You live someplace where it's illegal be gay? I don't have the power to singlehandedly overturn the laws in your country but I can suggest a POSSIBLE course of action, though you probably won't like it.
Generally speaking, laws cover behavior not how you FEEL. They can't ACTUALLY legislate your feelings so in practice if they TRY to tell you "You cannot FEEL attracted to men because you are male." people LIE about it and HIDE it.
Countries that TRY to go the "thought police" route tend to crash and burn. Countries that are at all reasonable, legislate ACTIONS, not thoughts and feelings.
Homophobia is PROBABLY driven largely by a few social forces, including:
1. Once you get beyond about 150 people in your "tribe", people can no longer genuinely know EVERYONE well, so we start coming up with simplified rules for dealing with others we don't know well in "public" spaces and I THINK a lot of garbage in the world is rooted in the world coming up with this rule of thumb that "Men have PUBLIC lives -- aka CAREERS or paid jobs -- and women have PRIVATE lives -- aka they are wives and moms" and I think one of those simplified "rules" SOME people use is "If I am MALE, other MEN are NOT HITTING ON ME. This is a PLATONIC situation. FULL STOP."
I've written about that here: First Contact.
So if you come out as GAY as an IDENTITY thing and NOT to try to get laid, you are STILL abiding by the "rule" there: I am NOT hitting on you, so you do NOT need to worry about what the hell did he mean by that?
2. This neutralizes a second issue: When we "forbid" things, like homosexual sex, that thing tends to end up associated with a lot of negative behaviors and negative outcomes. So it becomes a quick and dirty rule of thumb that if you don't know someone well and they are OPEN about X, don't trust them. They are probably trouble.
So a primary goal here should be changing people's minds about that. You change minds by proving that assumption wrong.
A lot of gays currently have homosexual sex on the down low because they don't want to PUBLICLY admit they are gay because they don't want trouble but they do want to get their needs met. So they are deceiving people and people who lie to you or deceive you are people you can't trust.
A lot of gay people are users of illicit drugs in part as a coping mechanism for things like "My own MOTHER cannot accept me. I am just going to go get high and numb out. I can't cope with this. I don't want to feel what I feel. I want to feel NOTHING."
People who SECRETLY have sex are more likely to engage in risky behaviors and NOT use condoms while sleeping with someone they barely know because they can't admit to a relationship in public, so they pursue hookups and they don't use condoms because it's EVIDENCE.
Gay men tend to feel "the rules" don't apply to them because they can't get pregnant and they act like cultural norms surrounding monogamy and marriage and so forth are about unintended pregnancies. No, that's just ONE piece of that puzzle.
There is also DISEASE and social entanglements which have material impacts -- AKA "money," though not as simple as just money.
Most likely, the AIDS crisis in the US was mostly among gay men because of the irresponsible behavior of ONE airline pilot who was diagnosed with HIV and decided to sleep around like crazy and have a good time before he died WITHOUT TELLING people he had this disease and his irresponsible behavior was facilitated by him being a pilot.
As a pilot, he traveled a LOT. So his lovers weren't part of his social circle, thus he could act irresponsibly and not have word get out to potential new hookups "Dude, he's an asshole. He has a disease, won't tell you that and doesn't use condoms."
So in the US, AIDS became known as "a gay disease" (and a disease of IV drug users) and most likely that was sort of code for "Hey, stupid, you aren't actually exempt from the rules. You may not get PREGNANT, but sleeping around casually can KILL YOU. There's a disease out there called AIDS and sleeping with five zillion men and not using a condom is an almost certain death sentence because sooner or later you will catch it."
In theory, what you do behind closed doors is no one's business. In reality, what you do behind closed doors can impact other people, so sex is one of those things OTHER PEOPLE feel entitled to butt into your life over because if you are having children you can't afford to raise, OTHER PEOPLE have to deal with that and also if you are spreading disease, OTHER PEOPLE have to deal with that.
