Contents:
- WHAT DO IT MEAN TO BE A GAY MAN?
- HOW TO KNOW IF YOU ARE GAY
- I LIKE GUYS BUT I DON’T WANT TO BE GAY. HOW DO I STOP BEG GAY?
- HOW TO ACCEPT THAT YOU ARE GAY
- ‘I AM GAY – BUT I WASN’T BORN THIS WAY’
WHAT DO IT MEAN TO BE A GAY MAN?
As every gay man knows who has been sulted or asslted for his actual or perceived sexual orientatn, there are steep penalti for vlatg the Boy Co as there are for anyone who is “different” om the prumed (typilly whe, heterosexual, middle-class) standard.
HOW TO KNOW IF YOU ARE GAY
Robert Pollack says the most important thg a fay n do to support their gay son is to keep lovg him, “to nvey to him, as soon as he shar his feelgs, that he is still loved through and through, that his sexual orientatn will not any way dimish how much he is admired and rpected. Fortunately there is a long history of gay men who bucked the accepted fns of masculy and created liv that exprsed their unrstandg of themselv and how they choose to exprs their inty as men who don’t necsarily f tradnal molds.
The late Harry Hay often lled "the father of the morn gay movement, " found the Mattache Society Los Angel the fall of 1950 for gay men to gather and ponr the qutns Hay had long been askg: Who are gay people?
I LIKE GUYS BUT I DON’T WANT TO BE GAY. HOW DO I STOP BEG GAY?
Hay didn’t tend the Mattach to be a polil anizatn per se, but a group that would e together to enhance their self-unrstandg and explore the ntributns gay people had ma to the human race through the ag.
HOW TO ACCEPT THAT YOU ARE GAY
In a 1987 say tled “A Separate People Whose Time Has Come, ” Hay scribed homosexuals as “spir people, ” who, throughout the ag, had served society their rol as “msengers and tercers, shamans of both genrs, prits and prits, imagemakers and prophets, mim and rhapsos, poets and playwrights, healers and nurturers, teachers and preachers, tkers and tkerers, searchers and rearchers.
The Amerin Medil Associatn is agast therapy that is “based on the assumptn that homosexualy is a mental disorr or that the person should change their ’s important to know that there is nothg wrong wh lovg people of the same genr as you.
‘I AM GAY – BUT I WASN’T BORN THIS WAY’
Photograph: JOERG CARSTENSEN/EPA Photograph: JOERG CARSTENSEN/EPAPenal § 175, outlawg gay sex, was of urse abolished s ago, we have openly gay foreign misters and other openly lbian and gay policians - and 's been legal now to "marry" your partner by mtg to a civil unn (whout some rights like the right to adoptn as a uple etc. But recent homophobic attacks agast Ban-Württemberg's proposed new school curriculum that clus the teachg of sexual diversy shows there's lots of rentment unr the urse, pared to havg to fear for one's personal safety on a daily basis, thgs Germany are pretty good. And 's not jt annoyg but sad that smaller German towns, gays and lbians are practilly visible and are too aaid to be regnised by neighbours or boss to jo a gay para, if there is one the first place.
My experience is that day to day, and as dividuals most Northern Irish people aren't homophobic anymore but lags behd the rt of the UK laws and the polil culture is far om other parts of the world affected by polil homophobia there is a strong lk to nservative relig groups and tribal policians, who fight any posive move ma for gay people as a way of motivatg their re vot and followers.