Coming out as LGBT can mean a million different things: from telling your parents to announcing your relationship at work to embarking on the process of gender transition.
And if anyone on the internet has mastered the art of the coming-out story, it’s Reddit users. Reddit’s boards—like /r/lgbt, /r/actuallesbians, and a dozen different transgender topic boards from /r/ftm to /r/transpassing—are overflowing with LGBT chatter.
So Reddit is harvesting this ripe field of reflection for a special pride month episode of its podcast Upvoted, which digs deeper into some of the more remarkable stories members have shared. On June 2, a Reddit admin posted a call for coming-out tales, and over the course of three days, a few dozen redditors recorded and sent in submissions.
“They range from the silly to the heartbreaking,” said Vickie Chang, Reddit’s editorial director, in an email to the Daily Dot. “We’re still digging through submissions, and I personally really love the ones that are like, ‘Hey, Dad. I’m gay.’ Dad: ‘Cool, did you take out the trash today?’”
Reddit boards are frequently used as a sort of testing ground by young or emerging LGBT redditors. With 29 million views of LGBT boards in the past month alone, it’s common to find redditors posting questions like “Am I a lesbian?” and “How do I come out [as mtf]?” In Upvoted’s first season, “From Swole of Body to Swole at Heart” shared the story of a weightlifter who came out as transgender via the /r/swoleacceptance bodybuilding board.
“We love that Reddit offers a home for everyone to share their unique perspectives and takes,” said Chang. “With Upvoted, we want to magnify Reddit and how millions of Redditors use it as a megaphone or therapist to share their stories and connect with others.”
Lately, Reddit has been taking its engagement with the LGBT community to the next level, covering RuPaul’s DragCon 2016 in April and committing to banning subreddits with homophobic, fat-shaming, or otherwise offensive language like the controversial /r/neofag.
Chang said the pride episode would be available sometime this week on the podcast’s Soundcloud and iTunes pages. It even features coming-out stories from a couple of Reddit employees.
“We really believe that it’s a direct reflection of the diversity of both the Reddit and LGBT communities,” Chang said.