So prove that your existence as someone who LIKES people of the same sex is NOT a threat to the social fabric and "being gay" does NOT mean "I don't abide by the rules, I have a fuck you attitude, and I don't care if other people are hurt by my choices." and homophobia can start to DIE.
Be a GENERALLY upstanding citizen who is NOT a troublemaker except for this ONE QUIRK that you make everyone uncomfortable by saying "I'm gay. That means I find people of my gender attractive. But I'm celibate because homosexual sex is currently illegal where I live."
3. People who DENY to themselves that they are gay because they are afraid of the consequences in this generally homophobic world tend to end up really screwed up psychologically and emotionally. Admitting to yourself you are gay but NOT having homosexual sex seems to be much less damaging than people trying to convince themselves "I'm not that thing my own MOTHER can't accept."
In my experience, people who deny to themselves that they are gay do a lot of bad things because they are in pain and have messed up ideas about things. They are in pain and they blame OTHER people instead of seeing that they are basically doing this to themselves.
So I think homophobia is partly rooted in some kind of awareness that closeted gays are frequently really messed up people and instead of being understood that being in the closet messes you up, it gets simplified to "Wow, gay people are AWFUL." and some people use that as a simplified rule: "Gay = Bad."
So don't do that to yourself. Don't psychologically and emotionally maim yourself and then behave badly on the justification that "Other people HURT ME, so I have a RIGHT to HURT other people." In practice, that usually means you are hurting people who did you no wrong and that means YOU are AN ASSHOLE.
Don't be an asshole and most people won't REALLY care who you get jiggy with behind closed doors SO LONG as:
Don't go in with guns blazing announcing that you will get the law changed. Be a generally interested and involved upstanding citizen and where appropriate give your two-cents about things in a way that benefits YOUR PEOPLE without causing trouble for OTHERS and don't always tie it back to "That's a problem for GAY PEOPLE."
I used to attend public meetings and say "That's a problem for pedestrians -- for people who live without a car and mostly walk everywhere." and not necessarily "That's a problem for HOMELESS people." In reality, a lot of street homeless have no vehicle and walk everywhere.
Barriers to pedestrians are a big burden to the most vulnerable homeless but that's a poor way to advocate. It's also a burden to OTHER PEOPLE and that's generally a stronger position to take.
So if you see they want to do X and you know X is a problem for gays and OTHER PEOPLE, tell them "Oh, X is a bad idea." and make your case and don't always make it solely harping on "GAY PEOPLE."
Accept that you may be openly gay and celibate for a long time.
The gay community currently TENDS to overall break all the rules, feel entitled to do as they please and act like everything would be hunky dory if the rules would just CHANGE and say "It's okay to be gay." Meanwhile, no one trusts you because you make no effort to play by the rules and this OFTEN means you are breaking a LOT more rules than just "boys are supposed to like girls, not other boys."
Gays are currently MOSTLY fighting the wrong battle. They are currently fighting for the right to have sex as they please behind closed doors and you can ALREADY do that no matter what the law says IF you aren't a troublemaker and you STAY out of TROUBLE.
If you are a troublemaker and also have illegal sex behind closed doors, someday someone will find out and USE that against you.
They should be fighting for the right to PUBLICLY say "No, I'm gay." and it not be a BIG DEAL and to PUBLICLY appear at normal social events with their same-sex partner on their arm and have NO ONE care about that detail.
That's the actual right heterosexuals have. We can implicitly and explicitly admit "I like members of the opposite sex." and appear in public with our lover on our arm and if we are married or otherwise have a socially acceptable relationship to that person, NO ONE CARES. No one goes "OH MY GOD. YOU BEING HERE WITH HIM is an ADMISSION you two are FUCKING!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
For the most part, the world does NOT want to hear about your sex life. That's a PRIVATE MATTER.
That's NOT "a gay thing." They don't really want to hear about it if you are straight EITHER. Straight people generally do NOT go to social events and loudly discuss the details of their SEX life, but they can show up with their opposite sex lover and not have the world freak the fuck out.
There are lots of other things that CAN raise an eyebrow, such as a big age difference. And that tends to be judged on a case-by-case basis.
