with many cultural contexts and identity factors. Next, the authors discuss the dominant context of Eurocentrism and patriarchal ideologies in theories of identity development and their intersections with race, culture, gender, and relational orientations. The authors go on to further explain the complexities of this process and the idea that the term “coming out” is inaccurate as it suggests a single event in a person’s life where they become seen by all. These authors also discuss how the complexities of a person’s identity require the person to constantly manage what aspects of their identity are visible at any one point in time to multiple people or institutions that are practicing invisibility management. The emphasis is on helping the reader understand this complex process, as well as exploring implications related to clinical work in the form of resources and suggestions for assessment.
