Big Gay Closet

It’s chaos! Volcanic ash has stopped flights all over northern Europe. Amazing. I mean, it’s gotta suck for people with plans, but it’s pretty incredible from a bystander’s perspective. The power of nature again.

Still, the Big Gay Closet keeps on keeping on.Takes more than an unpronounceable Icelandic volcano to shut us down.

I started the week with a confessional of sorts. I told the story of the first time I understood the attraction to butch women in “I like women who look like women“.

Then, Rufus Wainright went nuts and outed 50 cent as gay.

Following that, Christian singer Jennifer Knapp came out in matching interviews with The Advocate and Christianity Today… just before the release of her new (mainstream) album. All cynicism aside, I think it’s an important story.

Then — in a story I couldn’t resist sharing here — writer Tanner Stransky wrote that the now-cancelled show Ugly Betty helped him come out.

Later in the week, I went on the local radio station to talk about being gay and living in the middle of nowhere. It was a total mess, but a personal victory, so yay!

And finally, a Facebook user I tracked down and harassed shared her story of coming out on Facebook as bisexual. Really great story, and it’s been hugely popular with you guys. It was nice of her to share her story and not tell me to get lost!

As another week begins, I need more stories. Expect harassment.

But the show’s huge imprint on my personal life — and again, I’m sure the personal lives of lots of other people like me — is almost more indelible than all that. Some may think I’m getting too personal here (though I don’t really care because I don’t have secrets), but during the time the show was on, I came out as a gay man.

…

I felt alive after watching hours of a television show where being yourself was not only what people did, but celebrated heartily. Marc, and eventually Justin and a slew of the other characters, did not apologize for who they were. They were proud. So why shouldn’t I be? (And, truly, how can one blog about, write a book about, and obsess about such a gay show and, you know, not actually be gay?)

via ‘Ugly Betty’: Why it mattered | EW.com.

Ok it’s possible now I’ve written too much on this blog about Ugly Betty, but it ends tonight, so let me have my last moments of Ugly Bettiness in peace.

If I didn’t already love Ugly Betty for all that it is, knowing that it was such a positive force in the life of even one person — and I’m certain there are more who have been similarly affected — would make me love it, and squeeze it, and make it mine anyway.

Why does it have to end? *Sniff*

Clint Walters, AIDS activist

Well it’s been a really mixed week, and it’s sunny outside, so that’s a good start.

Allow me to summarise our week for those of you who are new, or have simply been too busy to keep up!

Our first post this week was a reblog from the Feral Geographer about taking those first, empowering steps of coming out at work. A very inspiring post!

Then we had more happy with a post from Dian that explored how she would like to see coming out handled — like a celebration!

Some researchers in Cologne discovered that Count Laszlo de Almasy, the spy who inspired the movie “The English Patient” was, in fact, in love with a Nazi soldier. I am really looking forward to the remake.

Oh and then I did a poll — about whether you jumped in head first and went for it — or whether, like me, you figured out your non-straightness intellectually first and then went for it after some careful consideration. I’m in a significant minority it seems. You are all far more people of action than I am.

I linked to an article by Annalee Newitz from several years ago where she discusses “attraction to people of indeterminate or transfigured sex”. I found it mind-blowing. Others of you suggested “pansexual” would be a better term than “trannychaser”.

The wonders of the twitter sent me to the blog of a young hockey player who blogged (almost incomprehensibly — is my age showing?) about telling his brother he’s gay. It was really cute and well worth a read.

We also featured the blog of a closeted semi-professional footballer in the UK who talks poignantly about life in the closet and why it’s still necessary to stay there if he wants a shot at the premiership.

The UK lost an activist last week. Clint Walters, 31, died of a heart attack in London. He was diagnosed HIV positive fourteen years ago and has spent those years supporting other young people who have found themselves in the same situation. He had a tremendous impact in his tragically short life. In his memory, we reblogged an article he wrote largely about “coming out” — over and over again — as HIV positive (and crucially, that so many people just don’t disclose).

Finally — I was delighted to see Ugly Betty‘s penultimate episode feature Justin coming out to his (desperately trying to look serious) friend Marc St. James and then to his entire (very accepting) family. It’s a testament to how far the world has come that we can have a kid that age come out on prime-time television and I have yet to see any backlash from anywhere.

So that was last week — a lot of happy, a bit of sad, lots of poignant.

Finally, I didn’t blog about it here — because she’s not gay, but I’d like to remember here the efforts of one gay rights ally that died in the tragic plane crash in Russia that took the lives of so many Polish VIPs: Izabela Jaruga-Nowacka.

Here’s to a week with more happy.

CanuckJacq

We already saw him kiss a boy, but this week we were treated to his disclosure — first to grown-up gay friend Marc St. James and then to the rest of his family.

Sadly the show is at the end of its days. A more-than-disappointing 3rd season spelled poor ratings and Ugly Betty has been cancelled. The worst part of all of this is that, post-cancellation, Ugly Betty’s writers and actors started churning out the awesome.

