come out of the closet

• Audio (AU)

  (file)

come out of the closet (third-person singular simple present comes out of the closet, present participle coming out of the closet, simple past came out of the closet, past participle come out of the closet)

1. (intransitive, idiomatic) To tell others about one's homosexuality, bisexuality, transness, or any minority or disapproved-of identity, belief, preference, etc., where previously this had been kept secret.

   She finally came out of the closet to her religious family regarding her atheism.

   • 1972, Lou Reed (lyrics and music), “Make Up”, in Transformer:

     Now, we're coming out / Out of our closets / Out on the streets / Yeah, we're coming out

• come out, coming out

• remain in the closet
• woodwork (verb)

• come out of the woodwork (“appear as if from nowhere”)

• coming out on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• closeted on Wikipedia.Wikipedia