Author Archives: thegaymenproject

About thegaymenproject

The Gay Men Project is a photo project by New York based photographer Kevin Truong. Truong received his BFA in from photography from the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY, and has been the recipient of numerous awards, and his photo credits include the New York Times.

A Note from Lance, in Toronto…

“Well, Peter and I met in September of 2007. I was living in Philadelphia, and had just ended a 9 year relationship and had signed up for an gay dating website. Peter was living in Germany, and had also signed up for the same site. One night, I came across his photo and profile in a chat room. From that moment I saw him, I was hooked. At the time, he has said that when he came across my profile/pic, he said I looked so sad, and that is why he clicked on my profile.

From the day we had met, every day after that, we chatted. This was before voice chat, as we were both using yahoo instant messenger. For hours and hours we chatted about anything and everything. One night, about a month later, I decided to make a voice recording and send to him. The first words he heard me say to him in this recording was “I love you”. I could see him as he listened to it, and he repeated it back to me ,though I could not hear it. We entered a new phase, now we were sending voice recordings to one another, telling about our lives; family, friends past relationships. Once we started using Skype, then the voice chats started, and one of the first times a little after a month had past, he asked me to marry him, and of course I said yes. For the next two months we continued to chat every day for hours.

In January of 2008, I had the opportunity to travel to Sweden for work, which was the first time I had been out of the country. We planned that he would fly from Germany to Copenhagen, then we would travel together from Copenhagen to Sweden. This would be the first time we saw each other in person. Oh, how I was so nervous! Here was this person I had fallen in love with over the internet, chatted with for hours and hours, who knew more about me than anyone in any previous relationship, and we were finally going to be together, live and in person! I landed in Copenhagen first after a very long 6 hour flight from Philly, and not a wink of sleep on the plane! I waited for his flight to land, which seemed like it was taking for ever! (BTW, this was the first time he had ever been on a plane.) I saw his flight had landed, and my stomach became full of very active butterflies. My eyes were fixated on those giant doors coming from the international arrivals..and I waited, and waited and waited. After what seemed like an eternity, he appeared. My heart sank. My eyes filled up with tears, and as he walked toward me, I could feel my love for him become more intense. Here he was, walking toward me. This person I had only met a few months before. This person I fell in love with without ever having touched, but yet knew everything about me.

As we embraced, all I said to him softly in his ear was, “I love you, I love you, I love you” over and over. Finally, we were together! We spent the next week in Sweden exploring not only the city we were in, but each other. It was the best week ever!

Over the next few months, we continued chatting and calling each other every day. I traveled for work, he traveled to the US, and I went to Germany. Finally we decided that after a year of long distance, it was time to live in the same time zone/country. It was either I move to Germany, or we move to Canada. It is difficult to get into the US and since gay marriage was not recognized federally, we could not live in the US together. We finally decided that Canada would be the best option, since gay marriage was legal everywhere in Canada had been since 2003, it was the first choice. So, quickly, I made arrangements to secure a position with my current employer, and in November of 2008, we both moved to Canada, and were married on December 15, 2008.

Now that DOMA was struck down, I can now sponsor Peter for a green card, which we have started this past September. The need to be closer to family has changed our direction and we are now on our way to the US. I have secured a position with my current company, and will be moving to Kansas City, Missouri in February. Peter will be in Canada still until his green card process is complete, so unfortunately, we will be separated until approx. July. Of course we will be traveling back and forth between the US and Canada until that time, but we are beginning a difficult phase of our relationship. After living together for the past 5+ years, we are now going to be back to long distance, but in the end, we will be closer to family who live in Idaho.

Moving to Missouri, is going to be an interesting experience, as gay marriage is not legal there, and being in the mid west, where conservativeness reigns, will be interesting as well. But, in the end, family has taken us to this place, and that is what is important.”

photo provided by Lance

Jacob and Hayden, Musician and Musician/Director, Los Angeles

photo by Kevin Truong

Jacob, in his own words: “Being gay is AMAZING.

It means I can wear cut off shorts and a lady wig to a club and nobody will think anything of it. I haven’t tried it yet, but I appreciate the option.

I actually feel very lucky to be gay, and to be with my husband, Hayden. We have a great physical and spiritual connection that I feel like can only be achieved in a same sex relationship. It’s easier to truly understand each other (I think sometimes different hormones and mixed signals can make it a little more difficult).

It’s great having someone to watch horror movies, Jam out with music, play video games, and be totally crude together and then later cuddle up or bone down.

