What, if anything, turned you around on the fact that it's okay to be gay?

In My Humble Opinion
41

As far as I can remember I’ve always been pretty apathetic about it. Not an “ally” actively supporting gay causes but not being bothered by people that are, either. To use a more modern term, it has always been not my monkey, not my circus.

I also think I had a pretty lousy gadar as a teen. I’m not claiming that all gay people fit a stereotype, but being a non-popular non-jock in high school, some of the fellow non-popular non-jocks I hung around with retroactively set off alarm bells for basically all the stereotypes, and I never even noticed at the time (or would have GAF if I did).

42

I gave up my homophobia when I gave up fundamentalist/Evangelical Christianity. In fact, it was the same bit of knowledge that led me to ditch both.

Imagine you live in a tribal, pre-industrial society, in a desert, with invading tribes constantly up in your shit and the ever-present specter of infant mortality. The very existence of your tribe depends on a constant supply of babies (who would then grow into adults) to farm the fields, go to battle, survive infancy, etc. So men having sex with other men is contrary to that goal. It makes perfect sense, then, that the tribal leaders would tell the tribal lessers that their god doesn’t want men having sex with other men – says so right here.

Once I realized that the entire thing was built on controlling the people and not, you know, reality, it all fell apart.

43

Most of the gays I have known had a streak of anger and bitterness about their own self-realization. I was glad I wasn’t one of them. I still am, although I don’t think I have met a gay in the past 20 yeas – maybe I did and didn’t notice it.

45

I’m sure most of us can relate to the idea of being “different”, even if it’s not about sexuality (I was just a shy nerd). I guess I developed empathy for any outsider who struggled with understanding who they were. It grew from there as I learned more about it.

In my 20s I had a whole bunch of friends who came out while I knew them. It was so stressful for them all. I tried to be as supportive as I could.

46

Wasn’t she special.

Probably the same in any community group, never mind just churches. There’s always one.

47

I had no idea there was such a thing as being gay as a child. As a young teen I knew that my peers considered it a bad thing, and I was very afraid I might be gay myself since I had zero interest in boys. By the time I was an older teen it was becoming more socially acceptable, or maybe we were just acquiring a less conformist, more adult view as we grew up. I’m not sure I ever believed being gay was a bad thing in itself, I just thought it was bad to be gay because of how other people would treat you.

48

Another part of this process was starting to feel as a teenager that love, romance, sex, and finding a life partner were not only the most exciting things in life but also the ones that would matter most in the long term. And then gradually realizing that one category of people was being pointlessly persecuted just for having the same yearnings as I did.

49

Meeting people who were gay and finding out they were human. Seeing their reaction to their partners and can’t deny love when I see it. Realizing if I throw a stone at them I am really throwing the stone at myself and thus realizing it is me, not them, with the problem.

50

No “maybe” about it, unless you’ve been remarkably isolated.

51

For me it was a very drawn-out processes.

I grew up in a very conservative household and area. You could physically survive high school being gay, but only just. Actually there were a lot of people in my school who thought I was gay as (due to family issues) I hated all romance and romantic relationships and expressed this dislike by saying “I don’t like girls”… (I actually DID like girls in that way, that just scared me. Fortunately I’ve grown past that). Anywho, I did pick up quite a lot of the conservative culture and was probably somewhat homophobic, not that I think I’d ever insult or abuse someone who i thought was gay.

In college I manged a bit more subtle approach. I hated cultural restrictions as a whole, but was still a relatively conservative christian. I cared about “being good” from a biblical perspective and I tried to take “love thy neighbor” seriously. So I figured that the worst sin (most self-destructive act) was not knowing god, and the best thing I could do was convince people to “come to know god” mainly by trying my best to express caring about them personally, and mild proselytizing. I figured if they weren’t christian, then none of the other sins (I figured being gay was no worse than lying or sex outside of marriage) mattered, and once they were christian then God would help them understand these more minor sins better than I could.

Around the time I got my PhD I stopped being a christian, and so completely stopped caring about homosexuality at all. By now I’ve even recognized a few men I find slightly attractive. (BTW, there is something about the last year of a PhD that is very transformitive, it’s like ones brain finally GETS how to be rigorous. I think this is a common phenomena, not just me.)

52

This is a thread about not being homophobic. Please keep your homophobia out of it.

Updated to add: This is an official warning for the post being off-topic, bigoted, and being a jerk.

53

I agree that part of it is an age thing, and internalized homophobia can be a huge obstacle. I’m 75 and came out in 1963. There was no such thing as “out” then; I could have been the only gay person in the world, for all I knew. But for many years, even though I was openly gay and sexually active, I still thought that homosexuality was a “developmental detour,” and that someday I’d find a good therapist and get over it. I nevertheless participated in Pride marches (they weren’t “parades” back then; they were illegal, confrontational marches in support of gay rights).

It would be many years of slow personal evolution before I came to realize that there was absolutely nothing that had to be fixed except my attitude. I owe a great deal of that to the man who would become my husband.

54

I read Robert Heinlein’s works back in my teen years, in the 1970’s. I recall his discussion about homosexuality; he wrote that he felt sorry for the gays, not because their orientation was wrong or sinful or inherently unhealthy, but because due to discrimination and societal opprobrium they were persecuted and closeted and as a result had a harder time finding suitable partners for sex and love and relationships. That seemed to make more sense to me than what I’d been hearing from religious and moral authorities about homosexuality.

