Self-loathg among gay people is nothg new. We’re overwhelmed by | Matthew Todd | The Guardian

Contents:

• I LIKE GUYS BUT I DON’T WANT TO BE GAY. HOW DO I STOP BEG GAY?
• SELF-LOATHG AMONG GAY PEOPLE IS NOTHG NEW. WE’RE OVERWHELMED BY
• ARE HOMOPHOB REALLY GAY?
• 25 THGS I HATE ABOUT BEG A GAY MAN
• OVERG THE SHAME OF BEG GAY

I LIKE GUYS BUT I DON’T WANT TO BE GAY. HOW DO I STOP BEG GAY?

I like guys but I don’t want to be gay. How do I stop beg gay? You don’t need to be certa you are gay before talkg to someone or attendg an LGBTQ+ meetg.

SELF-LOATHG AMONG GAY PEOPLE IS NOTHG NEW. WE’RE OVERWHELMED BY

I am a gay male. I have been out nearly 7 years now (age 16, sophomore year of HS).

That week I told my iends and fay I was gay.

It is very homogeneo/ hetero-normative and beg a tholic stutn is not the easit environment for queer stunts. If Ethan Stabl, the 20-year-old man nvicted on Monday of planng to kill atten of a lol gay pri event Cumbria, was really bisexual as he claimed urt, why would he want to hurt other LGBT people?

ARE HOMOPHOB REALLY GAY?

Sadly he wouldn’t be the gay people know the most homophobic school bully often pops up the lol gay bar a few years later, but there are wir exampl: Hollywood agents who bar clients om g out, historil figur such as Senator McCarthy’s anti-gay lawyer Roy Cohn, who mataed till the end that the Aids-related illns that killed him was liver ncer, the untls homophobic policians ught wh male rts. Omar Mateen, who mted Ameri’s most adly homophobic attack at the Pulse nightclub Orlando, Florida 2016, pledged his allegiance to Isis but was also alleged to have ma sexual advanc towards men. We all grow up hearg homo- and transphobia, and, as I say my book Straight Jacket, LGBT kids aren’t given magil earplugs.

This should be ont-page people are not the only on to suffer such shame, but experts, both gay and straight, agree that gay kids are overwhelmed wh .

Many bury their feelgs, hopg they’ll go away, some psychologilly “spl”, like the heterosexually married men who believe anonymo ter hook-ups don’t unt as gay if they happen secret. Jt this week I met a young man who told me he hated gay pri, hated effemate men but ccially was tryg to work through the feelgs by talkg about them. The gay muny don’t talk about this enough, and when we do ’s often wh judgment.

25 THGS I HATE ABOUT BEG A GAY MAN

Perhaps like former notor 1980s neo-Nazi street fighter Nicky Crane, who also eventually me out as gay.

Talkg about gay shame and self-loathg is not easy. It fli the face of the msage of gay pri that has domated the gay rights movement of the last 50 years.

OVERG THE SHAME OF BEG GAY

Jt last month, the 38-year-old prenter of the Disvery Channel’s Storm Chaser programme, Joel Taylor, died om a GHB overdose on an Atlantis gay cise.

I was 11 when I realised I was gay and I uld not pe.

But seems perhaps the gay rights movement has been ught nappg, too. So much foc has been on changg laws and enuragg footballers to e out or on promotg sexual eedom – all important thgs – that we’ve missed the huge ground-level sufferg of those stgglg wh the legacy of society’s gay shame, right unr our may not f the narrative we wish to promote but there are huge numbers of people gettg themselv to ser suatns whout enough support. Hontly, sometim i wake up and absolutely hate myself for beg gay.