How you can help someone come out of the closet?

I usually just scan through the daily newspaper for the happenings around the world. One such article caught my attention and what better way to talk about it than putting it down here!!
Helping someone handle a situation or an experience in life is different. Helping someone come out of closet can be a completely different thing. It needs a lot of patience, counselling and communication. Coming out of the closet is a process, its not a day thing that can be achieved overnight. However, you need to be on the look out for symptoms before the person begins to start feel secluded or declined.
Here is what you can do to help someone, who wants to come out of their closet.
Help them accept their sexuality – A person’s sexual preferences can affect them forever. If a person is confused about his/her sexuality, you need to help them accept it the way it is and have a non-judgmental conversation with them. Once they have accepted who they are, keeping aside all social fears, it will be easy for them to repeat the process for again.
Pressurize others not them – If there is someone you need to pressurize it has to be the society, family and friends to accept a LGBTQ person, you cannot pressurize a person to come out of the closet. It’s a process that needs a lot of in-depth thinking and acceptance.
Not everyone will be as accepting as you are – A LGBT person will always have some sort of fear for who they are and not everyone will be as accepting as you are. You will have to be optimistic always for them. The best that you can do is to not question their decision. You need to understand that its going to be a long road and journey for them and you.
Don’t generalize them – I once had a colleague who was gay and who I am still in touch with. Someone happened to tell him, “I love gay people”, Woah!! well they meant well but what was that suppose to mean. Not all gay people like bling and pink. There are extremely talented people out there and you cannot generalize them into a certain category just because they are gay or lesbian. Respect their individuality.
Give your full support and don’t be insensitive – Once you decide to extend support towards someone who wants to come out of the closet, that support has to be unconditional, non-judgmental minus negative sarcasm. As much as you want to stand up for them, you have to help them speak for themselves and explore their opportunities on their own.

There is always a lot that can be spoken about any given subject.The best and the easiest thing we can do is to continue being ourselves. Once they are sure of who they are and who they want to be, your role is to be a friend, a rock solid trustworthy friend.