Big Gay Closet

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?

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I’m sure plenty of you have seen the news reports of the suicides in America this week.

Some of you may even have seen what Dan Savage has been up to with his “It Gets Better” project. It’s simple and brilliant.

He’s called on gays to tell their stories on YouTube to reassure gay teens that life does get better after school. It’s really taken off!

I know some of you are working on your own vids. I want links, people.

I’m also going to go through some of the videos and pick out some to blog.

To begin, I’ll include Michael Urie‘s video:

There will be more to come!

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Chris Klucsarits, otherwise known as Chris Kanyon in professional wrestling, came out publicly in 2006, 3 years after a suicide attempt. Sadly, he managed to take his own life this year.

When he came out in 2006, he spoke to OutSports about growing up gay and feeling isolated.

He says later in the interview that he wanted to come out to be an example for kids who — like him — feel isolated and different. While many people (including whoever wrote his Wikipedia entry) chalked his coming out up to a gimmick and publicity stunt, it took a lot of courage. You can’t negate that he was the very first pro wrestler to be openly gay. Being the first anything is daunting enough — but being the first openly gay pro wrestler? I can’t even begin to imagine how scary that must have been.

Chris Klucsarits didn’t know how people became straight, or if there was such a process. He just knew that, at age 5, he was obsessed with a male friend of the family. The boy was good-looking, athletic, and a little older than him, Klucsarits recalls of his earliest same-sex interest.

“I don’t know why I thought this, but, I thought that once you kissed your first girl, it’d be like a light-switch and you’d turn straight,” he said.

So Klucsarits went for that first kiss at about age 11 while living in Queens, N.Y. He went roller-skating with his buddies, like normal, and found the girl who was going to be the one. He eventually skated her home and then, ironically, standing in the gutter while she was on the curb so as to not tower over her, they kissed.

“But there were no fireworks,” Klucsarits said.

They parted ways minutes later and, about a block away, Klucsarits realized, “I was gay, that I would be gay for the rest of my life and that my life would not be easy.”

He cried on the way home. He even had to stop to re-gain his composure before returning home.

“The next three or four months were brutal; they were really hard because I knew I was not like everyone else,” he said.

via Pro Wrestler Comes Out — Outsports.com.

People magazine has confirmed that TMZ is correct and the much anticipated May 5th coming out “Cinco de Gayo” celebrity is Chely Wright, a country music singer.

She did an interview with The Advocate:

For Wright, eventually the strain from years of practiced hiding—along with failed attempts at dating men and romantic relationships with women that were ultimately crushed under the weight of secrecy—left her feeling isolated and abjectly suicidal.

The turning point came in 2006, when the devastation of a bad breakup caused Wright to consider ending her own life. “I had a gun in my mouth,“ recalls Wright. “That’s a hard thing to come back from. It was really songs that saved my life. The process of writing songs—and the experience of writing down my story—that really carried me through it. When I finally knew that I could no longer go on living a lie anymore, it was over. Everything had to change. The experience of writing a book…this record, coming out I doubt I’ll ever have another experience in my life that is so dramatic and intense. It’s just been this incredible, dynamic journey for me. I’m thankful for it, but I’d never want to go through it again.”
from The Advocate

Her story will ring true for many other LGBTQ people who’ve been to the place where suicide seemed the only way out. I also love how she celebrates her journey and, at the same time, admits it’s not something she’d ever want to go through again.