If both parties are, say, over the age of 30, people tend to NOT really care. It's when some skeevy older guy ONLY dates "barely legal" girls that people start going "Dude, that ain't right. Get therapy. No, you aren't invited to my pool party next weekend."
But there are also exceptions to that general rule. I personally never cared that Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher were married. They were both rich actors and beautiful people and business owners. I figured they had a lot in common and I never thought "Oh, he's her victim. LOOK AT THE AGE DIFFERENCE!"
Meanwhile, we also have laws about getting involved with a legal minor when you are an adult. So while some age differences are, in fact, ILLEGAL, not all age differences are.
The takeaway there is "the devil is in the details" and the reason people care about you liking members of the opposite sex is because they think you are TROUBLE for THEM and they don't want to deal with it.
So prove you aren't trouble. Prove you are a law-abiding, upstanding citizen who just happens to LIKE BOYS intead of girls (or girls instead of boys as the case may be).
Focus on claiming your right to say "This is my truth: I'm GAY." and do that by saying "But I'm celibate because homosexual sex is illegal currently where I live."
Fight for the right to quietly and politely admit "I like people of the same sex." without drama and without all this other baggage.
Saying "I'm gay and celibate to stay out of jail." means you have opportunity to sort out how to be openly gay without only telling people you are gay to try to get laid. That takes away some of the drama.
Currently, a LOT of gay people ONLY admit they are gay to other gays they are trying to arrange to secretly have sex with in violation of the law and/or social norms and expectations and that means two things:
Everyone on the planet already has a de facto "right" to do as they please behind closed doors AS LONG AS it doesn't somehow lead to trouble of some sort. When it does lead to trouble, then other people get involved and that's when it actually matters that "Oh, well, technically, you shouldn't have been sleeping with that person AT ALL because..."
Fight for the right to be allowed to ADMIT "I'm GAY." and be seen in public with your same sex partner or seen in public chatting up potential partners or dating them. And then consequences for "When things sometimes go wrong between two people -- as HAPPENS at times to EVERYONE on the planet" are a lot less ruinous.
Because even straight people endure ugly divorce cases, end up with STDs because their lover is an unfaithful asshole hiding their infidelity by both LYING and NOT USING protection and so forth. It's just not complicated by "And it's a crime for which you can be thrown in jail to admit you were involved with this person AT ALL."
AND also I appear to be the highest ranked woman on an overwhelmingly male forum where my policy boils down to:
I'm interested in MANY things other than the status of women and how YOU EVIL MOTHERFUCKERS are NOT TREATING ME with the same respect as the MEN because you are MISOGYNISTIC ASSHOLES.
Respect is EARNED. That's reality. And pissing on other people without provocation is NOT how you earn it.
Having said that: I'm NOT gay. I am 99 percent attracted to men. I haven't been with a woman since I was a teenager. I'm open about being not straight as a political position with no expectation that I will ever have a girlfriend again. And I don't know of case studies of political movements that followed this specific course of action.
People tend to like the status quo. IF you do this and START making headway on changing attitudes, you WILL get PUSHBACK at SOME POINT.
Not covered above: CLOSETED gays trying to not be outed are another problem and are sometimes much more vociferous about being openly homophobic because they are scared and trying to "prove" that "I'm NOT one of them!" So some of your biggest detractors may be closeted gays who don't want to be outed, who don't want to deal with their feelings of depression or rage about how they have mutilated themselves for years to remain closeted and etc.
WHEN you get pushback, HOW you handle that will be a make-or-break for this process. To the best of your ability, do not let people BAIT you into PUBLICLY PROVING you are an ASSHOLE.
Stay calm, cool and collected and correct their inaccurate assumptions and assertions.
FOR EXAMPLE: "No, I'm not trying to change the laws. Of course, I would PREFER to see the laws change, but look at my track record. I have made no effort to change the laws. I don't have time for that right now. Maybe someday, but at the moment I work 60 hours a week. I'm JUST claiming my right to tell you who I am and that's IT. FULL STOP. You can make it illegal for me to have sex with men, you cannot make me NOT GAY by insisting it's illegal for me to get my sexual needs met."
