By Assi Azar / via Advocate.com

Hello.

I have decided to write to you. I don’t know why; maybe because today I am “celebrating’’ 10 years out of my own private closet. Whatever the reason, I wrote this. I hope you will read it to the end.


Despite it being 10 years ago, I remember so clearly what life was like in the closet. You’re walking down the street. Good-looking guys go past, but you can’t look at them — in case you reveal your truth.
 And you go out with girls, and it’s not that bad at all. Some of them have their suspicions, but you do everything that you can to hide it. You even overplay your masculinity in order to convince her. It’s not hard to deceive a girl who is in love with you.


And you start to confuse yourself with your own lies. You think that because you actually managed to sleep with her, that maybe, perhaps, surely you are not really gay.


And if you marry her and have a baby with her, that’s it! You’re not really gay.


But at night your dreams betray you. Those dreams where you are kissing someone — a man, a guy in your class, a friend, a colleague, your boss — and it feels so good, so right, so full of passion and fire, and you wake up scared and agitated. This betrays you. And when you watch Brad Pitt on the screen and he takes off his shirt and looks you straight in the eye, your mouth goes dry and you are once again betrayed.
 Sometimes a tactless friend dares to ask if you are gay. You try to play it cool and deny it, carefully and swiftly trying to convince him otherwise, while also convincing yourself that you have convinced him.


And maybe even you have a secret profile on a gay dating site, without a photograph of your face. You just flirt because you don’t have the courage to meet up with any of them. And if you do meet up with someone, it is in darkness. And if it happens not to be that dark, you just pray that the guy you just had sex with won’t know any of your friends and give your secret away.


And you convince yourself that just because you slept with that guy, it doesn’t mean you are gay.
 And you convince yourself that just because you are in love with your best friend, it really doesn’t mean that you are gay.
 And if sometimes you watch gay porn, that doesn’t mean that you are actually gay.
 And you think that if you watch straight porn, then there is no way that you are gay.
 And you sleep with your girlfriend again to prove to yourself one last time that you are not gay. You even cheat on her with another girl just to show her and the whole world what a man you are.


And it works.


But behind your back, your closest friends — those who suspect you are gay but don’t have the guts to say anything to you — look at you with sadness.

I am also sad for you because I have been there. 
I’m so very sad for you that you are missing out on the most important years of your life because you are so wrapped up in this internal war between you and yourself. 
Not with your friends. 
Not with your parents. 
Not with your colleagues.
 Just with yourself.


Yes, when I was in the closet I was terrified to death of my parents finding out.

Frightened that they would throw me out of the house, that my friends would abandon me, that they would fire me from my job. 
It is a paralyzing fear. You don’t even know how to make those three little words leave your lips: “I am gay.” It doesn’t even seem possible after so many years of lying.


And you are worried that you will be disappointing everyone; that they will look at you like an injured calf — with pity, that they didn’t understand you.
 Coming out of the closet is a process on two levels:


1.Coming out to yourself


2. Coming out to the rest of the world. 


The moment that you stand there in front of the mirror and you say to your reflection, “I am gay.”

From that very moment, everything starts to get easier and simpler. Because from here you start to become stronger and stop being the victim. The moment when you accept yourself is the moment when you realize it’s less important that people like you and more important that they accept you.


You cannot come out of the closet in front of others until you have stood in front of that mirror, looked yourself deep in the eyes and said the real truth out loud.


For me, this moment came after I realized I was in love with a man. For six months he pursued me because he felt that there was something starting between us, but I wasn’t able to admit or allow it. I brushed him off. I tried to convince myself: We are just good friends. But I just couldn’t help it — I fell in love.


One day, I overheard that my man was going out on a date with another guy, and I remember that moment as though it was yesterday. I suddenly realized that I was about to miss out on the biggest love of my life, that there was a price for being in the closet and that price was too great.


So that was that.


The tears rolled down my cheeks, but I refused to give up as I looked at myself in the mirror. I looked deeply into my eyes and I said it: “I am gay.”


And with my heartbeat bursting out of my chest, I called him and asked him to come over. And he came over and we sat together on my couch and we kissed. For the first time. Exactly 10 years ago, I kissed a man. And it was strange. And I felt his stubble. And my heart was thumping and that was that — no going back.


That first year wasn’t easy. It was full of confusion, regret, and self-hate. I didn’t understand anything about the sex and it even disgusted me a little, and again I thought that I was straight and I had just been confused, messed up. But I was happy because I was on the right path to harmony and self-fulfillment. I wasn’t stuck in the same place as I had been a moment before.

Six months after that first kiss, I dreamed that I was standing under the wedding canopy with my girlfriend. All my friends were there and the rabbi was making the blessings. Then I turned and ran away. I found myself in my old bedroom in my parents’ house, lying in my single bed, crying into my mother’s shoulder. She is soothing me and stroking my head and she whispers: “You really thought that you could do it, huh?”


The next day I drove over to my mother’s and I told her, and I was absolutely terrified.


And then I told my father.


And then everyone else.

