Big Gay Closet

Speaking to Attitude magazine, he said: “The relationship I have with my mother is amazing but it has grown stronger and stronger.

“The day my mother asked me if I was gay, she asked me if I was in love with a man or a woman. Oh God. For this woman to make it easier for me… this is really cool.

“But she struggled with it. She went there. She opened that door. That’s a mother’s love. Then she hurt. She said: ‘I love you, my son, I’m so happy for you. Bring it on. I’m right behind you.’

“And then, suddenly, I think she thought ‘Oh my god, it’s Kiki [his family nickname]. It’s his career.’ I’m sure every mother reacts to this in different ways.”

via Ricky Martin: My mother helped me come out – Pink News.

I have long held the belief that those of us who are gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender have been given an extraordinary gift. We are forced to go inside ourselves and determine, once and for all, that we are good. If we have anything at all to give the world, we are going to find it somewhere along that journey. We are going to show it to the world in a declaration of brilliant defiance against society and its rules. We only go looking because our sexuality forces us to. How lucky are we? But, it’s easy to forget the pain that forces us to go searching in the first place.

via Actor Chad Allen’s Coming Out Story – In His Own Words | dot429.

Coming out of the closet is a process, not a moment in time. And yet, there are the moments. There was the ecstasy: times when I came out joyously and exultantly. There was the agony: times when I came out shamefully and against my will. Some of the moments are glorious, as when I went out into the street dressed in a skirt for the first time, rejoicing like a prisoner who had been let out of solitary after thirty-five years. Everything looked new: the steam escaping from the hot dog vendor’s cart as he put the frankfurter on the bun, the construction workers descending into the manhole with monster-sized tools, even the stacks of commercial garbage on the curb awaiting the sanitation workers.

via Coming Out: The Agony And The Ecstasy | The Bilerico Project by Dr. Jillian T. Weiss

Our first coming out story in a while comes from Irish political organiser and activist, Neil Ward.

Coming Out, as most people who have done so will attest, is a process rather than a moment.  Every month of my life I have to come out to more people, and I have to continue examining how my sexuality has influenced my life, my values, my politics and my behaviour.  Which makes any Coming Out a difficult story to tell.

To combat this, I don’t intend to try telling the story of my Coming Out, but rather the story of one night in that process – the first night that I consciously realised the meaning of the confusion which had occupied me for so long.

In early 2000, I was coming towards the end of my 9-month stint as an Arts student in UCD.  While my academic performance was less than exceptional (to say the least) during that nine months, I had discovered that I wasn’t terrible at basketball.  I had quick hands, and my height was naturally advantageous.  And I fucking loved it – I’d practice, play and exercise for hours at a time – often getting to the UCD gym before noon, and leaving at closing time.  Memories of that time still fill me with joy – I’m not much of a sporty person nowadays, but I still think back fondly to those carefree days.

The other enjoyable aspect of playing basketball for UCD, was the extraordinary boozing we’d do – a group of 10-20 teenagers and young men on the absolute lash.  Our nights out usually ended messily (giving away my shoes at the Portobello bridge being the highlight of one particular evening), but they started so much more innocently.  We could smile together, and that was what really bound us.  We’d tease and torment, leer and laugh, chatter and chastise – all in the best spirit imaginable.

The combination of a bastketball match followed by one of those nights on the beer in March 2000, led to me walking fown the road in Stillorgan with one of the other lads, in whose house I was staying.  As usual, we were setting the world to right – chatting about music and basketball, analysing the result of the evening (which I can’t for the life of me remember at this point), and talking about the big issues of our worlds.

Suddenly, with no apparent lead-up or prompting, I stopped dead in the street – sober as a judge. “Fuck me” were the only words out of my mouth for a while – I retreated into myself processing the most unimaginable thought I had ever encountered.  To say this practically-catatonic version of me alarmed my companion is probably an understatement in hindsight, but he was either too wasted or too gentle to try and intrude too much on me.

What felt like hours later (and in fact was at least 30 minutes), I lifted my head and resumed walking, picking up the conversation where we had trailed off.  In the most stunning revelation my life has ever experienced, I had realised that my fondness for men was partly sexual.  And my life immediately made sense.

I knew this wouldn’t be easy to do. I didn’t think it would be as hard as it was.

