To be a gay man a straight marriage is to be disnnected om self. Let's read my iend Andrew Reid's story.
Contents:
- HOW TO COPE WHEN YOU'RE GAY AND LONELY
- THE LONELS OF BEG GAY A STRAIGHT MARRIAGE
- WHERE ARE ALL THE LONELY GAY MEN?
HOW TO COPE WHEN YOU'RE GAY AND LONELY
* being gay can be 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. 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. 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.
THE LONELS OF BEG GAY A STRAIGHT MARRIAGE
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.
WHERE ARE ALL THE LONELY GAY MEN?
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.
“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.