SO if you use the ideas in this post, EXPECT to course correct as ACTUAL REALITY intrudes on "hypotheticals." In the military the saying is "No plan of attack survives contact with the enemy."
The minute you actually act on an idea, you have changed conditions and you may need to quickly change tactics because of it.
Something I have never heard anywhere except from my late father:
In World War II, they would throw a hand grenade into a building, go in with their rifles and capture the stunned and disoriented survivors.
So people began building a small shelter in the corner using sandbags. You hear a grenade hit the floor, you jump behind the sandbags and when they come into the room, you are standing there with YOUR gun pointed at them and you have the jump on them.
So they began throwing in a grenade without pulling the pin. You hear a grenade hit the floor, you jump behind the sandbag, they come in IMMEDIATELY while you are cowering behind the sandbags waiting for the grenade to go off and they have the jump on you.
So then people would LOOK for the grenade to SEE if the pin had been pulled before leaping behind the sandbags.
Et cetera.
Changing people's minds is one of the hardest tasks you can take on. This is part of why we have ideas like "Science progresses one funeral at a time." because The Old Guard who fought to prove their ideas will defend those ideas and not want to embrace change now that they are the Old Guard.
The above was initially written as if I were ONLY talking about gay MEN, not gay men AND women. I've made a few edits I felt really mattered but I'm NOT going to go back and change every single sentence where "gay men" was the example used.
I'm NOT excluding gay women. It gets TEDIOUS and awkward to try to say "or the opposite example" every single time and is often WORSE communication to use some gender neutral construct.
Furthermore, the reality is the world tends to care less about women liking other women.
I don't know why that is. Maybe it's because men tend to have more money and power, so people want them to meet a higher standard of public "proof" that they are people of good character who can be trusted. And maybe NOT. Maybe it's SOMETHING ELSE.
But if you are a big fat nobody waitress living with your girlfriend and calling her your roommate, people seem to generally be content to NOT care so long as you aren't sticking your tongue down her throat in front of people.
People SEEM TO think "real sex" involves a penis and two girls getting jiggy doesn't quite COUNT. I don't know why that is but that seems to be the case.
In fact, my understanding is that in ancient Rome and/or Greece, if a man was the person doing the penetrating, NO ONE cared or called him gay . It was only the men getting penetrated where others were going "You a twink. God, I have no respect for you, you girly-man, you. Go away."
LAST: This post does NOT stand alone. Read OTHER STUFF on this site and pay attention to things like how best to come out.
Generally speaking, you want to have those initial conversations PRIVATELY and one-on-one with people CLOSE to you and gradually grow the number of people who know, NOT announce it on social media as the first time your 10,000 closest friends have heard it.
("10,000 closest friends" is a joke. NO ONE has 10,000 close friends, no matter how famous you are, and your inner circle and how they react to the news will impact how other people react. So make sure people close to you KNOW and have made their peace with it BEFORE making it public IF AT ALL HUMANLY POSSIBLE.)
- Tell people you are gay and that means you like people of your gender, not the opposite sex.
- Announce you are celibate because gay sex is illegal and they can't arrest you for finding others attractive, only for actually having sex with them.
- Become QUIETLY politically active.
Generally speaking, laws cover behavior not how you FEEL. They can't ACTUALLY legislate your feelings so in practice if they TRY to tell you "You cannot FEEL attracted to men because you are male." people LIE about it and HIDE it.
Countries that TRY to go the "thought police" route tend to crash and burn. Countries that are at all reasonable, legislate ACTIONS, not thoughts and feelings.
Homophobia is PROBABLY driven largely by a few social forces, including:
1. Once you get beyond about 150 people in your "tribe", people can no longer genuinely know EVERYONE well, so we start coming up with simplified rules for dealing with others we don't know well in "public" spaces and I THINK a lot of garbage in the world is rooted in the world coming up with this rule of thumb that "Men have PUBLIC lives -- aka CAREERS or paid jobs -- and women have PRIVATE lives -- aka they are wives and moms" and I think one of those simplified "rules" SOME people use is "If I am MALE, other MEN are NOT HITTING ON ME. This is a PLATONIC situation. FULL STOP."
