I'm Aaid That I'm Gay | Psychology Today

Contents:

• HOW TO COPE WHEN YOU'RE GAY AND LONELY
• I'M AAID THAT I'M GAY
• GAYS SRED OF SEX
• HOW TO ACCEPT THAT YOU ARE GAY
• HUNTED - GAY AND AAID
• THE WEEK TV: WNS; THE UGLY FACE OF DISABILY HATE CRIME; DISPATCH: HUNTED: GAY AND AAID
• JACKSONVILLE JAGUARS ASSISTANT ACH KEV MAXEN OUT AS OPENLY GAY: I WANT TO LIVE AND NOT BE AAID

HOW TO COPE WHEN YOU'RE GAY AND LONELY

Part of realizg you're gay, or bi, or trans, or non-bary, or anythg other than cisgenr and heterosexual is acceptg you’re different—and somewhat separated—om the majory. Here he shar his journey to overe the sense of isolatn he felt growg up gay a small U.

I'M AAID THAT I'M GAY

At the time, there were no real gay role mols except for Graham Norton and Jack om Dawson's Creek—and I certaly didn't intify wh him bee I wasn't a football player. I felt like I was pletely on my rried on until I was 16, when I started gog out to gay bars my hometown. I ma one gay iend, who I'm actually close to now.

For the first time I've been able to form a good group of gay iends and create my own support work. I'd go on gay chatrooms but that was jt a facels nversatn wh someone who uld have been anyone.

GAYS SRED OF SEX

I thk if I'd had iends who were gay when I was growg up, my life would have been so different. I now know there were other kids at my school who were gay, but they didn't e out till much later.

14 Ways To Defeat Your Fears of Beg Gay. There are many gay men who say "I'm not part of the scene" -- men who hate gay bars and, prumably, crowds of queer people general. Internalized homophobia -- self-shamg, self-hatred -- leads many gay men, and many queer people general, to recreate their closets long after they're "out" by shunng others, particularly those they nsir "flamboyant.

HOW TO ACCEPT THAT YOU ARE GAY

" Y, there are some good reasons to rce your participatn gay bars (time, money, health). But you mt spend time wh others, whether that means havg a group of gay movie iends or queer gamers or playg on a gay sports team.

Go to gay bars, even if they make you unfortable. Fd gay iends. This parable piece by lbian wrer Sarah Prager go through the lp of great gays who changed the world -- om ventor Alan Turg to Tchaikovsky, the poser, to the Renaissance pater and ventor Leonardo da Vci.

AIDS vastated muni of gay men and transgenr women, particularly gay men and trans women of lor. Read the numbers: In four years, more than 5, 596 people the Uned Stat had died of AIDS, many of them gay men and transgenr women.

HUNTED - GAY AND AAID

But if I hadn't experienced all that adversy, I wouldn't be so furly proud to be gay.

THE WEEK TV: WNS; THE UGLY FACE OF DISABILY HATE CRIME; DISPATCH: HUNTED: GAY AND AAID

Fd a gay elr who's been where you are and r for your well-beg, someone who unrstands you and never pass judgment, someone who lets you make the mistak you need to make.

JACKSONVILLE JAGUARS ASSISTANT ACH KEV MAXEN OUT AS OPENLY GAY: I WANT TO LIVE AND NOT BE AAID

Tmp has repeatedly attacked transgenr servicemembers, and gay men are still beg hunted and murred Chechnya. Are you gay or bisexual?

There would be no ternalized self-hatred if no one had ever told you that beg gay is wrong, or that gay sex is disgtg, or that gay men n't feel real love, or that beg transgenr is fake, or that beg nonbary is a mental illns or a ll for attentn. If you thk a word like "gay" or "queer" works for you right now (aga, don't have to work for you forever -- labels do not e wh lifetime ntracts) and you're not ready to tell everyone, simply say out loud to yourself.

Cred: Getty ImagHomophob should nsir a ltle self-reflectn, suggts a new study fdg those dividuals who are most hostile toward gays and hold strong anti-gay views may themselv have same-sex sir, albe unrver on.