During my time in university, one man told the same tale every year, about how he had to come out to his parents twice: First as a lesbian and then again as a bisexual trans man. His story was often more heartbreaking than others (like the freshman woman who told us that she accidentally came out to a group of new friends when they wouldn't stop asking about her type and she finally shouted "my type is vagina!") But listening to both funny and sad stories is what made the event powerful. We laughed together, we cried together, and we healed together. And, afterward, everyone who told their story lined up behind a fabulously rainbow-painted closet door and danced their way through it. The joyful end-of-event ritual pointed to the phrase, "coming out of the closet," which is commonly used to indicate that someone has started telling people that they're gay, bisexual, transgender, or any other identity that's not 100% straight and cisgender. But how did "coming out of the closet" become such a ubiquitous phrase?