Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.52685/cjp.26.77.4
In Defence of the Right to Out Others
Miloš Kovačević
; University of Belgrade, Belgrade, Serbia
Abstract
Unlike visible, stigmatised personal characteristics, sexual orientation can be relatively successfully hidden. By staying in the closet, many queer people manage to minimise stigmatisation. 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 stigmatisation 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 conspicu- ous 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 pre- vents others from obtaining information about one’s sexual orientation through legal means and from disseminating such information if it is not conditioned on confidentiality.
Keywords
Privacy; collective action; intergroup contact; sexuality; outing.
Hrčak ID:
347240
URI
Publication date:
19.5.2026.
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