photo by Kevin Truong
photo by Kevin Truong
photo by Kevin Truong
photo by Kevin Truong
Victor, in his own words: “Being gay for me means just that I like men. I’m just a regular person who is trying to live a regular life. I like men, I like coffee, I like summer. The big problem is how people see all this. Sometimes, prejudices make people blind.
If sometimes your life is hard, being gay makes it harder. One of my biggest challenges was to open my eyes. I was 100% percent catholic, I studied my religion always trying to be the best. My religion was one of the most important things in my life, but for a long time I felt I was betraying my beliefs, I was betraying myself. Now I understand I don’t need a religion. I have God, and he is full of love.
The LGBT community in Santiago doesn’t seem to be a community. Most of the time our interests are as different as the people who are involved in this group. The good thing is that in some cases we create a strong force who is trying to change our country.
(With regards to coming out) At the beginning it was so easy to lie to my family because I lived in Santiago by myself. After a while, everything about me was wrong, It was so hard to carry on with all my problems that I collapsed. I got very sick….. When I told them, my life changed so much! I can not even explain how it felt, but I will be always so thankful of the family I have.
Advice I’d give to my younger self: never forget to live your life. We don’t have a time machine and nobody deserves to live just a half of their own life.
Everyone in the world deserves to be happy. It doesn’t matter who you are or who you want to be. Just look around! There is always someone who is willing to help you and support you.”