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It’s
a cliché to say it, but I’ve always known I was gay.
Oh, sometimes I’d play mental games where I’d tell myself that I just hadn’t met the right girl. Or that I was always checking out other boys because I was just comparing myself to them. But deep down, I think I always knew the truth. Problem was, it was pretty clear what all the people around me thought of homosexuality. Until I reached college, I literally don’t think I heard a single positive thing about gay people. But boy, I sure heard a lot of the negative stuff--about how we gay people were weak and pathetic and miserable and immoral and promiscuous and couldn’t be trusted around little boys. People didn’t talk as openly about gay people as much back then, but they definitely made it clear what they thought. When I was thirteen, I was given a book, A Boy’s Sex Life by William J. Bausch, which spelled it all out in black and white: gays are "disturbed," "fearful," "lonesome," "sick," and many other terrible things. I tried to ignore these attitudes. I knew they didn’t describe me. But I figured they did describe other gay people. Why would everyone say them if they didn’t? I also knew how people would react if they ever knew the truth about me. So I simply decided I’d have to live my whole life without anyone ever knowing I was gay. Easier said than done. It’s exhausting keeping secrets, especially all-consuming, potentially lethal ones like that. Homophobes always ask why gay people insist on telling people what we do in our bedrooms (they don’t tell people what they do in their bedrooms!). But telling people that I have a male partner doesn’t tell anyone what I do in my bedroom--not any more than a straight man telling people he’s married tells people what he does in his bedroom. Reasonable people know that being gay isn’t about what you do in your bedroom anyway. It’s about the way you relate to the world--the way you react to all people, male and female, gay and straight. To straight people, I say this: imagine trying to live your entire life without ever letting anyone know you find the opposite sex attractive, while at the same time trying to convince people that you’re really attracted to the same sex. Whew! Talk about a lot of pressure on a fourteen year-old. High school was a particularly lonely time. I felt like an absolute fraud--and one that could be exposed at any second. I also felt like I was the only gay person in the whole world. Not all of my books are autobiographical, but much of Geography Club sure is. Russel, my main character, is pretty much me, updated for the 2000s. Except I was a lot more neurotic. Fortunately, like my book, the story of my life has a happy ending. I went to college and met people like my friend Laura South-Oryshchyn, who made it very clear she didn’t believe the standard line about gay people. She was even willing to say it out loud, which is why everyone thought she was a lesbian. She wasn’t, but she didn’t care what people thought, which impressed me a lot then and even more now. In college, I also met other gay people. To my surprise, they weren’t weak and pathetic and miserable and all the rest. On the contrary, most of them were bright, passionate, principled, creative men and women--exactly the kind of person I wanted to be. (Some of the guys were also pretty cute, but that’s a whole other story!) That’s when I realized I’d been fed a pack of lies. And not just little lies either. Great, big, whopping, steaming-piles-of-horseshit lies. I can still get pretty worked up about this. Because of other people’s prejudice and ignorance, I had to spend the first twenty years of my life feeling like a freak, ashamed and afraid. And it frustrates me to think that here it is decades later, and being young and gay or lesbian or bisexual or transgendered can still be just as miserable an experience. Things were bad for gay or transgendered teenagers in 1983, but in some ways, they’re even worse now. When you’re trying to hide something from the world, the last thing you want is the whole world talking about what it is you’re trying to hide. And while the Internet can be a very, very good thing, I really hate the thought that most gay kids’ first exposure to the gay community comes through hardcore pornography, which can be a very, very bad thing. If you're a lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgendered young person, or if you think you might be, you might feel that things are pretty bad for you right now. But I can absolutely guarantee that life will get better. When I was a teenager, there were times I often thought about suicide, but I am so very glad I never went through with it. I never would have met my partner Michael, or any of my other terrific friends, both gay and straight. I wouldn’t have the life I have now--a life I desperately love. I know there are a lot of mean, nasty people in the world, and there are a lot of really serious problems. But there are also a lot of wonderful people, and wonderful things. The good people and things are a little harder to find, but they’re there. I found them. You will too--I promise. AIDS and Sex A lot of very foolish gay men think we no longer need to worry about AIDS or HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. But despite promising treatments, AIDS is still an incurable, and often fatal, disease. And even when AIDS doesn’t kill you, it almost always makes your life really really miserable, at least eventually. Whether you’re having sex right now or not, every gay or bisexual person, and especially every gay or bisexual guy, needs to know the facts of safer sex. Being gay doesn’t mean you will get AIDS or HIV, not by a long-shot (almost all of my friends are HIV-negative, and most of us are in our thirties or forties). That said, if you’re a guy and you’re having sex with other guys, it’s absolutely essential that you take certain precautions, otherwise you will almost certainly get AIDS or HIV eventually. You think I don't know how unfair this is? We gay people spend the first twenty years of our lives living with fear, guilt, and shame, facing begrudging tolerance or outright rejection from our families, friends, societies, and religions. Then just when we're emerging from what can be a truly hellish time, we have to deal with AIDS, HIV, and premature death, sometimes in our own lives, always in the lives of at least some of our friends. And to top it off, we then have to listen to ignorant ministers and cynical politicians blame us for all this and tell us we deserve to die! It's like some cruel cosmic joke. Straight people make stupid choices about sex all the time, but most of the time, they don't get some fatal disease as a result. You've heard this before, but life ain't fair. We gay people get a really raw deal. This isn't victimhood; it's just acknowledging reality (and the rest of society will finally admit as much fifty years from now, but that doesn't do us a whole lot of good now, does it?). AIDS really sucks. That said, we can either deny it, and a lot more of us will get sick and die. Or we can deal with it. AIDS is serious and scary, but this is a very easy disease to avoid. Sex can still be a normal, natural, healthy part of being a gay man or woman. It just has to be safer sex. Not sure what that is? Check out the links below (warning: they use sexually explicit language and may offend some people). If at all possible, also talk to a counselor at your local gay health clinic or AIDS organization, or call the hotline below. They can answer your specific questions. (Don't be afraid to ask those questions! Call a couple times if you have to. They've heard it all before, and you can't possibly shock them.) Most gay teenagers, like most straight teenagers, are pretty eager to have sex. I understand that. But my advice is still to wait until you’ve got a partner who you know, like, and really trust, and that you‘re completely comfortable with the whole situation. If you can't talk openly and honestly with this person, you're not ready to have sex with them. This isn’t just about AIDS; it’s also about emotional vulnerability. If you’re like me and 95% of my friends, you’ll fall desperately in love with the first guy or girl you have sex with. If you don’t know them well, they can really take advantage of you (and I'm sorry to say, a lot of guys turn out to be jerks!). Be as safe as you can, and wait until you’re absolutely sure it’s right, and you’ll have no worries and no regrets. Managingdesire.org Teenwire.com National AIDS Hotline: 1-800-342-AIDS
LYRIC Youth Talkline (staffed by gay youth) Gay & Lesbian National Hotline Indiana Youth Group Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual
Youth Hotline http://www.pflag.org/ If you’re having problems at school, or if you’re thinking about starting a gay-straight alliance--you can even call it the Geography Club!--you can check out the Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network (GLSEN), a fantastic group which focuses on school issues: http://www.glsen.org/ |
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