Grow up, gays!

Contents:

• THE HEALTHY BEAR ON GROWG UP GAY
• ‘I AM GAY – BUT I WASN’T BORN THIS WAY’
• WHAT IS LIKE GROWG UP GAY?
• OLLY ALEXANR: GROWG UP GAY
• AS MAJOR BRANDS WAVER, GAY WATER AIMS FOR AUTHENTICY
• GROW UP, GAYS!

THE HEALTHY BEAR ON GROWG UP GAY

I hope that today by sharg my story might be a good way to open the door of nversatn and thoughts on what ’s like growg up gay for other people. Now this was probably not due to me actually beg gay but more to do wh my total un -ordatn and dislike wh a passn when to all thgs sport.

Through high school I had csh on guys, but sadly as many gay men n unrstand, the feelgs are forced to be supprsed and hidn due to the risk of beg outed. This plac young gay men to an almost forced “asexualy”, layg the joy and disvery of sexual exprsn until after high school when n be done whout the risk of tntg, bashg or worse. I was a relief to know that I was not “the only gay the village” and to also hear of who else was dog whom at school.

‘I AM GAY – BUT I WASN’T BORN THIS WAY’

This kd of removed my ncern about ever havg to “e out” to my parents, wh my Dad g home one night to ask me if I was “a member of the homosexual muny”.

One example was that after I told him I was ed a “member of the homosexual muny” his next qutn was, “how long have you been HIV posive? It took a long time and Dad had many a discsn wh close iends, but over time he’s learned a lot about havg a gay son.

One gay high school stunt disclosed to me that on average he hears more than twenty homophobic remarks a day. For me now as an olr gay man, I often wish there was some way to help offer support for younger gay people as they go through footsteps siar to those I experienced. Here were thoands of vios created by people like myself sharg wh gay youth that y ed, life do get better, and perhaps even more powerful.

WHAT IS LIKE GROWG UP GAY?

It would be awome to create a special page on this se jt filled wh vios of posive affirmatns that ed life is pretty awome to share wh our fellow gay generatns. You so obvly nnot be gay, was her implitn, bee this is good was 2006, a full five years before Lady Gaga would set the Born This Way argument atop s unassailable cultural perch, but even then the popular unrstandg of orientatn was that was somethg you were born wh, somethg you uldn’t change. I me out at a nservative Christian llege the US and was a gay relatnship for around two years wh a basketball player who end up marryg a woman.

Well, you mt have been gay the whole time, some might thk, and bee of some relig shame, you cid to lie to yourself and experiment wh a girl.

But what feels most accurate to say is that I’m gay – but I wasn’t born this people may fd their sir changg directn - and n't jt be explaed as experimentatn (Cred: Ignac Lehmann)In 1977, jt over 10% of Amerins thought gayns was somethg you were born wh, acrdg to Gallup. Throughout the same perd, the number of Amerins who believe homosexualy is “due to someone’s upbrgg/environment” fell om jt unr 60% to ias reached cril mass pop culture, first wh Lady Gaga’s 2011 Born This Way and one year later wh Macklemore’s Same Love, the chos of which has a gay person sgg “I n’t change even if I tried, even if I wanted to.

OLLY ALEXANR: GROWG UP GAY

” Vios started circulatg on the ter featurg gay people askg straight people “when they chose to be straight. ” Around the same time, the Human Rights Campaign clared unequivolly that “Beg gay is not a choice, ” and to claim that is “giv unwarranted crence to roundly disproven practic such as nversn or reparative therapy.

”People who challenge the Born This Way narrative are often st as homophobic, and their thkg is nsired backwardAs Jane Ward not Not Gay: Sex Between Straight Whe Men, what’s tertg about many of the claims is how transparent their speakers are wh their polil motivatns. “Such statements, ” she wr, “fe blogil acunts wh an obligatory and nearly ercive force, suggtg that anyone who scrib homosexual sire as a choice or social nstctn is playg to the hands of the enemy.

” People who challenge the Born This Way narrative are often st as homophobic, and their thkg is nsired backward – even if they are themselv, for example, Cynthia Nixon of Sex and The Cy fame.

AS MAJOR BRANDS WAVER, GAY WATER AIMS FOR AUTHENTICY

In a 2012 terview wh New York Tim Magaze, the actrs sually mentned that homosexualy was, for her, a choice. Callg me “idtic” and “patently absurd”, Aravosis wrote, “The gay haters at the relig right uldn’t have wrten any better. ”Gay rights do not have to hge on a geic explanatn for sexualy (Cred: Ignac Lehmann)For Aravosis, and many gay activists like him, the public will only accept and affirm gay people if they thk they were born gay.

Patrick Grzanka, Assistant Profsor of Psychology at Universy of Tennsee, for stance, has shown that some people who believe that homosexualy is nate still hold negative views of gays. In fact, the homophobic and non-homophobic rponnts he studied shared siar levels of belief a Born This Way Samantha Allen not at The Daily Beast, the growg public support for gays and lbians has grown out of proportn wh the rise the number of people who believe homosexualy is fixed at birth; would be unlikely that this small change opn uld expla the spike support for gay marriage, for stance.

GROW UP, GAYS!

Instead, she suggts hg on the fact that far more people are now personally acquated wh someone who is gay.

In 1985, only 24% of Amerin rponnts said they had a gay iend, relative or -worker —  2013, that number was at 75%. “It don’t seem to matter as much whether or not people believe that gay people are born that way as do that they simply know someone who is currently gay, ” Allen spe of the studi, those who ph agast Born This Way narrativ have been heavily cricised by gay activists. Siarly, Ward has received her own hatemail for phg agast the lg LGB narrativ, wh some gays tellg her she’s “worse than Ann Coulter, ” the ntroversial US thor of books like If Democrats Had Any Bras, They’d Be Republins.