Steven LaChance Blog

There may come a time when the rights of LGBTQ+ Americans are pushed so far backwards that silence is no longer an option. When that day arrives it will not be corporate policy changes or legal filings that shake the political landscape. It will be people. Ordinary citizens who have lived quietly with extraordinary truths. Secrets that would no longer be able to be kept.

For decades the corridors of power have echoed with voices condemning the very lives they live in private. Some of the most strident opponents of equality have hidden behind marriages, pulpits, and podiums while leading secret lives that contradict every public statement they have made. It has always been an open secret whispered in safe spaces, joked about in bars, and known by those who have seen it with their own eyes.

Up until now most have kept quiet. Out of respect. Out of fear. Out of a sense that private lives should remain private. But there is a tipping point, a moment when the personal becomes political in the most literal way possible. When laws threaten to strip away basic human dignity the hypocrisy can no longer be politely ignored.

Imagine a day when those who have lived in the shadow of someone’s double life finally step into the light. Not out of malice but out of necessity. A day when hundreds of personal stories surface, each one a firsthand account that peels away the public mask to reveal the truth beneath. Not rumor. Not speculation. Testimony. Truth.

The impact would be seismic. Overnight the conversation would change. It would no longer be only about the legality of marriage or adoption or employment protections. It would be about trust. About the integrity of leaders who legislate one way and live another. About the cruelty of building a career on the suffering of your own community.

No app could do it. The legality would be too risky. No corporation could sanction it. This would have to come from the people themselves, those who decide that the greater betrayal is not speaking up.

And maybe if that day comes the history books will remember it as the moment the closet door did not just crack open. It was kicked off its hinges.