I've written about that here: First Contact.
So if you come out as GAY as an IDENTITY thing and NOT to try to get laid, you are STILL abiding by the "rule" there: I am NOT hitting on you, so you do NOT need to worry about what the hell did he mean by that?
2. This neutralizes a second issue: When we "forbid" things, like homosexual sex, that thing tends to end up associated with a lot of negative behaviors and negative outcomes. So it becomes a quick and dirty rule of thumb that if you don't know someone well and they are OPEN about X, don't trust them. They are probably trouble.
So a primary goal here should be changing people's minds about that. You change minds by proving that assumption wrong.
A lot of gays currently have homosexual sex on the down low because they don't want to PUBLICLY admit they are gay because they don't want trouble but they do want to get their needs met. So they are deceiving people and people who lie to you or deceive you are people you can't trust.
A lot of gay people are users of illicit drugs in part as a coping mechanism for things like "My own MOTHER cannot accept me. I am just going to go get high and numb out. I can't cope with this. I don't want to feel what I feel. I want to feel NOTHING."
People who SECRETLY have sex are more likely to engage in risky behaviors and NOT use condoms while sleeping with someone they barely know because they can't admit to a relationship in public, so they pursue hookups and they don't use condoms because it's EVIDENCE.
Gay men tend to feel "the rules" don't apply to them because they can't get pregnant and they act like cultural norms surrounding monogamy and marriage and so forth are about unintended pregnancies. No, that's just ONE piece of that puzzle.
There is also DISEASE and social entanglements which have material impacts -- AKA "money," though not as simple as just money.
Most likely, the AIDS crisis in the US was mostly among gay men because of the irresponsible behavior of ONE airline pilot who was diagnosed with HIV and decided to sleep around like crazy and have a good time before he died WITHOUT TELLING people he had this disease and his irresponsible behavior was facilitated by him being a pilot.
As a pilot, he traveled a LOT. So his lovers weren't part of his social circle, thus he could act irresponsibly and not have word get out to potential new hookups "Dude, he's an asshole. He has a disease, won't tell you that and doesn't use condoms."
So in the US, AIDS became known as "a gay disease" (and a disease of IV drug users) and most likely that was sort of code for "Hey, stupid, you aren't actually exempt from the rules. You may not get PREGNANT, but sleeping around casually can KILL YOU. There's a disease out there called AIDS and sleeping with five zillion men and not using a condom is an almost certain death sentence because sooner or later you will catch it."
In theory, what you do behind closed doors is no one's business. In reality, what you do behind closed doors can impact other people, so sex is one of those things OTHER PEOPLE feel entitled to butt into your life over because if you are having children you can't afford to raise, OTHER PEOPLE have to deal with that and also if you are spreading disease, OTHER PEOPLE have to deal with that.
So prove that your existence as someone who LIKES people of the same sex is NOT a threat to the social fabric and "being gay" does NOT mean "I don't abide by the rules, I have a fuck you attitude, and I don't care if other people are hurt by my choices." and homophobia can start to DIE.
Be a GENERALLY upstanding citizen who is NOT a troublemaker except for this ONE QUIRK that you make everyone uncomfortable by saying "I'm gay. That means I find people of my gender attractive. But I'm celibate because homosexual sex is currently illegal where I live."
3. People who DENY to themselves that they are gay because they are afraid of the consequences in this generally homophobic world tend to end up really screwed up psychologically and emotionally. Admitting to yourself you are gay but NOT having homosexual sex seems to be much less damaging than people trying to convince themselves "I'm not that thing my own MOTHER can't accept."
In my experience, people who deny to themselves that they are gay do a lot of bad things because they are in pain and have messed up ideas about things. They are in pain and they blame OTHER people instead of seeing that they are basically doing this to themselves.
