Contents:
- OVERG THE SHAME OF BEG GAY
- I’M A GAY MAN. HERE’S WHY I DON’T CELEBRATE PRI MONTH
- HOW TO KNOW IF YOU ARE GAY
- WHY I'M NOT PROUD OF BEG GAY
OVERG THE SHAME OF BEG GAY
Bee of society's expectatns that everyone should live a bary world, I envisned that havg a gay child uld be looked upon as a stigma. Acrdg to psychiatrist Jonathan Tobk, -thor of my book, When Your Child Is Gay, "guilt tends to be limed to an actn that we have taken or not taken, whereas shame is a pervasive negative emotn about how we feel overall. Once ashamed of havg a gay son, now Dorothy refers gay people the muny to her ntal office, where she is a ntal hygienist.
"Gay and lbian children should not only get the msage that they are loved, but also that they are not damaged or ls than.
If you are worried about how others will treat you bee you have a gay child, you need to reexame the nature and strength of your relatnship the same way you would tell your child to do if one of her iends sudnly rejected her upon fdg out she was gay. I foc on keepg eye ntact wh objects the distance but then the thoughts pop so quickly…Don’t look gayCan they see if I am gay? I also have ught myself on very few ocsns when I was younger (not so much now thankfully) when tellg someone ‘I am gay’ I would say a quieter tone so as not to draw attentn.
I’M A GAY MAN. HERE’S WHY I DON’T CELEBRATE PRI MONTH
I was not fortable my own sk as I do not I thk I have fully accepted who I am, a gay man livg this world. So om then on I answered hontly and tell them before they asked me that y, I was datg this great guy and the embarrassed feelgs would subsi and I would feel more a kid growg up Mayo the early 1980’s I heard the term gay beg ed but always a negative manner. I knew om a very early age I was gay so my earlit beliefs of myself were negative, shameful, disgtg and then my anxiety and shyns veloped.
Then I started Irish dancg wh the rt of the kids, all the lads hated , I loved , I was really good at but I felt embarrassed, look at the gay boy Irish dancg. I stopped somethg I loved so that I uld f by pretendg to like thgs I hated other kids still picked up on my gayns, my differenc.
I never talked about girls, didn’t follow an English football team, talked more to girls as I felt more relaxed around them as they were not llg me gay, queer, homo, well at the begng they didn’t. I looked like the other guys but I was different, I was gay, I stood out to them and they hated me. Even up to my early 20’s as I spoke to people about beg gay I would say if someone offered me a tablet to be straight I would take two so I uld be like the rt of the lads out there, to f , to fa to the background, to be one of the mak me feel ls than, not good enough, not handsome enough, not smart enough.
HOW TO KNOW IF YOU ARE GAY
I thank God today for makg me the person I am now, I was meant to be a gay man livg this betiful yet plex world and now I am embracg my differenc, my quirks, the quali that make me who I am. I am really startg to love the person I am right now who happens to be gay and I am lettg those old feelgs of shame that hnted me go forever. That was not my young person out there who is gay and is havg issu wh this please be strong, there is nothg wrong wh you.
I know right now you might thk this is so huge but you have so many other great quali that make you who you are and beg gay is jt one of someone did have a tablet that uld turn me om gay to straight, I would take that tablet and flg so damn far away.
WHY I'M NOT PROUD OF BEG GAY
I love who I am, I love that I am gay man livg my life and I love that now my differenc that I hated so much as a kid are now beg rpected, rejoiced and accepted.
This is an article for another day, but so many of ternalise this shame when we never we n be is te to ourselv, rpect others and most importantly rpect and love ourselv, and then we n make posive chang this betiful yet plex world of rmatn BeLonG To is the natnal anisatn for Lbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgenred (LGBT) young people, aged between 14 and 23 – Contact for more you need help please talk to iends, fay, a GP, therapist or one of the ee nfintial helple servic. Then he said he remembered me and heard me sayg that I didn’t want to touch and he mimicked me and ed a high pch voice which I kd of have, but not as high as other stereotypil gay guys. Why did he have to do that to me ont of my fay who probably already knows I’m gay and is tryg to say slightly homophobic remarks lately?!
Rich: Jane Ward’s 2015 book Not Gay kicked off a lot of disurse about “straight” guys who engage “gay” sex, and I thk did a real disservice to nuance by beg totally crlo of self-labelg.