Big Gay Closet

I’ve long held three basic beliefs about the ethics of coming out:

Gay people — generally speaking — have a responsibility to our own community and to future generations of gay people to come out, if and when we feel that we can.

We should all get to decide for ourselves the “if and when we feel that we can” part of that.

Closeted people should reasonably expect to be outed by other gay people if (and only if) they prey on the gay community in public, but are secretly gay themselves.

I also believe that coming out makes for a happier life, but that’s not a matter of ethics, that’s just corny advice.

via The Maddow Blog – Anchors away.

Rachel responds to the media pick up on an interview she did with The Guardian. They’re reporting that she was criticising Anderson Cooper for not coming out.

“True Blood” vamp Evan Rachel Wood has let it be known: She’s bisexual.

“I grew up in love with David Bowie,” she told Esquire. “So I was always into very androgynous things. Guys, girls … I’m into androgyny in general,” she said, which is why ex-fiance Marilyn Manson was so appealing.

“I’m more kind of like the guy when it comes to girls. Im the dominant one. Im opening the doors, Im buying dinner. Yeah, Im romantic.”

Wood, 23, stars in HBOs “Mildred Pierce” with Oscar winner Kate Winslet, whom she said she’d marry if she could. She also stars in Robert Redford’s “The Conspirator” and George Clooney’s upcoming flick “The Ides of March.” You might have also seen her in “The Wrestler” or “Thirteen.”

“I’m constantly changing, I’m constantly growing. I think I’m a little controversial?” Wood said. “I just try and keep some mystery, so hopefully people can’t really put their finger on it.”

The actress said she doesn’t do drugs, recently quit smoking and doesn’t drink much. But it was her affinity for tattoos and androgyny that she kept revisiting for the mag.

“I’m up for anything. Meet a nice guy, meet a nice girl,” she teased.

Perhaps she’s following in her costar Anna Paquin’s footsteps, who last April famously announced her sexual preferences in a PSA with Cyndi Lauper and Clay Aiken.

via True Bloods Evan Rachel Wood says shes bisexual, into androgyny in general | Ministry of Gossip | Los Angeles Times.

I remember at the age of about 13 having an argument with my very Catholic grandmother. We were arguing about the rights of gay people. It wasn’t the first time we’d had the argument, and, as you might expect, I was very pro-gay equality and she was very much not. It’s not like she wanted homosexuals executed or anything, but she considered it an illness. She thought that Oscar Wilde had “ruined his life” with his homosexuality and believed that HIV and Aids were god’s way of eradicating gays.

I remember at the time having not the slightest doubt in the power of my position. I was one of those annoying little gits that went around describing themselves as “an equalitarian” (I’d read it in the dictionary and instantly adopted it) and as I grew older I met friends who were gay or who would later come out as gay. I even wrote a thesis on Oscar Wilde as a school student and remember feeling mortified when, commenting on the death of Freddy Mercury, a family member ‘joked’ to a neighbour that it “served him right for being a poofter”. (Imagine the embarrassment when the neighbour in question replied with “my brother’s gay”).

I guess the point of mentioning this, is to highlight that I myself never had any issue with homosexuality. Or bisexuality. Very much the opposite. That makes it all the more baffling to me that it took me so very long to realise that I myself was gay. I was into my twenties, had completed my degree and had even got married. And then it hit me like a train. I’d made a terrible, terrible mistake. I wasn’t the person that I had thought I was – actually the person I married turned out also not to be the person I had thought he was either, which at least made it slightly easier to leave. But that still left me with a massive problem. I could leave him easy enough – I was pretty much stuck with myself. There was no leaving that behind.

I didn’t so much come out of the closet – more exploded out of there, hurting myself and a few others on the way. I told a close friend what was muddling around in my head. She seduced me. I tried to resist and then thought what the hell. The first time I kissed her I was terrified. No amount of alcohol seemed sufficient to calm my nerves and in the end I just had to swallow them. Once I’d taken the plunge I knew there was no going back. I think it probably remains the best kiss of my life, not only for how damn good it was but also for everything it symbolised. I then fell crazy in love and had my heart broken. It took me three years to patch it back together.

I went off the rails, had some brilliant and some awful times and never stopped to look back. It needed doing. I suddenly had all this catching up to do – there was a whole world out there that I had always known existed, but had never thought applied to me. Now it suddenly did.

