On Vulnerability, Coming out and Hiding

Abstract

This essay is a call for action to support those experiencing hidden vulnerability in academic life. My experience as a gay man, who is often presumed to be straight, has shown me that people can experience unrecognized vulnerability when their differences or difficulties are not obvious to others. To respond to the issue of hidden vulnerability, I advocate (i) encouraging vulnerable people to craft spaces for visibility, (ii) encouraging others to form a community of care that disrupts the silences that otherwise leave hidden vulnerabilities unresolved, and (iii) mobilizing university leadership teams to transform institutional policies. In making this call, I distinguish hidden vulnerability, and the particular problems that it brings, from deliberate vulnerability to support personal growth. Deciding to be more open to others in the context of our work, even though that can leave us feeling exposed, can lead to important opportunities for learning and self-development. But choosing to accept vulnerability with the intention of learning is radically different to feeling vulnerable without any choice or hope of benefit (Brown, 2022).

You cannot necessarily see the unchosen vulnerabilities that people experience, and some people encounter vulnerability in ways that are invisible to others with different back-stories from theirs. As a gay man from an economically and socially deprived background, seeking to navigate elite academic circles where most faculty members’ stories have more nourishing roots than mine, hidden vulnerability has had a personal impact on me. Realizing the ways that I have experienced and responded to hidden vulnerability moves me to consider others who have experienced it in different ways. For example, neurodiversity, mental health concerns, precarity, dyslexia, menopause and many other personal situations can all be a source of hidden vulnerability. We need to develop better awareness and support for the vulnerabilities that others may be carrying silently, while we are oblivious to their struggles, and a climate of openness in which we feel more secure in sharing aspects of ourselves that would otherwise go unrecognized.

Through individual contributions to a climate of mutual support, community building and institutional policy developments, we can support processes that manifest and mitigate the kinds of vulnerability that are likely to be present in every context of interaction, including those that would otherwise be hidden. By doing so we will alleviate a form of everyday suffering through personal, community and above all institutional changes. Overall, these actions can create a climate of openness in which those of us who are vulnerable get to be present as our full and integrated selves for more of the time, rather than leaving some parts of ourselves in the closet, reserved for occasional events. I am determined to do this myself, so here I am: coming out again.