How to Cope When You're Gay and Lonely | GQ

Contents:

• HOW TO OVERE FEELGS OF SHAME AROUND BEG GAY
• SELF-LOATHG AMONG GAY PEOPLE IS NOTHG NEW. WE’RE OVERWHELMED BY
• OVERG THE SHAME OF BEG GAY
• I LIKE GUYS BUT I DON’T WANT TO BE GAY. HOW DO I STOP BEG GAY?
• TOM ALLEN: THE IA OF GAY SHAME STILL PERVAS
• HOW TO COPE WHEN YOU'RE GAY AND LONELY
• BEG BLACK AND GAY: HOW TERSECTNAL STIGMA IMPACTS ON THE UPTAKE OF PREP
• WHAT SCIENCE KNOWS ABOUT WHY PEOPLE ARE GAY

HOW TO OVERE FEELGS OF SHAME AROUND BEG GAY

Dpe signifint chang attus and regulatns around gay rights recent s, growg up n still be credibly tough for many gay men. Unfortunately, the repeated exposur n lead to staed levels of ternalised shame (also known as gay shame). Gay shame n refer to any feelgs of ferry due to your sexualy/genr inty.

If you are livg wh gay shame, the followg signs may sound faiar:.

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

Disfort wh other gay people cludg judgg, hatg or bullyg LGBTQ+ people. Humans heal bt through relatnships and that clus relatnships wh rg therapists who “get” what means to be gay our society.

There are many gay men who say "I'm not part of the scene" -- men who hate gay bars and, prumably, crowds of queer people general. Internalized homophobia -- self-shamg, self-hatred -- leads many gay men, and many queer people general, to recreate their closets long after they're "out" by shunng others, particularly those they nsir "flamboyant. " Y, there are some good reasons to rce your participatn gay bars (time, money, health).

But you mt spend time wh others, whether that means havg a group of gay movie iends or queer gamers or playg on a gay sports team. This parable piece by lbian wrer Sarah Prager go through the lp of great gays who changed the world -- om ventor Alan Turg to Tchaikovsky, the poser, to the Renaissance pater and ventor Leonardo da Vci. AIDS vastated muni of gay men and transgenr women, particularly gay men and trans women of lor.

OVERG THE SHAME OF BEG GAY

Read the numbers: In four years, more than 5, 596 people the Uned Stat had died of AIDS, many of them gay men and transgenr women. But if I hadn't experienced all that adversy, I wouldn't be so furly proud to be gay.

Fd a gay elr who's been where you are and r for your well-beg, someone who unrstands you and never pass judgment, someone who lets you make the mistak you need to make. Tmp has repeatedly attacked transgenr servicemembers, and gay men are still beg hunted and murred Chechnya. There would be no ternalized self-hatred if no one had ever told you that beg gay is wrong, or that gay sex is disgtg, or that gay men n't feel real love, or that beg transgenr is fake, or that beg nonbary is a mental illns or a ll for attentn.

If you thk a word like "gay" or "queer" works for you right now (aga, don't have to work for you forever -- labels do not e wh lifetime ntracts) and you're not ready to tell everyone, simply say out loud to yourself. I remember that when I disvered that my son was gay, I felt shame.

I LIKE GUYS BUT I DON’T WANT TO BE GAY. HOW DO I STOP 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. I didn't like the posn that I was thst to once I found out my son was gay. 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.

TOM ALLEN: THE IA OF GAY SHAME STILL PERVAS

A straight parent, Dorothy spected that her son Kev was gay and tried to redirect him. Once ashamed of havg a gay son, now Dorothy refers gay people the muny to her ntal office, where she is a ntal hygienist.

The ntist's office is known as "the office of the gay muny" bee of Dorothy's support.

HOW TO COPE WHEN YOU'RE GAY AND LONELY

Siarly, Jab Thomas, origally om Northern Geia, was ashamed of beg gay.

"Gay and lbian children should not only get the msage that they are loved, but also that they are not damaged or ls than. Parents should not thk that havg a gay child or beg gay is somewhat unsirable or ferr.

BEG BLACK AND GAY: HOW TERSECTNAL STIGMA IMPACTS ON THE UPTAKE OF PREP

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.

Parents don't e their child to be gay so they shouldn't blame themselv.

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?

WHAT SCIENCE KNOWS ABOUT WHY PEOPLE ARE 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.