So I think homophobia is partly rooted in some kind of awareness that closeted gays are frequently really messed up people and instead of being understood that being in the closet messes you up, it gets simplified to "Wow, gay people are AWFUL." and some people use that as a simplified rule: "Gay = Bad."
So don't do that to yourself. Don't psychologically and emotionally maim yourself and then behave badly on the justification that "Other people HURT ME, so I have a RIGHT to HURT other people." In practice, that usually means you are hurting people who did you no wrong and that means YOU are AN ASSHOLE.
Don't be an asshole and most people won't REALLY care who you get jiggy with behind closed doors SO LONG as:
- They are a legal adult who is socially in a position to GENUINELY consent. (There are often rules against relationships between, say, doctor and patient or other social situations where one person is probably the victim due to implicit threats inherent in the situation).
- You have a reasonably healthy relationship to them such that this doesn't become a giant headache for OTHER PEOPLE. If you are both good to each other, no one cares. But if you hurt people PRIVATELY and now those people want help from OTHERS to deal with your shit, well, it's NO LONGER a PRIVATE matter. It's become a PUBLIC issue and people get cranky about that and start going "No more gay sex. You people are too much drama. I got better things to do than pick up the pieces from YOU messing things up."
- Not being a headache for other people includes: Don't spread disease, don't have children you can't afford to raise both time-wise and money-wise, and don't hurt the social fabric in other ways, like hiring people BECAUSE they sleep with you and aren't actually qualified for the job that OTHER PEOPLE want DONE properly.
Don't go in with guns blazing announcing that you will get the law changed. Be a generally interested and involved upstanding citizen and where appropriate give your two-cents about things in a way that benefits YOUR PEOPLE without causing trouble for OTHERS and don't always tie it back to "That's a problem for GAY PEOPLE."
I used to attend public meetings and say "That's a problem for pedestrians -- for people who live without a car and mostly walk everywhere." and not necessarily "That's a problem for HOMELESS people." In reality, a lot of street homeless have no vehicle and walk everywhere.
Barriers to pedestrians are a big burden to the most vulnerable homeless but that's a poor way to advocate. It's also a burden to OTHER PEOPLE and that's generally a stronger position to take.
So if you see they want to do X and you know X is a problem for gays and OTHER PEOPLE, tell them "Oh, X is a bad idea." and make your case and don't always make it solely harping on "GAY PEOPLE."
Accept that you may be openly gay and celibate for a long time.
The gay community currently TENDS to overall break all the rules, feel entitled to do as they please and act like everything would be hunky dory if the rules would just CHANGE and say "It's okay to be gay." Meanwhile, no one trusts you because you make no effort to play by the rules and this OFTEN means you are breaking a LOT more rules than just "boys are supposed to like girls, not other boys."
Gays are currently MOSTLY fighting the wrong battle. They are currently fighting for the right to have sex as they please behind closed doors and you can ALREADY do that no matter what the law says IF you aren't a troublemaker and you STAY out of TROUBLE.
If you are a troublemaker and also have illegal sex behind closed doors, someday someone will find out and USE that against you.
They should be fighting for the right to PUBLICLY say "No, I'm gay." and it not be a BIG DEAL and to PUBLICLY appear at normal social events with their same-sex partner on their arm and have NO ONE care about that detail.
That's the actual right heterosexuals have. We can implicitly and explicitly admit "I like members of the opposite sex." and appear in public with our lover on our arm and if we are married or otherwise have a socially acceptable relationship to that person, NO ONE CARES. No one goes "OH MY GOD. YOU BEING HERE WITH HIM is an ADMISSION you two are FUCKING!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
For the most part, the world does NOT want to hear about your sex life. That's a PRIVATE MATTER.
That's NOT "a gay thing." They don't really want to hear about it if you are straight EITHER. Straight people generally do NOT go to social events and loudly discuss the details of their SEX life, but they can show up with their opposite sex lover and not have the world freak the fuck out.
There are lots of other things that CAN raise an eyebrow, such as a big age difference. And that tends to be judged on a case-by-case basis.
