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

Contents:

• I LIKE GUYS BUT I DON’T WANT TO BE GAY. HOW DO I STOP BEG GAY?
• THE FACT NO ONE LIK TO ADM: MANY GAY MEN ULD JT HAVE EASILY BEEN STRAIGHT
• HOW TO COPE WHEN YOU'RE GAY AND LONELY
• SELF-LOATHG AMONG GAY PEOPLE IS NOTHG NEW. WE’RE OVERWHELMED BY
• OVERG THE SHAME OF BEG GAY
• WHY AM I GAY? I HATE MYSELF.
• 10 ANTI-GAY MYTHS DEBUNKED
• 25 THGS I HATE ABOUT BEG A GAY MAN
• GAY CULTURE HAS GROWN TOXIC WH UNCHECKED PRIVILEGE. IT'S TIME FOR TO RET
• WHY I HATE BEG GAY! 62 REASONS!
• 10 COUNTRI THAT COMPLETELY HATE GAY PEOPLE
• HOW ‘WHO R’ HAS BEE WORD ONLE FOR ‘I HATE GAY PEOPLE’

I LIKE GUYS BUT I DON’T WANT TO BE GAY. HOW DO I STOP BEG GAY?

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. 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.

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.

When I was young, I was told the whole world was divid to heterosexual men and heterosexual women, bar a small number of unfortunate ‘homosexuals’ of both genrs and possibly an even smaller number a third tegory, ‘bisexuals’, who ‘swung both ways’; pl, fally, a ty band of wretched creatur who were physilly not que one thg or the other. He found that almost half his male terviewe had reacted sexually to both genrs; more than a third had had a homosexual enunter; and more than one ten reported roughly equally strong sexual rpons to both men and women. 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.

THE FACT NO ONE LIK TO ADM: MANY GAY MEN ULD JT HAVE EASILY BEEN STRAIGHT

So much foc has been on changg laws and enuragg footballers to e out or on promotg sexual eedom – all important thgs – that we’ve missed the huge ground-level sufferg of those stgglg wh the legacy of society’s gay shame, right unr our may not f the narrative we wish to promote but there are huge numbers of people gettg themselv to ser suatns whout enough support.

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 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. 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.

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.

HOW TO COPE WHEN YOU'RE GAY AND LONELY

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. Disregardg all evince that the ex-gay movement is credibly damagg to more than 90% of those who unrgo "treatment" (bee they clearly jt didn't believe God enough), Settg Captiv Free wants you to know that you were not "born this way.

" Homosexualy is a s that you need to purge om your system, and the only way to do is to follow their three-parts-a-day the app is only downloadable om Google Play (iTun and the 69, 822+ people who petned them don't believe nversn therapy for some reason), there is an abridged versn available on the mistry’s webse.

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

Realize That Beg Homosexual Mak You Feel Alone Fet that we told you to shut yourself away om most of the world, and ignore the ia that maybe gay people feel so alone bee of the discrimatory and hateful attus that they face, helped by people like . Jt sucks, but you don't choose to be like you are right now, you bee, you spend your life tryg to be okay, fallg a uple of tim, tryg to be "normal", but, serly, as much as you want to be normal, the more you bee gay, or bi, or trans or whatever. A 2017 review of 52 studi, for stance, found that when pared wh heterosexual people, bisexual people had higher rat of prsn and anxiety, and higher or equivalent rat of those ndns when pared wh those who intified as gay.

People unr 25, nclud somethg siar among Ameri’s youth: Bisexual high school stunts reported more feelgs of sadns and hopelsns and more thoughts of suici than those who intified as heterosexual or ’s also some evince that bisexual people fared worse than their heterosexual and gay unterparts durg the panmic, cludg greater strs, lonels, psychologil distrs and fatigue; and poorer mental and physil health than those intifyg as straight or dispary is often a rult of the prejudic bisexual people face, Dr. The study found that much of this discrimatn often om gay and lbian people, followed by fay members and straight people; and n directly impact bisexual people’s mental health, cludg ntributg to prsn, strs and exacerbated or triggered anxiety (cludg panic attacks and post-trmatic strs disorr). She said she was never ashamed of her sexualy until her 20s, when both gay and straight iends and fay started tellg her they didn’t believe she was really attracted to women, and that she was gog through a phase.

