I’ve intified as gay for years. Not anymore. - The Johns Hopks News-Letter

Contents:

• "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
• I WAS MARRIED WH 2 KIDS WHEN I REALIZED I’M GAY
• HOW DO I KNOW IF I AM GAY? SIGNS YOU ARE GAY
• 7 PEOPLE SHARE THE MOMENT THEY REALIZED THEY WERE GAY
• I ASKED GUYS WHEN THEY FIRST KNEW THEY WERE GAY
• 20 MOMENTS WHEN GAY PEOPLE REALIZED "YUP, I'M AS QUEER AS THE DAY IS LONG"
• HOW TO ACCEPT THAT YOU ARE GAY
• I’VE INTIFIED AS GAY FOR YEARS. NOT ANYMORE.
• WHAT IF YOU ONLY THOUGHT YOU WERE GAY?
• AM I GAY?
• WHEN DID YOU REALIZE YOU WERE GAY?

"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

When I found out earlier this month, along wh the rt of the world, that one of my favore actors, Kal Penn, is a fellow gay man and now engaged to his long-time partner, I was so happy that he was openly livg his tth. "I realized I was gay last year, after 36 years durg the lockdown. After seeg a gay guy I uld see myself , I started to qutn myself more.

I me out as bisexual at 44 after my stepson me out as gay at 11 years old. "I moved to Ireland jt before the referendum that legalized gay marriage.

Once the untry around me changed and I started seeg more gays the muny, felt safer, and I felt more fortable to e out.

I WAS MARRIED WH 2 KIDS WHEN I REALIZED I’M GAY

Part of me felt rponsible for her ath, as if beg bi or gay and my feelgs of regret somehow ed .

HOW DO I KNOW IF I AM GAY? SIGNS YOU ARE GAY

I also realized that the label of ‘gay’ ma more sense for me than ‘bi. But when I moved to California and saw more gay people, then I really started to realize .

I gus that's the pot I f the fn of 'gay' rather than bi. I have a lot of stori about folks who were homophobic but me around to acceptg me and honorg me for beg a gay man, once they got to know me beyond what I do bed.

In the meantime, I kept watchg gay porn but wouldn't accept and felt guilty after jerkg off to . I me out to my wife many moons ago but took a long time to realize that prayg the gay away wasn’t workg. I’m a good place right now and share my home wh gay iends, as well as adult children.

7 PEOPLE SHARE THE MOMENT THEY REALIZED THEY WERE GAY

"I fally started serly qutng my early 40s and quickly realized I was gay.

I ASKED GUYS WHEN THEY FIRST KNEW THEY WERE GAY

Pl the ‘80s was not a particularly good time to be gay — I thk fear of AIDS was possibly one thg that had me nial.

I wonr if I'd accepted I'm gay when I was 20, if thgs would have been much different. After spendg years dog all the manly thgs that were supposed to straighten me out, I had a particular weekend — a men-only whewater raftg trip — when I realized I did all the thgs I was aimg for that were supposed to change me, and I was still 100% gay.

20 MOMENTS WHEN GAY PEOPLE REALIZED "YUP, I'M AS QUEER AS THE DAY IS LONG"

Once I knew the gay wasn't gog anywhere, I figured I wanted to be open and hont wh people om then on, regardls of how the rt of my life went. The last thg, you wanted to be was gay, at least my md.

Eventually, after a lot of booze and tears, I fally admted I was gay. So my iend got me to talk to other gay guys and try and accept myself. I'm learng that beg gay is normal and not really a big al.

In Lat Ameri and my untry of Venezuela, beg gay is associated wh beg ls of a person. When I was a kid, I went through all the dumb pre-ter gay kid thgs like lgerg the JCPenny's men’s unrwear sectn.

HOW TO ACCEPT THAT YOU ARE GAY

I e om a strict Irish tholic fay, so any of my mannerisms or actns that were ‘too gay’ were discsed by my fay.

Grad school was the first time I was around people who seemed to genuely not re or treat people different bee they were gay. But as the years passed, I realized I was fely gay.

When I rennected wh my bt childhood iend who me out to me as bi, I was spired and told him I was gay.

I’VE INTIFIED AS GAY FOR YEARS. NOT ANYMORE.

Growg up was the whole ‘relig upbrgg/ternalized homophobia’ dance: I liked gay porn, but uldn't adm to myself I was gay. At that pot beme important to e out as the gay man I've always been. My wife and I are gog to unselg together to work through thgs and while ‘’ has a shelf life, I'm foced on figurg out what beg gay means to me.

"At around 28 years old, I had a cent grasp that I'm overwhelmgly gay, wh some rare and specific attractn towards women.

After a few months of experiencg very novel and tense sexual feelgs, I overme my fear of masturbatn and started dog to var kds of straight and gay porn. After the divorce, I me out to my close fay and iends and started my journey of figurg out how to be gay.

WHAT IF YOU ONLY THOUGHT YOU WERE GAY?

Tellg my therapist I'm gay and utterg that simple word changed somethg me. But I uldn't open the door even an ch to the ia that I was homosexual.

And thanks to r/AskGayBrosOver30 for creatg a space for queer men to be vulnerable and empathize wh each other. There’s a price of admissn for g out as gay later life. I kept wag for the moment where I would realize I was no longer gay so I uld put a halt to everythg.

AM I GAY?

I was nsumed by the p my stomach – the shame of endg my marriage bee I was gay was like luggg a sandbag over my shoulrs and havg a rock my stomach at the same time.

I wasn’t sure how to tell my nservative, Geia-born and bred parents that their former pageant queen dghter was endg her marriage bee she is gay. I wasn’t brave enough to actually say the words – the label of beg gay or a lbian was too much for my soul to bear at the time – so I sent her a text msage, “I am not straight.

WHEN DID YOU REALIZE YOU WERE GAY?

Democratic printial ndidate Pete Buttigieg – who, like me, is his late 30s and, like me, me out publicly jt a few years ago – put this way: “It’s hard to face the tth that there were tim my life when, if you had shown me exactly what was si me that ma me gay, I would have cut out wh a knife. There was such a big part of me that did not want to be gay. I thk you’d be hard-prsed to fd a gay person over the age of 30 who hasn’t felt this way.

Particularly when young, some people may ask, "How do I know if I am gay? When down to , there is no reliable "Am I Gay tt", so the only way to know that you are gay (fn of gay) is to look wh yourself to terme your own thoughts and feelgs towards others of the same sex. You might also want to nsir the possibily that you are neher gay nor straight and are bisexual or jt cur.

There are also signs that you might be gay to nsir. There is no one way that gay people act or look – gay people are jt as diverse as straight people. Jt bee you are a man who is effemate or a woman who is boyish, that do not mean that you're necsarily gay.