Happy Coming Out Week

Yes, acceptance and unconditional love of people is a good thing. No matter their race, religion or sexual preference. Having love for your fellow man or woman unconditionally is a good thing.

I would like to use the opportunity this week allows me and proudly proclaim my heterosexuality.

I AM NOT GAY!!!

Now, doesn't that sound stupid.

It sounds as stupid as someone proudly proclaiming they are gay. Just be gay and normal. You don't have to be weird about it. It's too bad society puts these pressures on people.

Society is putting pressure on people to come out and announce their sexuality?

It should be up to the individual to make that decision. How can society know a secret?

Congratulations forkies on the strength of your convictions. It's great to have a very supportive network of family and friends.

To all minorities and other oppressed or victimized groups, just be quiet and take it. The goal of life is to be normal, everyone conform!

No, the pressure of making a person think they have to proudly proclaim their sexuality. Can't a person maintain a semblance of privacy.

Coming out isn't specifically about saying "Yaay! I'm GAY!" It's about getting the courage to tell the people you love something that they have assumed to be the opposite for your entire life. How is that bad?

No kidding. Actually, its alot like coming out and telling people you use a Mac.

Just for the record. I don't think it's bad.

So are you bisexual or was that just a way to "soften" the impact of your coming out?

Anyway; When I was 14 (yes 14) I asked my father, who was working in his garden, if he would bring me to this discotheque in a town near my hometown later that night.
He asked me why I wanted to go there and not to the usual spot in town.
I told him that the people there were nicer and that I like the music better.
He then asked me if it was a gay discotheque, and I said "yes". He then asked me if I was gay, and I said "yes", then he asked me if my mother knew, and I said "no"...so we went inside and told her.

That same night he brought me to this gay club and at 2 in the morning he came to pick me up. He did this for several weeks, if I didn't find a "place to stay".

My parents never had any problems with my coming out, the only thing my father told me years later was that he had nightmares of me being raped by an older man.
I told him that that was my greatest fantasy... (which is not true but we had a good laugh)

He's not proclaiming anything. He simply told his parents. Parents, and everyone else, assumes everyone is heterosexual. What was he supposed to do? Let them find out when he brings home his boyfriend? Yeah, that's much better.

This thread is supposed to be about coming out. Not parades and proclamation. Anyone else have a coming out story to share? How did your folks take it?

Talk about projecting! O.K., maybe "normal" wasn't the correct word. How about "just be gay and quite pressuring people to accept it".

I don't make anyone accept my sexuality. Personally, I don't care what people think of my sexuality. The way I treat people better defines me as a person. Not who I like to sleep with.

Exactly.

so now i need to come out to homosexuals that i'm bi?

Anyway, were you open from then on? How did your peers treat you? congrats on the safe outing

My dad threatened to disown me if I came home with a man or a black woman. There are just some things you need to tell your parents and hope they accept. Keeping quiet doesn't help much.

It's not bad.

Did you follow the links the original poster provided? They are about parades and marches. I followed the link forkie provided with the letter to his parents and found it unobtrusive. However, the marches and parades I could do without.

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It's too bad you had to grow up in that environment. I grew up in a very different household from you. My father was an uneducated factory worker. It did not make him judgmental though. I dated a few black women and brought them home to meet mom and dad. They loved them as I did. Other members of my family would have called the KKK. Who do you think is in my inner circle of loved ones today? However, I still love my racist family members. I just don't antagonize them with a shove it in your face mentality.

I never shouted " I'm gay!" from rooftops and I never will, but I've never hidden my sexuality either, I never felt that it was such an important thing and I have to thank my parents for that.

At highschool I did enjoy confusing classmates by kissing my best (female) friends intensly.

My boyfriend (since 9 years) didn't come out until we met. Little by little he told his brothers and friends then his parents. They didn't make any fuss about it either, which was rather suprising as they are from the south of Italy and very Catholic.

Congratulations on the almost-one-year anniversary of coming out to your parents, forkies!. I'm glad to hear that they took it well.
I have no problem with gay pride parades myself. Why should they be any more offensive than, for example, Columbus Day parades?
(I used to live in an apartment that was on a Columbus Day parade route. Very annoying when the parade noise drowned out the football game on TV! )

Just inside the door to my dorm (so people can see it on their way out) there was a sign about coming out week and the activities there will be for this week. There WAS a sign. It was ripped down. It was simply an 8.5x11 printed out sign, and the corners with tape over them still remain where it was hanging.

Why do people need to be so hateful, disrespectful, and homophobic?

Happy Coming Out Day!

Coming Out Day/Gay Pride isn't about flaunting it or rubbing it in anyone's faces, it's a celebration of the breaking of silence that has so long oppressed people of different sexualities.

I came out 3 years ago when I was 16, first to my mother and my close friends. My mother struggled with it for years, especially on the basis of religious issues, but she has really come a long way in accepting my sexuality, and we're still incredibly close. She's still a little squeamish when I introduce her to boys, but...

My sophomore year in high school I arrived at a small-town New England boarding school. No student had ever (ever) come out there or been open about his sexuality, so I decided to change that. That winter, I wrote a letter to the Editor of the newspaper telling my story. By the time I left, other students were beginning to be open about their sexuality and the GSA (gay-straight alliance) had become a strong, supported group on campus.

Starting college, I never hid myself from day one (if the question arised)... the only people I'm afraid to be 'out' to is my boxing team... perhaps mostly because of the nature of the sport and the machoism implied (and yes, the topic comes up in conversation and even in working out with the coach and fellow team mates). But it's generally a great place to be out, I've dated a few nice guys and I'm just having fun in general.

Coming out isn't something you have to do once, it's something you do every day... the world assumes you're heterosexual and always acts surprised if you contradict them.

I read your letter to your parents, forkie, and was quite moved!

I am the parent of a daughter who came out to me six months ago, and I have nothing but unconditional love for her. We've had a strained relationship in the past, but for the previous two years, it has gotten considerably better, as I began to realize that unconditional love is more important than anything else. Other people will come and go in your life, but your family will always be your family; parents and children should make the best out of what is an unbreakable bond!

Society has definitely put pressure on homosexuals to not come out. A guy bringing home a guy, is not as easy for most families, and society to accept, as a guy bringing home a girl.

My family and friends of 15 years didn't care, didn't need to ask any questions or anything like that because it is no big deal.

Infact, many of them liked me more after I told them I was gay.

did someone say parade? weird, and i just posted this today. talk about timing.