Jan, the Gay Men Project, photo by Kevin Truong
When I was in elementary school, I had really hard times, because I wanted to hide my real sexual orientation, because I was just ashamed of it. I was a 13 year old boy who wanted to be a favorite friend and classmate and everybody wanted to be cool and being gay just wasn´t cool. I experienced bullying about my sexuality, so I started to behave like other boys. It was really hard for me because I just wanted to be someone else. Years later, I started to understand that the only important thing in life was to be yourself, to be real and pure. I felt better step by step and today I can clearly see that all the painful experiences from the past gave me strength. So I can say that I feel something like blessed today.
I was hiding my sexuality for a really long time. In my early teenage years I thought I would hide it always, because I was afraid of my family and the people around me. First I started chatting with other gay boys on the internet and I met some people too – everything was anonymous. When I was 17, I told a few of my closest friends. The reactions were great and I was grateful for that. At my 19th birthday I told my family and the reaction was very bad. But weeks later, they accepted it and now it´s totally ok. And finaly, since 20, I have been open about my sexuality everywhere and for everyone.
The gay community in Prague is totally different than in other cities in Czech. I am originally from a city with 50,000 people, where the gay community was really dead. There are a lot of gay places in Prague, but mainly a lot of gay people, so it is really very easy to meet someone here. Other people are very open about the gay community, so it´s a good and tolerant place to live.
(What advice would you give your younger self?) I was thinking about this question a lot of times, because I did a lot of mistakes in life (like everybody else), but now I know it is right. I really think that everything is perfect as it is. All the painful things from the past made me who I am today and I learned a lot from it. Without mistakes there no learning.”