I also really think this project is a great idea and I think YouTube was the best medium for it. It reaches the right people, where they are.

The video I recorded first thing in the morning… if you look closely you’ll notice some serious bedhead going on. I meant it as a dry run, but I never made it through another version.So here it is.

There’s loads of stuff I didn’t get to say — like why I’m happy I survived. Things like how I’ve traveled and met amazing people. How I’ve fallen in love. But at least I’ve shared my story and in case someone else is going through the same despair and confusion, it might speak to them.

I think visibility has been a double-edged sword for kids these days. People didn’t talk a lot about gay stuff 20 years ago, and while that wasn’t good, it probably meant that people were less likely to be targeted, because the issue wasn’t on the radar the way it is right now. Still, there have been amazing advances.

Let me know if you’ve done a video or if you’re planning to.

Is anyone else doing one?

Related articles

• Awesome Video Project Shows Gay Youth “It Gets Better” [Video] (jezebel.com)
• It Gets Better: We’re Giving Them Hope (slog.thestranger.com)
• Watch: Dan Savage Launches Anti-Bullying YouTube Project (towleroad.com)

Christian gay man studying counselling at seminary talks about the false promises of the ex-gay movement and the hope of being yourself.

Resource he mentions:

http://www.gaychristian.net/

Lesbian comedian WANDA SYKES was so scared about revealing her sexuality to her parents, she broke the news to them in a “long distance phone call”.

The funnywoman ‘came out’ publicly in 2008 after attending a gay rights rally in Las Vegas, and the 46 year old admits she spent years worrying about how to tell her mother and father the truth.

Sykes reveals she conquered her fear by making sure her parents were a “six-hour plane ride” away when she confessed her secret.

She tells newsman Larry King, “I have parents who are still alive. So yeah… that’s why you suppress all that, you bury it, and to try to fit in. I’m 46… My father’s in the service. Right, retired colonel. So (I told them in) a long distance phone call. We’re talking, like, coast to coast. You always want to give your family like a six-hour plane ride before they can get to you.”

And Sykes admits her relatives are still coming to terms with the revelation.

She adds, “We’re working on it… They love me… I know without a doubt, my family, they love me. And you know, we’re working on it. Keep praying for us.”

from ContactMusic.com via Diva

We’ve heard a lot of sports coming out stories. Very few of these have been from people who are still active in their sports. Others have waited until retirement to get things off their chest.

Eighteen years ago, professional footballer, Justin Fashanu, came out in an interview with The Sun. His career and personal life suffered after the revelation. In 1998 he took his own life following an accusation of sexual assault.

Pink News has a feature on homophobia in football including Justin Fashanu’s story.

Disowned by his brother and England player John, increasingly alienated from football and embroiled in a sex-assault scandal in America, Justin hung himself in 1998. “I do not want to give any more embarrassment to my friends and family,” the suicide note read. Not a single British professional footballer has publicly come out since.

Read the rest at  Pink News.

AOL Music’s PopEater spent a day with Clay Aiken in New York City as he was promoting his latest album ‘Tried and True’. The ‘American Idol’ alum talked about the decision to reveal he was gay two years ago and being nervous about the reaction he’d get from the public. “When anybody comes out, there are going to be people who are supportive and people who are not,” Aiken explained. “Obviously, I was doing ‘Spamalot’ at the time and I was kind of nervous. I specifically remember that night, thinking, ‘OK, I’m going to walk out prepared to be booed,’ and nobody did. And people were very supportive. People have been very supportive throughout the whole process and it didn’t really change.”

See the video here

I definitely thought the reaction to coming out would be worse than it was — even though it wasn’t great! It’s nice when we learn that people aren’t really as anti-gay as the haters would have us believe.

The Real L word

Rose Garcia, 35

“My coming out story was a great one,” says Rose Garcia, a real estate broker. “When I was 19 I confided in my best friend. She told me she always knew. I wanted to tell my mother but feared my Puerto Rican Catholic family would disown me.”

“My friend called my mother to ‘out’ me, she says.” To my surprise my mother said she had a feeling (that I was a lesbian). She said I had her full support and that if anyone in the family didn’t, it was their loss.”

via Rose Garcia, 35 Pictures – CBS News.