According to Larry Gross in Contested Closets (1993), “outing” actually coincides with the nineteenthcentury introduction of the homosexual and, thus, the homosexual closet.

Since then, impulses to make public that which is private (especially sexuality) are confounded by paradoxical impulses to protect those very same issues. Journalism complicates this: where is the line in issues of public and private when discussing a public figure? Reporting on a public figure’s private sexual affairs has always stirred a controversial, yet prurient, response. Throw in gay and lesbian life and either the strong arm of the closet protects the figure from scandal or, unlike his or her heterosexual counterpart, the figure’s reputation is ruined. This imbalance prompted journalist/activist Michelangelo Signorile to query the favored newsworthiness and biased protection of heterosexual affairs. Although others had “outed” previously, Signorile articulated “outing” as a complicated political gesture, making it a political tool and an art form in the gay magazine Outweek (1989–91). Signorile contends that “outing critiques and corrects the double standard in journalism on reporting on homosexuals and heterosexuals.” Furthermore, “in cases where a closeted politician is voting anti-gay in order to protect his closet, outing displays the political hypocrisy” (interview, 11/22/98).