At Goizueta Business School, we’re proud to celebrate National Coming Out Day. First celebrated on October 11, 1988, National Coming Out Day commemorates the anniversary of the 1987 National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights. The national day of awareness has since evolved to include the broader LGBTQ+ community.
National Coming Out Day serves many purposes. It honors the courage and stories of LGBTQ+ individuals; it demonstrates that this community includes our family members, neighbors, friends, peers, and coworkers; it serves as a reminder that while we’ve come a long way, we have a long way to go. Many people in our nation and around the world still live in environments where coming out is a risk to their safety and success.
Coming out is a deeply personal journey, one that may evoke a mixture of powerful feelings. In celebration of National Coming Out Day, we invited a handful of students at Goizueta to share the ways this day is meaningful to them. Read on to draw inspiration from the stories these students have to share.
Breaking Barriers, Building Inclusion
Maddie McMurray 26MBA: Member of Goizueta Pride Alliance and ROMBA Fellow
How do you identify? I am a cisgender, bisexual woman. My preferred pronouns are she/they; both sets of pronouns are equally affirming.
Why do you think it’s important to celebrate National Coming Out Day? National Coming Out Day should be a celebration of community and identity. While I’m thankful it’s not the case for myself, many LGBTQIA+ folks face fear, discrimination, or abandonment by their loved ones when they come out.
I see National Coming Out Day as an opportunity for the LGBTQIA+ community to embrace its newer members and show them the love and acceptance we all deserved to have been shown during such a vulnerable and brave moment in our lives.
Maddie McMurray
How has belonging to the LGBTQ+ community influenced your career goals? Growing up, I never had any ‘out’ LGBTQIA+ women in my life. I spent some of my childhood in a conservative area and internalized from friend’s families and media that being ‘gay’ was wrong. As I started to explore my sexuality and gender expression in college, I realized that not only were there few women in business publicly doing the work I wanted to do—the representation of queer women was even smaller.
Prior to my MBA, my work focused on identifying and strategically removing barriers to equity in the workplace. I’m pursing my MBA to strengthen my quantitative skills and better understand how organizational structure and policies can be enhanced to ensure employees receive equitable treatment, pay, and opportunities for advancing their careers, regardless of their intersecting identities.
What are some accomplishments you and your peers have made toward the cause of LGBTQ+ advancement? I’m really impressed with the leadership that exists in my second year MBA cohort. Hunter Scanlon 25MBA has done fabulous and hard work advocating for us to receive partial reimbursements to attend Reaching Out MBA (ROMBA), which has made it possible for at least two additional members to attend the conference where they would not have been able to originally.
What changes would you like to see happen for the LGBTQ+ community next? Personally, I want to begin working with the DEIB office to update and provide training for faculty, staff, and students on syntax. Gender does not equate to sex, and many people erroneously use the terms “woman” and “female” interchangeably. This alienates and excludes trans women, intersex, nonbinary folks and others who are not assigned female at birth and is a microaggression. My hope is that through driving awareness that language matters. We can begin creating a space where all LGBTQIA+ identities feel welcome at Goizueta.
Hunter Scanlon 25MBA: Member of Goizueta Pride Alliance
How do you identify? I am a gay man.
What does National Coming Out Day mean to you personally? National Coming Out Day for me is a time to celebrate the journey of coming out and reflect on the years I spent hiding my true self. It’s an exciting opportunity to recognize the progress I’ve made and the importance of creating a supportive environment for others who are still in the process of coming out. For me, having strong queer role models and witnessing the diversity within the LGBTQ+ community played a crucial role in helping me embrace my identity and feel confident in being openly gay across my personal and professional life. While at Emory and as a Reaching Out MBA Fellow for the class of 2025, I not only saw the importance of coming out, as I’ve always felt, but now I see the value of my differences in professional environments.
Can you share your own coming out story, or a significant moment in your journey? For me, like most, coming out took years. From building up confidence with close friends that I knew would respond well, to telling family, and being comfortable disclosing my identity professionally.
I remember each step feeling lighter but simultaneously nerve-racking until one day, I was just “out,” to everyone I could think in my life that mattered. I finally felt confident in the way I was able to fully identify as a member of the queer community. Now, I don’t even think much of coming out; I get to just be out.
Hunter Scanlon
Why do you think it’s important to celebrate National Coming Out Day? It’s incredibly important to celebrate National Coming Out Day. It not only celebrates the courage and resilience of the queer community, but also raises awareness for the wider population. It’s a great reminder that people around us—friends, family, and colleagues—may be struggling to come out. And it emphasizes the importance of being allies every day. When allies actively show up and create a safe, welcoming space, it makes it much easier for closeted LGBTQ+ members to express their true selves.
How has belonging to the LGBTQ+ community influenced your career goals? Being an out gay man and getting to see how far other members of the LGBTQ+ have come in the accomplishments within our community encourages me to do the same. Further, it emphasizes the “charisma, uniqueness, nerve and talent” in each of us, in the words of the great Ru Paul.
Joshua Lozier 25MBA/JD: Member of Goizueta Pride Alliance and OUTLaw (LGBTQ+ law student alliance at Emory University School of Law)
How do you identify? I am a gay man, pronouns he/him.