It wasn’t easy, and it wasn’t easy for them to understand. But to me it was a miracle. The thought that I could go through my life without being true to myself, without being me. The thought that I could have lived a lie until the day I died, just to fit into a role that society expected of me, just not to be different … that thought chills me to my bone.


And I respect those people who decide to stay in the closet. Yes — I respect you, my friend. If you thought that living out of the closet was hard, then living in the closet is 10 times harder. Because maybe to the rest of the world you seem to be OK, but inside you are dying of sadness. I remember it well. 
And today my parents accept me completely (that includes my father, who used to be totally disgusted at the mere mention of the word “gay”) because we have gone through a long process together. A process in which I had to teach them about the “New Assi,” the real Assi. And they learned with patience and with unconditional love.


And hello? Don’t you want to be able to walk with your lover down the street hand in hand? Doesn’t it annoy you to have to kiss and cuddle just in private?

It wasn’t easy for me to write these words down and I am sure that it hasn’t been easy for you to read them, but I hope you realize that I want to help. Not to force you to come out, not to force you into anything. Just to give you something to think about, just to show you that you are not alone. And yes, I do honestly believe that everything happens in its own time and that everyone will come out of their closet in their own time, when they feel the time is right or that they have no other choice. 
I hope that I helped you, even if only a little.


Have a good week,

Assi

By Amelia | Huffington Post

… my son is considered a threat to the Boy Scouts of America. Why? Because he identifies as gay. The Boy Scouts have created a lot of buzz lately by holding up their discriminatory policies against LGBT people. In the statement released by the BSA in 2004, they said, “Boy Scouts of America believes that homosexual conduct is inconsistent with the obligations in the Scout Oath and Scout Law to be morally straight and clean in thought, word, and deed.”

Well, I guess if they are using the word “straight” as the slang for ‘“heterosexual,” then they might have a point… but we all know they’re not. My son is at the age when most boys start Cub Scouts, but he won’t be among their numbers.

…

…It wouldn’t be fair to enter my son into the Scouts knowing that he is discriminated against. We will not ask him to lie about who he is, and neither of us feels that he is old enough to understand what he could possibly be taking on. More than that, gay kids face the trial of homophobia in this country every day. Setting him up with a group that he may grow to love, only to find out later that that same group thinks he’s “unclean,” would be cruel.

…

What do they think [on BSA’s statements] a gay scout or leader is going to “introduce or discuss”? It’s not like anyone is campaigning for a “Safe Anal Sex” merit badge. No, instead, it prohibits a gay scout leader from being honest about his or her partner or husband. It restricts gay scouts from answering the question “what did you do this weekend?” with “my boyfriend and I went to the movies.” That is simply unacceptable, because the mere mention of “same-sex attraction” is considered such a threat that it cannot be discussed. It saddens me that the BSA finds reality so threatening.

So far the BSA’s bigotry is only an issue for the adults in my son’s life, not for him, but … Soon his friends will be Cub Scouts, and he may come to me and ask to join. Then Bruce and I will have the unpleasant task of sitting a little boy down and figuring out the least painful way of saying, “Baby, they don’t want you.” And my little boy will know firsthand what discrimination is. Boy Scouts, you will help him learn an important lesson. I hope you are proud of yourselves.

Click on the link above to read the full article.

Picture: Elisa Bestetti, top, and Emmi Pihlajaniemi with their daughters, Irma, 4, and Kirsi, 2, on a family visit to Italy. The women are a legal couple in Finland.

By PAUL GEITNER | NYTimes

When 1-year-old Kirsi Bestetti tripped and cut her lip at her grandparents’ house last summer, her mother Elisa Bestetti rushed her to the emergency room, panicky about all the blood.

Once there, she also worried whether the hospital staff would accept her as Kirsi’s mother.

Ms. Bestetti is Italian, but towheaded Kirsi is Finnish like her birth mother, Emmi Pihlajaniemi. The two women have been married in all but name for five years at home in Finland, and each has given birth to a daughter who has been legally adopted in Finland by the other partner.

But Italy does not allow a child to have two mothers. Same-sex couples in Italy are not allowed to marry, to register partnerships, to adopt a child or benefit from assisted reproduction. Within the European Union, such family law issues remain the jealously guarded domain of the 27 individual countries, each with its own history, culture and legal tradition.

…

“It’s a bit like baking a cake and then not wanting anybody to eat it,” said Michael Cashman, a gay-rights advocate and longtime member of the European Parliament from Britain. “But if you believe in freedom of movement — ‘Europe without borders’ — this is what we have to address: the inequalities that people face purely because of someone’s opinion.” In Kirsi’s case, the hospital ended up treating her, and the split lip was not serious. A year later there is not even a scar. But concerns linger over the family’s legal status when they venture outside of Finland.

“I don’t know if I would travel alone with Kirsi,” said Ms. Bestetti, who recounted the tale as Kirsi fidgeted on her other mother’s lap in a shady spot by the barn on the Bestetti family farm, just outside Bologna, Italy. “The Finnish state recognizes that I’m her parent, but here I’m nothing.”