If both parties are, say, over the age of 30, people tend to NOT really care. It's when some skeevy older guy ONLY dates "barely legal" girls that people start going "Dude, that ain't right. Get therapy. No, you aren't invited to my pool party next weekend."
But there are also exceptions to that general rule. I personally never cared that Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher were married. They were both rich actors and beautiful people and business owners. I figured they had a lot in common and I never thought "Oh, he's her victim. LOOK AT THE AGE DIFFERENCE!"
Meanwhile, we also have laws about getting involved with a legal minor when you are an adult. So while some age differences are, in fact, ILLEGAL, not all age differences are.
The takeaway there is "the devil is in the details" and the reason people care about you liking members of the opposite sex is because they think you are TROUBLE for THEM and they don't want to deal with it.
So prove you aren't trouble. Prove you are a law-abiding, upstanding citizen who just happens to LIKE BOYS intead of girls (or girls instead of boys as the case may be).
Focus on claiming your right to say "This is my truth: I'm GAY." and do that by saying "But I'm celibate because homosexual sex is illegal currently where I live."
Fight for the right to quietly and politely admit "I like people of the same sex." without drama and without all this other baggage.
Saying "I'm gay and celibate to stay out of jail." means you have opportunity to sort out how to be openly gay without only telling people you are gay to try to get laid. That takes away some of the drama.
Currently, a LOT of gay people ONLY admit they are gay to other gays they are trying to arrange to secretly have sex with in violation of the law and/or social norms and expectations and that means two things:
- You are more likely to both implicitly agree that you have no respect for the rules or for other people because the rules and other people have no respect for YOU, so making that connection is more likely to radicalize you and encourage you to do OTHER bad things -- ACTUALLY bad things, like commit OTHER crimes, not just illegally have sex with members of the same sex.
- Even if you are very honest, etc. once you secretly and/or illegally have sex with someone, they have the goods on you. They can manipulate you. They can blackmail you. This makes you a risk that other people do not want.
Everyone on the planet already has a de facto "right" to do as they please behind closed doors AS LONG AS it doesn't somehow lead to trouble of some sort. When it does lead to trouble, then other people get involved and that's when it actually matters that "Oh, well, technically, you shouldn't have been sleeping with that person AT ALL because..."
Fight for the right to be allowed to ADMIT "I'm GAY." and be seen in public with your same sex partner or seen in public chatting up potential partners or dating them. And then consequences for "When things sometimes go wrong between two people -- as HAPPENS at times to EVERYONE on the planet" are a lot less ruinous.
Because even straight people endure ugly divorce cases, end up with STDs because their lover is an unfaithful asshole hiding their infidelity by both LYING and NOT USING protection and so forth. It's just not complicated by "And it's a crime for which you can be thrown in jail to admit you were involved with this person AT ALL."
Footnotes
No, I am NOT merely talking out my ass here. I have had college classes in Intro to Psychology, Social Psychology and Negotiation and Conflict Management as well as a longstanding interest in social things, so I read a lot, etc.AND also I appear to be the highest ranked woman on an overwhelmingly male forum where my policy boils down to:
- Be OPENLY female.
- Try to avoid trouble and respect the guys and not make a big stink about women's issues while still speaking to things that MATTER to me, which at times includes women's issues.
- Try to as much as possible be a "normal" member who participates in good faith, NOT some "token female" psychobitch there to pound my fist on the table about FEMINISM and how ALL MEN are assholes and etc.
I'm interested in MANY things other than the status of women and how YOU EVIL MOTHERFUCKERS are NOT TREATING ME with the same respect as the MEN because you are MISOGYNISTIC ASSHOLES.
Respect is EARNED. That's reality. And pissing on other people without provocation is NOT how you earn it.
Having said that: I'm NOT gay. I am 99 percent attracted to men. I haven't been with a woman since I was a teenager. I'm open about being not straight as a political position with no expectation that I will ever have a girlfriend again. And I don't know of case studies of political movements that followed this specific course of action.
People tend to like the status quo. IF you do this and START making headway on changing attitudes, you WILL get PUSHBACK at SOME POINT.