Season 4 has been stellar and those of us who stuck with the show inexplicably throughout season 3 are now devastated to see the end of the stories and characters who have come so far in the last year.

I can’t stop raving about the coming out plot. From the day Justin declared that he wasn’t gay, I was enthralled. No good coming out story can go smoothly, and while Justin isn’t dealing with a judgemental family, he still has the same worries we all had.

For a young actor, Mark Indelicato has done an incredible job portraying Justin’s story, and his Justin Suarez and Michael Urie‘s Marc St. James have become two of the most popular characters as their friendship has developed.

If you haven’t been watching, do yourself a favour and get the season 4 DVD box set when it comes out.

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• Ugly Betty’s Justin kissed a girl… (lezgetreal.com)

… and we’re really just getting started.

Thank you all so much for reading the blog and for sharing your stories.

This past week, we’ve had:

lavenderprecipitation‘s harrowing story of coming out at 60 mph;

masqueradehfx‘s unlikely story of coming out to a pflag mom who reacted differently than one might expect, and his own story of figuring it out for himself;

ottokitty told us the story of coming out at a very young age and how her teenaged sister took the news;

keeire also shared a story of telling her teenaged sibling, and the story of how her mom found out;

We were also honoured to have an anonymous story of a young man coming out at 13;

And of course, I spent some time talking about my favourite celebrities, including one who identifies as queer and Ugly Betty’s exciting and bitter-sweet gay kiss, four episodes before the entire show comes to a close; I also recalled the story of the very first time I saw two guys kissing;

In a rare newsy moment, we covered the threat of one American blogger to out any gay senators in his state who voted in favour of proposed anti-gay legislation.

So, we keep growing! We now have 75 fans on our Facebook page, and over 100 twitter followers. Almost 400 unique visitors came through the site, up a good bit from our first week.

I have a counselling professional writing up an advice page for all the people who land here after searching for “am I gay?”, because I think it’s the responsible thing to do. And we get a lot of people landing here with that question.

I hope everyone has had a great week and thanks for hanging out in the Big Gay Closet!

via The Not So Ugly Truth | People | Advocate.com.

“I’ve never been in,” Urie responds today. “I’ve never said I was straight, and I’m not saying I’m gay now. I never lie, and I’ve never shied away from the topic. I’ve certainly chosen through my work to do things that promote the rights of LGBTQ people. I am not a hypocrite—certainly not now.”

…

When asked what letter in LGBTQ he identifies himself, Urie says Q, for queer.

In honour of the incredible episode of Ugly Betty that aired last night and featured an awards-calibre scene between Michael Urie’s Marc St James and Mark Indelicato’s Justin Suarez, I thought we’d feature Urie’s February interview with The Advocate Magazine.

While there had been suspicion that the Julliard graduate was not entirely straight, he had played his cards close to his chest earlier in his career.

He explains:

“It’s a business of perception. My being perceived as queer is likely not going to affect the jobs I get, but with certain people it might. Coming out can ruin your career. My career is not based on people believing me with a woman. If it was, I’d be in trouble. If George Clooney came out, he’d be in trouble. Suddenly people would say, ‘Wait, he doesn’t like what I see him doing? Now I don’t believe it.’ When you have 20 people who have to agree to cast somebody in a role, a little thing like that could be a really big thing to them.”

… but didn’t like it.

“It was better in my head,” Justin says, before being kissed (to greater effect) by his friend Austin.

Sometimes I feel like I’m a gay man trapped in a lesbian’s body.  Don’t get me wrong, there’s a lesbian there too; I have plenty of room. But this is one of my gay man moments, and I’m falling in love with Michael Urie (not to mention all the writers at Ugly Betty).

It seems like only yesterday that Justin denied he was gay. Now of course, you can’t be gay without having denied it at least once. Even so, the scene was painful, it a really great way.

Poor Sceptical Uncle Marc. He’s been so good through all of this, and Justin’s best sounding board. I know I had a Wise Fairy Gaymother when I was coming out. I’m glad Justin has his very own Wise Fairy Gayfather.

In last night’s Ugly Betty episode, “All the World’s a Stage”, Justin benefited from a Wise Uncle Marc talk on kissing, when Justin announces he “has to” kiss his fabled girl crush.

And both of these actors knocked their parts out of the park. As for the rest of the episode, it might as well have not even happened.

Yes!

Head on over to After Elton, where Michael Jenson posted a recap yesterday.

All in all, I thought the episode handled the topic terrifically well and I appreciate that while the story isn’t about unaccepting parents or homophobic classmates, it still addresses the fact that even in 2010, accepting one’s sexual orientation isn’t just a walk in the park. Adolescence and young love is scary for anyone, but it’s still often doubly so for gay and bisexual men.
from AfterElton

I am going to miss this show in a really shocking way when it ends. And I am kind of living for the scene where Marc finds out.

Oh and when Ugly Betty ends, I can haz spinoff?

If you’re going to miss Ugly Betty like I am, join the facebook group and sign the petition to Save Ugly Betty!