In Defence of the Right to Out Others

Unlike visible, stigmatized personal characteristics, sexual orientation can be relatively successfully hidden. By staying in the closet, many queer people manage to minimize stigmatization. However, intergroup contact is of key importance for increasing tolerance and liberalising the straight majority. The choice not to disclose one’s sexual orientation thus leads to a collective action problem. Although the social stigmatization of queer people could be more effectively overcome through mass coming out, suboptimal results are achieved owing to the strategic use of the right to privacy in passing as straight. This problem is most conspicuous in countries where the cost of coming out remains significant, while the cost of staying closeted is too low to trigger substantial, progressive change. I discuss the issue of the permissibility of outing through an analysis of both Jean Louise Cohen’s reflexive conception of privacy and Judith Jarvis Thomson’s reductionist conception of privacy. I argue against the understanding of the right to privacy as a right that prevents others from obtaining information about one’s sexual orientation through legal means and from disseminating such information if it is not conditioned on confidentiality.