I occasionally wonder why it took me so long. The gay community is now the centre around which my life resolves; it’s where many of my friends are, it’s where I go for support and a huge chunk of my social life. It’s where I feel safe. Accepted. Me. I simply can’t imagine my life without it – and I doubt I would want to live somewhere without a significant gay scene. And I suppose the answer is in the two stories I started this with. While I was able to know that there was nothing wrong with being gay, my entire experience of any discussion about homosexuality had been that of it being ‘othered’ by people. Being gay was what happened to other people – not to me or anyone in my family. It’s not like I had the kind of upbringing where we were encouraged to think about the kind of people we were or the lives we wanted for ourselves – there was certainly no questioning, let alone challenging, or perceived norms. We were all assumed to be straight, to be destined for a lifetime of unsatisfying low-paid work, marriage and kids. I bucked the trend by going to university after my history teacher talked me into it, but otherwise I was sleepwalking towards my future. It took the (apparent) finality of marriage and the prospect of a miserable life to jolt me awake and make me ask myself who I really was and what I really wanted. For that reason alone, I remain glad that I did it.

Mr Davies described how he faced the team for the first time after the coach told them he was gay. He said that each man shook his hand and told him he had done the right thing.

But he said that the strain of hiding his sexuality had been hard.

“If I am brutally honest, I never enjoyed touring because of my secret and having to conceal my sexuality,” he says.

“My friendships with the guys would reach a certain level, then I’d have to take a step back.”

via England cricketer Steven Davies comes out as gay – PinkNews.co.uk.

All the girls loved Jordan. I — always different — loved Jon. He only solo’d one song, I think. That didn’t bother me though because I didn’t really like NKOTB that much anyway.

First Doogie Howser, now Jon Knight. If Roch Voisine comes out, my childhood crush trifecta of gay will be complete!

“I have never been outed by anyone but myself! I did so almost 20 years ago. I never knew that I would have to do it all over again publicly just because I reunited with NKOTB! I have lived my life very openly and have never hidden the fact that I am gay! Apparently the prerequisite to being a gay public figure is to appear on the cover of a magazine with the caption I am gay. I apologize for not doing so if this is what was expected!”

via New Kid on the Block Jonathan Knight Comes Out of the Closet | Rolling Stone Music.

Of course, this hit the tabloids two years ago too.

Dave sits on the swing where we once waited out the effects of a stupid LSD experiment. We shared a common love of gorey horror movies overflowing into practical jokes – when we met he threw a bag of ketchup at me trying to make me look “bloodied”. He was the first person who I could relate to on a nerdy level; that it was ok to like science fiction.

“That’s cool. I guess. What’s it like?” He was always curious. Not “gay-curious” but curious in general – hence I thought it appropriate to tell him on the “LSD swings”. If I had said I tried recreating the Jack the Ripper killings, he’d probably ask the same thing.

Read the rest: Coming Out: To my Friends « Dead Robot.

I love this story. I hope that this is a template for the coming out stories of the future.

A bit of back story for new readers: My oldest brother came out when I was about 11yrs old. I didn’t understand fully what that meant, but I knew there was drama of sorts… my parents were having hushed conversations that were punctuated with “DeadRobot, go to your room.” Later, when I was 16, my father came out of the closet for fear of meeting up with Dan in a gay bar on one of his many business trips to Toronto. Of course the family was shocked, the town of Brockvegas was scandalized, Dad lived a quiet life of a shattered bachelor for all of 10 minutes and then took up with his lover for 14 years. Family came to accept him (including Mom, to a certain degree) and we were happy chucks all again. Okay?

There’s your 8 years or so of drama packed into 125 words or less.

Skip ahead to my 17th birthday. The year I decided that if I was to live my life honestly, I had to tell the people I loved that I was a ‘mo. I decide that I have to make a trip back to Brockvegas to tell friends and family in one fast trip. Get in, drop the bomb, get out, let them decide where their loyalties lie.

Read the rest: Coming Out: To My Mom « Dead Robot.

Daniel Hernandez Jr., the 20-year old student intern credited with saving the life of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, confirmed to the Dallas Voice this morning that he is openly gay.

via Joe. My. God.: Openly Gay Intern Daniel Hernandez Jr. Credited With Saving Life Of Rep. Giffords.

Obviously, Mr. Hernandez’ sexual orientation isn’t terribly relevant to the fact that he was cool-headed, quick thinking and could very well have saved Rep Giffords’ life. But what is important is that because he’s out, we have one more image in our collective memories of a gay person who made a positive contribution.

More of this, please. Less of the other stuff.

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.

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