The Epimic of Gay Lonels - The Huffgton Post

Contents:

• WOMAN RELLS BEG HELD AGAST HER WILL DURG GAY CONVERSN THERAPY AS TEEN: 'I WANTED TO DIE'
• GAY RELATNSHIP BREAKUP CAN BE PROBLEMATIC. HERE’S HOW TO AVOID THE RISKS
• "I REALIZED I WAS GAY": MEN WHO CAME OUT LATER IN LIFE ARE SHARG WHAT IT WAS LIKE FOR THEM TO REVEAL THAT TTH AND LIVE AUTHENTILLY
• ‘HE BROKE MY HEART TO A BILLN PIEC’: WHEN A STRAIGHT WOMAN FALLS LOVE WH A GAY MAN

WOMAN RELLS BEG HELD AGAST HER WILL DURG GAY CONVERSN THERAPY AS TEEN: 'I WANTED TO DIE'

The teen, who was raised Mormon, didn’t plan on tellg her parents that she was gay jt yet, but the obv mark on her neck forced the nversatn. “I didn’t f to the relign beg gay, but I didn’t expect my parents’ reactn to be as drastic as was.

She quickly learned that her parents were forcg her to gay nversn therapy. She says she would also receive beatgs and was forced to wear a backpack filled wh rocks “to feel the physil burn of beg gay.

GAY RELATNSHIP BREAKUP CAN BE PROBLEMATIC. HERE’S HOW TO AVOID THE RISKS

“He was also the print of the gay-straight alliance and he put me touch wh Salt Lake Cy attorney Pl Burke, ” she says. A judge allowed her to go home, but orred her parents to allow her to date girls, attend danc and jo her school’s gay-straight alliance.

“The ia that homosexualy needs to be cured or fixed the first place is misreprentatn, ” says Stt McCoy of the Southern Poverty Law Center.

For years I’ve noticed the divergence between my straight iends and my gay iends. In our lifetime, the gay muny has ma more progrs on legal and social acceptance than any other mographic group history. As recently as my own adolcence, gay marriage was a distant aspiratn, somethg newspapers still put sre quot.

"I REALIZED I WAS GAY": MEN WHO CAME OUT LATER IN LIFE ARE SHARG WHAT IT WAS LIKE FOR THEM TO REVEAL THAT TTH AND LIVE AUTHENTILLY

Public support for gay marriage has climbed om 27 percent 1996 to 61 percent 2016.

” Gay characters the days are so monplace they’re even allowed to have flaws.

Still, even as we celebrate the sle and speed of this change, the rat of prsn, lonels and substance abe the gay muny rema stuck the same place they’ve been for s. Gay people are now, pendg on the study, between 2 and 10 tim more likely than straight people to take their own liv. In a survey of gay men who recently arrived New York Cy, three-quarters suffered om anxiety or prsn, abed dgs or alhol or were havg risky sex—or some batn of the three.

‘HE BROKE MY HEART TO A BILLN PIEC’: WHEN A STRAIGHT WOMAN FALLS LOVE WH A GAY MAN

Dpe all the talk of our “chosen fai, ” gay men have fewer close iends than straight people or gay women. I’m a perpetually sgle gay guy who was raised a bright blue cy by PFLAG parents.

“Marriage equaly and the chang legal stat were an improvement for some gay men, ” says Christopher Stults, a rearcher at New York Universy who studi the differenc mental health between gay and straight men.

In the Netherlands, where gay marriage has been legal sce 2001, gay men rema three tim more likely to suffer om a mood disorr than straight men, and 10 tim more likely to engage “suicidal self-harm.