Ever sce born-aga sger and orange juice pchwoman Ana Bryant helped kick off the ntemporary anti-gay movement some 40 years ago, hard-le elements of the relig right have been searchg for ways to monize gay people — or, at a mimum, to fd arguments that will prevent their normalizatn society. But addn to hawkg that myth, the legns of anti-gay activists who followed have add a panoply of others, rangg om the extremely doubtful claim that sexual orientatn is a choice, to unalloyed li like the claims that gay men molt children far more than heterosexuals or that hate crime laws will lead to the legalizatn of btialy and necrophilia.

OVERG THE SHAME OF BEG GAY

The fairy tal are important to the anti-gay right bee they form the basis of s claim that homosexualy is a social evil that mt be supprsed — an opn rejected by virtually all relevant medil and scientific thori. Depictg gay men as a threat to children may be the sgle most potent weapon for stokg public fears about homosexualy — and for wng electns and referenda, as Ana Bryant found out durg her succsful 1977 mpaign to overturn a Da County, Fla., ordance barrg discrimatn agast gay people. Others have ced a group lled the Amerin College of Pediatricians (ACPeds) to claim, as Tony Perks of the Fay Rearch Council did November 2010, that "the rearch is overwhelmg that homosexualy pos a [moltatn] danger to children.

WHY AM I GAY? I HATE MYSELF.

Gregory Herek, a profsor at the Universy of California, Davis, who is one of the natn's leadg rearchers on prejudice agast sexual mori, reviewed a seri of studi and found no evince that gay men molt children at higher rat than heterosexual men.

The Amerin Amy of Child & Adolcent Psychiatry affirmed 2013 that “[c]urrent rearch shows that children wh gay and lbian parents do not differ om children wh heterosexual parents their emotnal velopment or their relatnships wh peers and adults” and they are “not more likely than children of heterosexual parents to velop emotnal or behavral problems.

The Amerin Amy of Pediatrics (AAP) a 2002 policy statement clared: "A growg body of scientific lerature monstrat that children who grow up wh one or two gay and/or lbian parents fare as well emotnal, gnive, social, and sexual functng as do children whose parents are heterosexual. Siarly, the Child Welfare League of Ameri's official posn wh regard to same-sex parents is that "lbian, gay, and bisexual parents are as well-sued to raise children as their heterosexual unterparts. ” Schumm, who has also argued that lbian relatnships are unstable, has ti to discreded psychologist and anti-LGBT fabulist Pl Cameron, the thor of numero pletely basels “studi” about the alleged evils of homosexualy.

10 ANTI-GAY MYTHS DEBUNKED

The Amerin Psychiatric Associatn noted a 2000 fact sheet available on the Associatn of Gay and Lbian Psychiatrists, that alg wh gay, lbian and bisexual issu, that sexual abe do not appear to be any more prevalent among children who grow up and intify as gay, lbian or bisexual than children who grow up and intify as heterosexual.

Siarly, the Natnal Organizatn on Male Sexual Victimizatn not on s webse that "experts the human sexualy field do not believe that premature sexual experienc play a signifint role late adolcent or adult sexual orientatn" and add that 's unlikely that anyone n make another person gay or heterosexual. Warren Throckmorton, a psychologist at the Christian Grove Cy College, noted an analysis that “the rearch on sexual abe among GLBT populatns is often mised to make ferenc about atn [of homosexualy].

25 THGS I HATE ABOUT BEG A GAY MAN

Anti-LGBT anizatns, seekg to promote heterosexualy as the healthier "choice, " often offer up the purportedly shorter life spans and poorer physil and mental health of gays and lbians as reasons why they shouldn't be allowed to adopt or foster children. On the basis of the same obuari, Cameron also claimed that gay men are 18 tim more likely to die r accints than heterosexuals, 22 tim more likely to die of heart attacks than wh, and 11 tim more likely than blacks to die of the same e.

