Is Geek the New Gay?

Over the weekend I played Dungeons and Dragons with my friends and had the following conversation:

Him: ...so when I was in England all the shops had these cool little fairy fossils. (Laughs) It would be so funny to see you put something like that in your office!
Me: Are you kidding? My boss bought me a Fairy Swatter, so I have all these static decal squashed fairies on the office window with the swatter hanging next to them.

He looks at me like I'm crazy. I'm not just "out" as a geek, I'm "out" to my boss. It was obvious he couldn't fathom such brazen behavior.

It's not the first time for this kind of conversation, either. At a conference just last year one of the other attendees noticed that I wear a dragon pendant. "It's just so awesome you can be open about it like that," she confided. "I love dragons. My favorite book ever is DragonLance. But I could never wear something like that." I nodded understanding and she continued wistfully. "I collect dragons and it's nice because my fiance puts up with that side of me..."

Is it really such a big deal to be a geek? There is obviously a strong seam of geekery running through our society. Look at the highest earning movies of all time. Look at the sales of speculative fiction. Look at the fact that gaming has it's own entire industry. It's time to come out of the game room, people.