In Defense of Beg Borg and Gay | Time

Contents:

• HOW TO COPE WHEN YOU'RE GAY AND LONELY
• IN DEFENSE OF BEG BORG AND GAY
• WHAT I LEARNED ABOUT MYSELF AFTER YEARS OF FALLG FOR GAY MEN
• AM I GAY?
• I’M SOOO BORED OF BEG GAY
• AM I GAY? QUIZ – 100% RELIABLE TT

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.

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.

IN DEFENSE OF BEG BORG AND GAY

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. I thk if I'd had iends who were gay when I was growg up, my life would have been so different.

WHAT I LEARNED ABOUT MYSELF AFTER YEARS OF FALLG FOR GAY MEN

I now know there were other kids at my school who were gay, but they didn't e out till much later.

AM I GAY?

About 10 years ago I saw John Waters give a lecture, and he said (and I’m paraphrasg here, bee was a long time ago), “Back when I was young the bt thg about beg gay was that you didn’t have to get married, have kids, or serve the ary.

Much has changed 10 years, and gay Amerins have won rights many stat (but not all, so don’t get placent). Now the fight is about somethg different: It’s a fight between lettg beg gay fe a person or be jt one more fact about them. Noted gay artist David Hockney recently told the Guardian that too many gay men now are “borg” bee they want to live “nservative” liv.

I’M SOOO BORED OF BEG GAY

But most of what Hockney is sayg has to do wh the worry that the gay inty is slippg away.

AM I GAY? QUIZ – 100% RELIABLE TT

“We live the era domated by a born-this-way, ‘’s-a-small-part-of-me’ ethos that mimiz gay difference to sexual attractn, ” he wr.

“The current dogma among mastream LGBTQ advocy anizatns and the majory of gay wrers and public figur se gayns as ltle more than a hazy accint of blogy that shouldn’t be legally or socially disadvantagg. ” Lowr is ncerned, as is Hockney, that gays are beg borg and losg that sense of shared touchston and flamboyant difference that once set them apart om the culture at large and ma them here as somethg that was like an ethnicy. Gay was as much a culture as was a sexual orientatn.

Gay kids many parts of the untry are much more accepted as they e out by iends, straight and gay, and don’t need to seek refuge wh their own kd. Frank Kameny, one of the founrs of the gay civil rights movement, told the first gay-rights prottors at the Whe Hoe that they should all wear sus or drs so that those power uld see that there was no difference between the picketers and everyday people. It’s a strategy that has worked wonrs for acceptance, makg gay people blend , and showg that there is ltle difference.