YABVU to assume talking about your sexual orientation has anything to do with talking about sex. One can date people of any gender/sex without being sexually involved with them.
I almost never announce my sexuality to my work, yet other people (often at work) continuously assume my sexuality. And of course their assumption is that I am straight. Usually I just nod and smile because I don’t feel like coming out to my boss and potentially risking my job if she happens to have a problem with me being gay, but it’s incredibly infuriating that people cannot stop assuming people are straight. And also seem to notice every time someone mentions they are Bi/gay while failing to realize how often and casually they mention they are straight and how often heteronormativity is showcased absolutely everywhere by most of the population.
For queer people mentioning they are not straight in the workplace when undoubtedly asked personal questions (even casual ones) is a minefield. Do you know how it feels to date someone and have to act like you don’t? Because you are scared that if you mention a partner they will start asking questions and you will either have to admit you are gay potentially leading to a future hostile workplace or lie and invent a male persona to your girlfriend so people don’t suspect you are gay which is horrible.
Coming out to the workplace is part of normalizing the fact that your colleagues aren’t necessarily hetero, and while I agree with you that it shouldn’t matter, trust me when I say that it does matter.
People are still dying because they are gay, lesbians are still being raped for being gay, Bi sexual folks (and specifically Bi sexual men) are still denied their identity and assumed gay and treated as Pariah by both the heterosexual and LGBTQ+ community, trans women are still being harassed and murdered for their gender identity.
In an ideal world, your colleague wouldn’t need to come out because him being Bi would be as societally accepted as him being straight. But it’s not, is it? And you not having a problem with him being Bi doesn’t mean being Bi hasn’t brought him issues and isn’t still seen as problematic in our society and isn’t deserving of awareness and proper open discussions.
Be grateful you don’t need a day to come out. Most queer people HAVE TO come out on an almost daily basis. NOT a because we want to tell everyone how gay we are but because people continuously wrongly assume we are straight so we continuously have to correct them, with the fear of potential repercussions from doing so.
If you want people to stop ever having to come out, be of those people who A- understand why people still need to come out and B- of those who ask gender-neutral questions if ever asking personal questions. The number of sentences that people use or questions people ask with the clear assumption I date men/am interested in men/ currently looking for men/potentially dating a man, is embarrassing!
And it’s annoying to have to be like “I am gay actually.” Starting a conversation then on my sexuality and how they would have “never guessed I was gay!” That trust me, I don’t want to have anymore than you do.
If people assumed whoever they talked to might be Bi, queer people wouldn’t have to come out as much and we could have very easy/casual conversation without the whole coming out thing that is absolutely not fun for us and most definitely dreaded by us (even though straight people seem to weirdly think we absolutely LOVE to tell them we are gay and can’t help it all while refusing to acknowledge why we actually have to tell them we are gay. Sigh.)