GAY CULTURE HAS GROWN TOXIC WH UNCHECKED PRIVILEGE. IT'S TIME FOR TO RET

Anti-LGBT anizatns have also tried to support this claim by distortg the work of legimate scholars, like a 1997 study nducted by a Canadian team of rearchers that alt wh gay and bisexual men livg Vanuver the late 1980s and early 1990s. Christe Mueller, profsor of history at Reed College, did a 1994 le-by-le refutatn of an earlier Abrams article on the topic and of the broar claim that the Nazi Party was "entirely ntrolled" by gay men. Anti-gay activists, who have long opposed addg LGBT people to those protected by hate crime legislatn, have repeatedly claimed that such laws would lead to the jailg of relig figur who preach agast homosexualy — part of a bid to ga the backg of the broar relig muny for their posn.

Anti-gay groups have been adamantly opposed to allowg gay men and lbians to serve openly the armed forc, not only bee of their purported fear that bat reads will be unrmed, but bee the ary has long been nsired the purt merocracy Ameri (the armed forc were succsfully racially tegrated long before Amerin civil society, for example).

WHY I HATE BEG GAY! 62 REASONS!

At the same time, gays and lbians have served openly for years the armed forc of 25 untri (as of 2010), cludg Bra, Israel, South Ai, Canada and Atralia, acrdg to a report released by the Palm Center, a policy thk tank at the Universy of California at Santa Barbara.

" Siarly, a 1985 survey of 6, 500 male Canadian service members and a 1996 survey of 13, 500 Brish service members each revealed that nearly two-thirds exprsed strong rervatns about servg wh gays. Dpe the fact that gay men and lbians have been servg openly the ary sce September 2011, anti-LGBT groups ntue to claim that openly gay personnel are g problems the ary, cludg claims of sexual abe by gay and lbian soldiers of straight soldiers.

10 COUNTRI THAT COMPLETELY HATE GAY PEOPLE

Though is te that LGBT people tend to suffer higher rat of anxiety, prsn, and prsn-related illns and behavrs like alhol and dg abe than the general populatn, that is due to the historil social stigmatizatn of homosexualy and vlence directed at LGBT people, not bee of homosexualy self. A report prented by the Council on Scientific Affairs to the AMA Hoe of Delegat Interim Meetg wh regard to reparative (“ex-gay”) therapy noted that most of the emotnal disturbance gay men and lbians experience around their sexual inty is not based on physlogil , but rather on “a sense of alienatn an unacceptg environment. Mark Hatzenbuehler, a socmedil scienc profsor at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia Universy, said that the data gathered the study suggts that “sexual mori livg muni wh high levels of anti-gay prejudice have creased risk of mortaly, pared to low-prejudice muni.

HOW ‘WHO R’ HAS BEE WORD ONLE FOR ‘I HATE GAY PEOPLE’

Qazi Rahman, study -thor and a leadg scientist on human sexual orientatn, said: "This study puts ld water on any ncerns that we are lookg for a sgle 'gay gene' or a sgle environmental variable which uld be ed to 'select out' homosexualy — the factors which fluence sexual orientatn are plex.

" In 1994, the APA noted that “homosexualy is not a matter of dividual choice” and that rearch “suggts that the homosexual orientatn is place very early the life cycle, possibly even before birth. The Amerin Amy of Pediatrics stated 1993 (updated 2004) that “homosexualy has existed most societi for as long as rerd scriptns of sexual beliefs and practic have been available” and that even at that time, “most scholars the field state that one’s sexual orientatn is not a choice … dividuals do not choose to be homosexual or heterosexual. A number of "ex-gay" relig mistri have spng up recent years wh the aim of teachg gay people to bee heterosexuals, and the have bee prime purveyors of the claim that gays and lbians, wh the aid of mental therapy and Christian teachgs, n "e out of homosexualy.