As a result, when I was first approached and propositioned by a gay man about that time, I didn’t think his orientation was wrong, but instead thought his trying to seduce me, a 16 year old boy, was inappropriate/wrong. It squicked me out a lot, but for the right reasons.

The next year when a newly met college friend turned out to be gay, I didn’t think there was anything wrong with him, but worried his life would be terribly complicated as a result.

55

I may be heterosexual in orientation, but I am a paraphiliac (strange, off-kilter fetishes). I have known this since I was a wee prepubescent lad. The fact that my desires don’t quite coincide with conventional heterosexuality made me realize that people are just different, sometimes. I never cared too much about others’ sexuality. And this is despite the fact that I went to a very conservative, fundamentalist-style church!

56

Since I am anonymous here, I will confess: female, upper 60’s, straight, widowed after 30 some years of difficult marriage to a man. … I thought gayness was kind of gross, as a child, from what small crumbs of knowledge I gleaned. But as I grew up, I began to be fascinated by it. I don’t know how or why, but it fascinated me. (I saw Lawrence of Arabia at age 11 and I was blown away by it. I also knew exactly what was going on with the men Turk (Jose Ferrer). I had sex with a bi-sexual boyfriend in high school, who had a stunning older boyfriend, and I hung out with him and some other friends and saw ‘proof’ - photographs! Aye, carumba!..I got the feeling gays were having a whole lot more fun than I was…in the 70’s I fell in love with what may have been an ambiguously bi-sexual cool guy. We both had the same gorgeous gay hair dresser at the best salon, and when he left to go to San Francisco, my boyfriend said half-jokingly, ‘I’ll miss him…I’m not gay, but if I was, I would be all over him.’…People don’t realize there wasn’t much discussion or talking about being gay back then. The Dick Cavett show, Phil Donahue, other talk shows began featuring the exotic creatures, and the AIDS crisis affected more people than I could imagine…I am friendly with a lovely married couple (went to their wedding) - great guys just doing their best to live their lives in spite of some health problems… I haven’t met many lesbians AFAIK, but the couple I did, I thought were sweet ladies. They called each other roommates, but no one believed that, and they were warmly regarded friends.

57

Meeting gay people and realizing they’re just like everyone else, but with the added stress of being marginalized and stigmatized, often by their own families. I hadn’t given it much thought before that.

58

That’s pretty much how I would describe my attitude in the 1970s. For the time, I was quite open-minded and I truly did not think there was anything intrinsically wrong with being gay.

Still, I recognize that I unknowingly held some views that today would be considered bigoted, or at the very least offensively condescending. For example, I didn’t believe gays should be able to adopt children because I thought the stigma of being raised by gay parents wouldn’t be fair to the child. (I’m ashamed of that now.)

Just being a participating member of society moved me toward more reasonable attitudes.

59

I loved the last line of the movie: “I am now one of the stately homos of England.” I’ll have to read the book, because I thought the movie was wonderful.

I was raised Catholic, went to Catholic school through 8th grade, but I never really got hooked by religion. By the time I was 8 or 9, I thought it was pretty much bunk, so any church teachings on homosexuality went into the pile with other bushwa that I didn’t buy into. I had a close friend in high school who was more on the flamboyant end of the spectrum, but this was the late 60s in southern California, and he fit right in. The location I lived in helped a lot, I think. Also, my high school was majority Jewish, and mostly liberal, so, there wasn’t this overbearing Christian Fundamentalist cloud over us.

I’m pretty strongly straight, but I do remember waving at Richard Chamberlain as I was walking home from school one day and having my heart go pitter patter…even having an inkling he was not completely straight himself.

60

Peer pressure made me a homophobe, and then peer pressure cured me.

I learned in elementary school that the idea of boys kissing boys was the yuckiest thing ever. And in church I learned that those people were the worst of sinners.

Then I started dating rocknrhodes, and she didn’t put up with my homophobia. That’s how I learned that one could be a faithful Mormon and yet not be a complete asshole. Now we’re no longer Mormons and we fly a pride flag in front of our house.

61

I turned 12 in 1970. My half-sister was eight years older than me, and hadn’t lived with us since I was about 6 years old. She lived with her paternal grandmother in the same city as me. At about this age she really started hanging out with me a bit more, and took me places and introduced me to her friends. I adored her!

She lived a bohemian hippie type lifestyle, I guess. She introduced me to smoking weed, and cool music. Around this time she came out to my parents, and by osmosis, me.

My parents disowned her! She left to go to California. I was devastated and missed her terribly. So did my Mom, I think. It must have been my Dad that thought she was horrible. The thing is, it was never discussed.

During the time she was away, I was curious about gays since I had heard her news. There was homophobia in high school of course, but I don’t remember participating. If I did it was just for prevention of being bullied for my views.

I had a male cousin who was gay, too. He was accepted and not shunned by our family, as far as I know. There was also a sister of my parents best friends who had a “roommate.” My sister had to tell my naïve parents that she was a lesbian!

Then she came back! My parents accepted her again, and we hung out again! I was older by then - 17 or 18. I was friends with her friends, I experimented a little, but I am cis.

And then when I was 29 she took her own life. I’ll never know the deeper why, but I suspect life was just too hard after her latest lover dumped her. She never could find lasting love.

I miss her. Being gay is hard for so many, and it is not a choice. You’re born that way. I love you, Diane.

(Sorry if this is disjointed - it’s just stream of consciousness…)