I got taught of vivid lesson in the difficulties of coming out a few years ago, before the rise of Trump's anti-LGBTQ backlash, when people had begun to think of being gay and coming out as ordinary and unremarkable.

A young adult friend of mine in the UK asked for my help getting up the courage and the skills to come out to his parents. Because doing so scared him to death, even though his parents were very progressive, describing themselves as old hippies.

Despite having been raised in a supportive environment largely without religious chains, he was terrified to come out to them. His voice shook sometimes when he talked to me about it.

I helped him think about how to come out to them, and he practiced it in front of a mirror for a while, and when he did everything went fantastic, which intellectually he assumed it would but which emotionally he just couldn't wrap his soul around.

I think a lot of LGBTQ people probably understand this dynamic pretty well. But I know a lot of people don't, and it's worth thinking about. It's worth wondering why coming out can be so hard and acknowledging that not everyone takes the same journey.