…

Still, they worry how they will explain to their children that they have two parents in one country and only one parent in another, or why some of the older Italian relatives still refer to Ms. Pihlajaniemi as the girls’ “aunt.”

“I don’t know what they’re going to think,” Ms. Pihlajaniemi said. “For the children, it’s really an absurd situation.”

Click the link above to read the full article.

By Amelia | Huffington Post
”Mother, wife, partner, and breadwinner” 

…
The man and his child were Southern, and the dad was fitted with a NASCAR baseball cap, so warning bells started going off in my head. I knew it was a stereotype, and I knew it is unfair, but I still looked at my son, sitting there and having fun with the other little boy, and thought, “Please, please, baby, do not mention you’re gay.”

Did I mention that I am so not proud of myself? My thoughts shocked me, even as they were forming in my head. I had never thought anything like it before. My son is who he is, and I have never wanted him to be anyone else. I am proud of him, and try I encourage him to be himself and empower him, but here I was, just a few feet away, willing him to hold part of himself back. The shame came over me instantly. What was I thinking? How dare I? What the hell?
…

 Click the link above to read the full article.

By Waymon Hudson, LGBT rights activist

From the article:

Over the years, Pride celebrations have shifted from their earlier protest-march forms to more celebratory parties as LGBT people have felt safer, come out of the closet, and been more visible in society and pop culture. Yet even as our parties grew larger, our legal rights and battles for equality have too often stalled, with major hurdles still facing the community every day. A level of cultural acceptance brought a sense of political apathy to the events, even though in most states even the most basic rights (like employment-discrimination protection or housing and public-accommodation rights) are denied to LGBT people.

… That’s why now more than ever it is the perfect time to take Pride back to its roots and put the politics and protest back in alongside the fun.

We need to be asking people to not only celebrate but do something as simple as carrying a sign with the LGBT-rights issue that means the most to you. Want ENDA passed so we can help end employment discrimination? Help educate the community by starting conversations with Pride-goers by carrying a sign. Want the bigoted Defense of Marriage Act repealed? Make a shirt and talk about about it at Pride with your friends and the people around you. Volunteer with your favorite political organization at its booth, and inform others.

…

… So join the fight and make a difference as you celebrate; we can have Pride and still learn from our own history as we continue to fight for liberation and freedom.

Click the link above to read more.

By Dr. Peggy Drexler | Huffington Post
Author, ‘Our Fathers, Ourselves. Daughters, Fathers, and the Changing American Family’

From the article:

…much of the general public’s “education” about the lives of gay Americans has come at the hands of television comedy. But by making gay characters something to laugh at, does it also risk making gay humor the only form of gay we can take?

When it comes to sex — gay or straight — laughter is often the best medicine. In large part that’s because, if you think about it, sex often is laughable. But one challenge we’ve had in achieving the full acceptance of people who are gay is that the very nature of what we’re “accepting” forces us to think about — and talk about — someone else’s sexual activity. As a family psychologist and gender expert, I’ve worked with many gay couples and individuals. One mother of a lesbian I knew told me that what disturbed her most about her daughter’s sexual orientation was the thought of her having sex with another woman. But what parent wants to imagine a child of whatever inclination having sex? Conversely, what child wants to imagine his or her parent doing the same? So when we do, or when we’re forced to, talk about or think about sex, it’s often for laughs. That’s okay.

Still, it’s a good idea to watch out for the type of humor we’re using, and whether we’re using it more to talk about gay sex than straight sex. The television network TLC recently pulled an episode of its popular Cake Boss reality series, before it aired, once it was revealed (to considerable public uproar) that the show planned to depict a transgender woman as the punch line to a prank setup. That decision came in time. But what if others don’t? And what of the messages we’re sending about gay love when we make a big deal out of same sex relationships on TV? On most networks, it’s still considered somewhat provocative to show two men kissing — less so, for some reason, for two women. But either way, episodes that feature same sex kissing often come with parental warnings, even when programs that feature the same level of passion between a man and a woman do not.

Click the link above or click here to read the full article.

By Keza MacDonald, IGN UK

A brief history of egalitarianism in games, and why non-traditional depictions matter.

Games take a lot of flak for being a fairly un-inclusive medium, made by young straight men for young straight men and mildly offensive to everyone else. Listen to much popular discourse on video games, and you’ll come away with the impression that they (and their players) are overwhelmingly sexist, immature, and unwelcoming to anybody outside of that traditional demographic. 

There’s a small amount of truth in that, much as we’d all love to deny it. But this image belies the fact that many games are impressively egalitarian, and that gaming has a long history of positive depictions of lesbian, gay and queer characters. From the original Sims to Dragon Age, games haven’t been afraid to show and enable gay relationships. Developers like BioWare have consistently stood up for gay players’ rights to appropriate romances, just like everybody else. What follows is a brief history of queer visibility in gaming – and an explanation, should it be needed, of why these depictions matter. 

Read more here.

[Thanks to merlinkun for letting me know about this article.]