> Small towns don't operate like high school locker rooms. On the one hand we have endless accounts of people deathly afraid of coming out, even to families th

> Small towns don't operate like high school locker rooms. On the one hand we have endless accounts of people deathly afraid of coming out, even to families that "know them personally" (and grave consequences in cases where the truth inadvertently comes to light), even when the larger community/law explicitly protects them. On the other we have your vague assertion that it'll be all right. I doubt "just get to know the other" works outside of specific constraints that are absent from most "organic" threats to the local orthodoxy.