"I had all these reasons, it was unfair that only gay people had to come out, I was sick of change, but the truth is, I was just scared." — Simon Spier
It's an imperfect statement by a child who is venting his frustration at something everyone in the LGBTQ+ community shares. I will note that trans people have to come out, and many trans people are straight. But Simon is not wrong in his sentiment. The idea that cisgender and heterosexual are the defaults by which everyone else must abide is not at all the reality. These are systemic, basic assumptions about the incredibly complex biological and psychological diversity that exists in humanity. The "default" is based on a constructed societal expectation and historical power structures, instead of actual human experience.
But Simon does capture the weariness we all feel over the invisible labor it takes to exist in society. The human experience is complex, yet people are still forced to navigate a world built on a template that fits only a fraction of the actual human story. This movie takes these elaborate ideas and boils them down to a single teenager's ideas of how he should be treated, rather than how the world would have him be treated.
I loved this movie for its simplicity of forward motion, its enabling of a larger conversation. I loved this movie for its happy ending, allowing us to infer a happily ever after.
