In the fall of 1989 I was asked to facilitate a coming out group based on my volunteer work as a LGBT crisis line volunteer. My first step was to create a 10 week program with clear tasks and outcomes for each of those 10 weeks. Lucas, your suggestion to include peer-to-peer mentorship is spot on. Each week I crafted an exercise to expose each participant to other out gay men in a wide variety of social / cultural contexts.

Example? Buddy-up with another group participant to go to the local gay and lesbian book stores. Look at the community bulletin board over-flowing with all sorts of events, groups, etc. Go to one of those events / groups.

As decades flew by my coming-out group alumni grew. At the conclusion of each 10 week experience I invited participants to step into a mentor roll for future group participants. Some connections lasted a few months. Some connections continue to this day.

After 100’s of groups spanning 1000’s of men I see significant social / cultural shifts. To my chagrin, we now talk about what it’s like to to encounter a genuinely ‘so-what’ response to their formal coming out event. Given the focus placed on coming out it’s easy to make coming-out a thing. As more generations integrate same-sex oriented lives as no more or no less valid as other-oriented lives the ritual of coming out decomposes from a life-altering act of passage to a simple act of clarification.