(With regards to challenges) Coming out in high school, I lost a few friends…but whatever, I’ve made better ones since then. My Mom Also had a hard time grasping the concept that gays were not just a walking virus. She said some hard things to hear and we don’t talk much these days.

Trying not to be “gay fat” is also a challenge.

I have met many excellent gays here in LA. I don’t know if I can tell you much about the scene here though. I spend more time at home than going out in gay town. The gays I do spend my time with are rad ass though. Artsy fartsy crafty gays. I’m lucky to have found a group of friends where we’re always trying to keep each other busy with our different art projects… which was always a dream of mine in high school.

In middle school I wasn’t out to my family… or really any of my friends. However, I never said no to a gay hook up when it presented itself..

I eventually became more comfortable with my sexuality and a little more open about it in high school…I was even sort of dating someone. I guess I was never too careful about covering my tracks either. The internet browser would totally remember all the porn I had looked at, so that was probably cool for my mom when she went to check her email and the browser suggested she check out gaybeef.com instead.

Then one night when I was 15, I came home from work and saw that my mom searched my room and found all my porn and placed it in a fanned out arrangement on my bed. Great. I went straight to bed that night, unable to face the embarrassment. The Next morning we had a fight and I left for school…which I decided to ditch. I moved out that night and was emancipated a few months later.

My mom and I don’t Speak that often. but we both love each other.. it just is what it is.
I’m happy with where I am and what I’ve been able to accomplish on my own. Being gay has given me great strength. and I am very proud of who I am.”

Hayden, in his own words: “Being gay…what does it mean to me? I’ve never really given it much thought. But, I would have to say that it means having the freedom to express myself. That sounds pretty cheesy, and sometimes its easier said than done. But, I’ll try and break it down.

Being a gay guy is awesome. I have a partner that understands when I need to find a save point before I shut-off the Xbox. He gets that some nights its better to stay at home with a 6-pack and watch horror movies all night.

My family, I couldn’t ask for a better group of people. Not only do they appreciate my weirdness…they encourage it.

My friends, they’re all so unique and incredible. We’re like a group of renegade artists. If someone isn’t working on an art project we get itchy.

Being gay to me means being fortunate to be myself and have the support it takes to do so.

I haven’t really faced many challenges for being gay. I came out in High School, which probably would have been tough. But, I think the black make-up and spiked collars took some of the focus off of the fact that I was gay.

Its difficult to describe the gay scene in Los Angeles. There are a ton of queers with a ton of different interests; a person has some options. I stay home a lot…ha ha.

My coming out story is totally boring. It was during 11th grade English class. The girl behind me used to read Metal Edge Magazine everyday. Our teacher was often intoxicated so I would turn around in my desk to read the magazines with her. She would talk about which rock stars she thought were hot. Never being one to shy away controversy, I tested the waters here and professed my love for Daniel Johns of Silverchair. She didn’t bat an eyelash but rather said, “Me too. I had a sex dream about him last night.”

Check out Jacob and Hayden’s music with Professor Possessor

Noam and Daniel, Architects, Boston

photo by Kevin Truong

Noam and Daniel, in their own words: “Tel Aviv is quite a liberal place within a not-always-liberal country. It is a bubble, in many ways parallel to how NYC is viewed within the US.

Gays are an influential part of the society in Tel Aviv: in politics, in media and in culture. Before moving to Cambridge, we both worked full time as journalists in Ha’aretz Newspaper’s culture section, covering arts and architecture on a daily basis. We were one of the only couples there, and perhaps the only gay couple. Personally we can’t say being gay had any negative influence on how we were viewed, it never created any special challenges. We never hid our sexual orientation, quite the contrary.

Though we are pretty new in Boston / Cambridge, we can already say that it is very very different in terms of gay community when compared to Tel Aviv. First of all, Tel Aviv is smaller and everyone knows everyone. Then, of course, Israel is a Mediterranean country: it’s hot, temperamental, edgy, alive all year round and it’s extremely sexual. These things are different in Boston, which is way more introverted and quiet, more educated and calm, more homogeneous in its gay population. It seems sometimes that maybe because gay marriage and being gay has been OK here for a pretty long time, the character of the gay community here has become very institutional.

As for a coming out story. Both of us went to arts high schools and studied classical music (Daniel-piano, Noam- tuba). For our parents, our coming out was not such a big surprise in hindsight. There were phases of therapy in both cases, but today our parents are super accepting. And both parent-pairs are friends with each other too, which is great. They are our family and we think that they see we love each other, they see how we develop and flourish together, and they trust us that we’re OK and that they don’t need to be worried for us.”