Not covered above: CLOSETED gays trying to not be outed are another problem and are sometimes much more vociferous about being openly homophobic because they are scared and trying to "prove" that "I'm NOT one of them!" So some of your biggest detractors may be closeted gays who don't want to be outed, who don't want to deal with their feelings of depression or rage about how they have mutilated themselves for years to remain closeted and etc.
WHEN you get pushback, HOW you handle that will be a make-or-break for this process. To the best of your ability, do not let people BAIT you into PUBLICLY PROVING you are an ASSHOLE.
Stay calm, cool and collected and correct their inaccurate assumptions and assertions.
FOR EXAMPLE: "No, I'm not trying to change the laws. Of course, I would PREFER to see the laws change, but look at my track record. I have made no effort to change the laws. I don't have time for that right now. Maybe someday, but at the moment I work 60 hours a week. I'm JUST claiming my right to tell you who I am and that's IT. FULL STOP. You can make it illegal for me to have sex with men, you cannot make me NOT GAY by insisting it's illegal for me to get my sexual needs met."
SO if you use the ideas in this post, EXPECT to course correct as ACTUAL REALITY intrudes on "hypotheticals." In the military the saying is "No plan of attack survives contact with the enemy."
The minute you actually act on an idea, you have changed conditions and you may need to quickly change tactics because of it.
Something I have never heard anywhere except from my late father:
In World War II, they would throw a hand grenade into a building, go in with their rifles and capture the stunned and disoriented survivors.
So people began building a small shelter in the corner using sandbags. You hear a grenade hit the floor, you jump behind the sandbags and when they come into the room, you are standing there with YOUR gun pointed at them and you have the jump on them.
So they began throwing in a grenade without pulling the pin. You hear a grenade hit the floor, you jump behind the sandbag, they come in IMMEDIATELY while you are cowering behind the sandbags waiting for the grenade to go off and they have the jump on you.
So then people would LOOK for the grenade to SEE if the pin had been pulled before leaping behind the sandbags.
Et cetera.
Changing people's minds is one of the hardest tasks you can take on. This is part of why we have ideas like "Science progresses one funeral at a time." because The Old Guard who fought to prove their ideas will defend those ideas and not want to embrace change now that they are the Old Guard.
The above was initially written as if I were ONLY talking about gay MEN, not gay men AND women. I've made a few edits I felt really mattered but I'm NOT going to go back and change every single sentence where "gay men" was the example used.
I'm NOT excluding gay women. It gets TEDIOUS and awkward to try to say "or the opposite example" every single time and is often WORSE communication to use some gender neutral construct.
Furthermore, the reality is the world tends to care less about women liking other women.
I don't know why that is. Maybe it's because men tend to have more money and power, so people want them to meet a higher standard of public "proof" that they are people of good character who can be trusted. And maybe NOT. Maybe it's SOMETHING ELSE.
But if you are a big fat nobody waitress living with your girlfriend and calling her your roommate, people seem to generally be content to NOT care so long as you aren't sticking your tongue down her throat in front of people.
People SEEM TO think "real sex" involves a penis and two girls getting jiggy doesn't quite COUNT. I don't know why that is but that seems to be the case.
In fact, my understanding is that in ancient Rome and/or Greece, if a man was the person doing the penetrating, NO ONE cared or called him gay . It was only the men getting penetrated where others were going "You a twink. God, I have no respect for you, you girly-man, you. Go away."
LAST: This post does NOT stand alone. Read OTHER STUFF on this site and pay attention to things like how best to come out.
Generally speaking, you want to have those initial conversations PRIVATELY and one-on-one with people CLOSE to you and gradually grow the number of people who know, NOT announce it on social media as the first time your 10,000 closest friends have heard it.
("10,000 closest friends" is a joke. NO ONE has 10,000 close friends, no matter how famous you are, and your inner circle and how they react to the news will impact how other people react. So make sure people close to you KNOW and have made their peace with it BEFORE making it public IF AT ALL HUMANLY POSSIBLE.)