Can you share your own coming out story, or a significant moment in your journey? I have a rather unfortunate coming out story. I grew up in rural Ohio in a very traditional, religious family. Then, I moved to LA for college, and after I was out of reach of home, I came out. My family learned of my LGBTQ+ identity and ostracized me. I was mandatorily granted premature financial independence, and at 18 years old I had to financially support myself through college. I held a work-study position on campus, paid internships each semester, and I bartended nights and weekends. Despite the setback, I graduated magna cum laude from the University of Southern California in 3 years.
It was a frightening and daunting time in my life, but it gave me resilience, perseverance, determination, and the ability to succeed against the odds.
Joshua Lozier
There’s a silver lining behind the rejection of my family. It became an opportunity to form my chosen family of LGBTQ+ individuals who had similar experiences and build a supportive, compassionate community where we accept each other exactly for who we are.
Why do you think it’s important to celebrate National Coming Out Day? It is imperative to celebrate National Coming Out Day to create visibility for future queer generations. My own story baffles me: I do not understand how a parent could condition their love on something as insignificant as their child’s sexuality in this modern day and age.
Across the country there are countless youth terrified to face the terms of their sexuality because of the violent intolerance that plagues this nation, and the only way to reach these isolated youth is with visibility. To show them a queer life is possible. That you can be gay and happy.
Joshua Lozier
National Coming Out Day is necessary to inspire the future generations of queer people to live their authentic lives. Visibility is the greatest power we have against those wishing to suppress our right to love.
What do you wish the greater community understood about this day or about life in the LGBTQ+ community at Emory? This day isn’t just about being out and proud. It’s about inspiring the future generations of queer youth to live authentically. And it serves as a reminder to allies that queer people are here, have been here, and will be here.
How has belonging to the LGBTQ+ community influenced your career goals? Because of my own history, it has been important to me to champion LGBTQ+ advocacy in my career. I was lucky enough to clerk for the Honorable Judge Mike Jacobs of the Dekalb County State Court of Georgia. Judge Jacobs is the first, openly-bisexual judge to be elected to any bench in the United States. Likewise, I worked part-time through my law degree at a boutique employment law firm, Buckley Bala Wilson Mew LLP. This is the team that brought Bostock v. Clayton County to the U.S. Supreme Court, the case that achieved Equal Protection for LGBTQ+ people in the workplace under Title IX. My track record of LGBTQ+ supporting organizations is fierce. I look forward to continuing to work alongside teams that champion the LGBTQ+ community.
How to be a Better Ally
As Scanlon is quick to emphasize, allyship is critical to the LGBTQ+ movement. “This is a completely intersectional community with diversity that spans gender, race, income, professional background, and religion,” he says. “I think it’s massively important to stress that National Coming Out Day works best when other communities show up to be allies.”
What are some possible ways to show support if someone elects to reveal this important information to you?
According to McMurray, “These moments of vulnerability should always center on the person who has shared a piece of their identity. Honor and acknowledge the trust that they’ve placed in you without over emphasizing your thoughts or feelings.”
‘Coming out’ doesn’t happen once; it’s a repeated experience – I come out every time I make new friends and each time I’ve come out, feeling supported in the ways I mentioned above gives me the courage to keep doing so.
Maddie McMurray
And if you’re seeking more clarity, there are ways to lighten the teaching load of the people within the LGBTQ+ community by doing some homework on your own.
“If you’re unfamiliar with a term, experience, or want to learn more, don’t worry. There are tons of resources by LGBTQIA+ advocates and organizations you can use to educate yourself,” says McMurray.
Scanlon offers some affirming sentiments that might be helpful to hear in the moment.
“If someone chooses to come out to you as an ally, listen and thank them for sharing the news. Celebrate the courage and reflection they needed to take to get to this point. Encourage them that this doesn’t change who you see them as. Instead, it gives you the chance to see and love even more of them.”
Growth at Goizueta: How to Get Involved
Goizueta promotes LGBTQ+ leadership through workshops, events, and student organizations like the Goizueta Pride Alliance.
A key event is the partnership with Reaching Out MBA (ROMBA), which connects LGBTQ+ MBA students nationwide and hosts workshops and forums where students exchange information on programs, marketing strategies, roadblocks, and community projects. Goizueta had the honor of hosting ROMBA this past April.
Another way to become involved is to participate in this year’s “Read Watch Listen Experience Learn” program. Formerly known as “Common Read,” this program provides a forum for self-education and a welcoming space for honest dialogue for those seeking to be allies of marginalized communities. This year centers on Curtis Chin’s memoir, “Everything I Learned I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant.” The book recounts the author’s experiences growing up as a gay Chinese American in 1980s Detroit. Interested participants who may be unable to commit time to read the book are welcome to engage by viewing or listening to any of their selected accompanying podcasts and videos related to the book’s themes.
The wider Emory community offers a plethora ways to get involved, including the Emory Pride Employee Network (EPEN). Click here to see a list of ways to celebrate LGBT History Month across Emory.
In the meantime, let us continue to build an ecosystem where everyone feels empowered to be authentic. When people bring their whole selves to the table, it grants those around them permission to do the same.
At Goizueta, diversity is a commitment to nurture and challenge the unique perspectives that will shape the future of business. It’s a commitment to innovate in traditional fields and embrace emerging insights. It is the foundation of our intentions and actions. It is one of the core values by which we lead. Learn more.
