Tag Archives: lgbtq

Jany, Prague, Czech Republic

photo by Kevin Truong

Jany, in his own words: “I hope (being gay) still means the same to me what it did when I came out to myself. The great possibility of finding a guy for me. The hope that my sexy teenage dreams can actually come true! The luxury of enjoying true love, or at least chasing it. And the excitement from all of it.

I come from a small town in South Bohemia where being gay simply did not exist in the 90’s or early 00’s. My parents are teachers and my older brother is a miraculous science geek. I think both these facts made me strive for other people’s praise more than is right. I dreamt “dirty dreams” about boys since my teens but it took me more than 10 years to acknowledge being gay is a purer lifestyle than pretending to be hetero. Now I’m proud of being able to listen to my own inner voice. Life seems so much less planned and more dramatic. It actually feels like living in a movie. Now I know I want to enjoy men more!

My girlfriend and I had been together for more than five years when I started thinking about my coming out. The relationship we had was just great and even stronger. And yes, we also had lots of great sex. There was just the problem: I tended to think about boys and could not help myself. I felt so ashamed of not being able to get it under control. After few hookups that pushed me so down, I wanted to figure out how I could overcome my feelings towards men. And while studying human sexuality, I realized I couldn’t do anything about it while staying honest to myself. The only way to fix my desperate mind was to say the truth. My girlfriend was the first one that I told. Three exhausting weeks later, we both decided to be friends. I’m proud we managed to sort it out in a good way. I’m proud and thankful of my girl, one can’t say how much. We’re still close and she found a new boyfriend.

After my coming out, I fell in love with a boy for the first time and it brought me feelings I never felt before.
Obviously, boyfriends fix everything.

I wish the (LGBTQ) community (in Prague) would be stronger. There are maybe 50 activists and then random groupings of friends. Few cafes/ bars, few clubs. But at least men have everything what they are supposed to have. So it’s good.

(Advice to my younger self) Sexuality will not change after you grow up. Nothing that you feel is wrong if it doesn’t harm anyone. You must learn to listen to yourself. Our feelings are the most precious experiences, don’t let anyone or anything steal it away from you. Being attracted to boys is so cool! And being physical with them is the special sweet spot that you not only can but should enjoy if you feel like to!”

Rafael, Comparative Literature Researcher, Lisbon, Portugal

photo by Kevin Truong

Rafael, in his own words: “I would start with the very idea of being “something”. I seldom perceive me, myself, as being part of a static and defined category that is imposed on me a priori, regardless what I have to say about that. There are social expectations preceding the self, in this case the sexual self, against which I must struggle if I want to preserve my “voice” and therefore my self-respect. In what concerns my agency as human being, these expectations, in the end, might virtually not belong to me, thus contaminating the multiple relations that the Other establishes with me.

That being said, I consider that being gay means that I have an erotic predisposition, either real or imagined, towards the male of my species, regarding its sexual and gender realms.

I would intertwine my challenges and successes with my coming out experience. My biggest challenge was the fulfilling of a sentence built on what was an utterly complicated standpoint: “I am something that is not expected from others”. My process of coming out as a person who has a non normative sexual orientation was firstly an individual struggle. Usually we tend to think that coming out is a process of revealing, which with no doubt is a political understanding of coming out; but one does not come out, actually comes in. My closet was a hidden and nameless face which I had to describe with words untaught. Thus the symbolic act of naming was at the same time my biggest challenge and success. In the end, we are always our worst enemies. Other than that, I was very fortunate to have a lot of disinterested love around me, which indeed played a great part in all this process.

A community is born out of a survival principle. And a gay community is born out of a marginalization phenomenon that originates several spaces of belonging for and/or from those who are put aside, from a cruising spot to an institutionalized NGO. In Lisbon, today, the gay community, and the sense of community, is rather refracted due to the fact that we are no longer facing a survival situation, without taking into consideration the multiple power relations and structures that still affect our citizenship, nationally, such as the adoption rights or the pathologization of transsexual/gender citizens. There are different social organizations with several aims that are vital to the LGBTQ+ visibility and that work fiercely for a voice and a better future for everyone. Lisbon also has an intense nightlife, in which the gay community is diverging from the “gay nightlife” paradigm to a more diversified notion of it. Some venues still preserve a very stereotyped idea of what a gay “place” is, starting from the very idea of “a gay place”. Although I must say that these places have an incomparable aura of safeness for those who might need a place to be. At least what was, and in a way is, Lisbon’s gay neighborhood lost the ghetto frame that usually materializes geographically a gay community.

I think, therefore I deconstruct.
P.S.: Fall in love with yourself if you want to fall in love with other self(ves).”

Romano, Art Director, Rome, Italy

photo by Kevin Truong

Romano, in his own words: “(Being gay is) just I who am (we all gay are) different. And this difference is not something I really feel as a human being. I mean I am just like anybody else, I’ve got two legs, two arms and so on. I’ve got feelings and needs like anybody else, I live my everyday life without thinking “Gosh, I am gay so I am different”. Being gay is a natural condition like being blond or brunette… It’s this social taboo that makes me feel different. When I was a child there was nothing worst than say to somebody “frocio” (fag in Italian). Nowadays nothing has really changed. That’s it! I think it’s time to get over this taboo in my country. I do hope the next homosexual generations won’t have to suffer for discrimination and social exclusion. I dream about a better Italy in a better world.

Talking about my gay condition, the most important challenge has been the self acceptance. I mean, I felt really so guilty and scared about this. Firstly I even hid to myself my real sexual instincts. So the first challenge was to come up with myself. This process has taken many years but finally I slowly ended feeling so guilty and I began to live my real life.

Well, once I began to feel comfortable with my gay condition, then I did not care much if somebody knew about it. I’ve never talked about this with my parents, friends and relatives. It just happened that slowly everybody realized I was gay. And I’ve never experienced problems with any of them.

The one who surprised me a lot is my father. He never felt comfortable with gays, and I heard him over the years revile gays. Well, one day he came to my place and said “Look son, I just came to say to you that I think everybody has the right to be straight, gay or whatever he wants!” Suddenly I blushed and he hugged me so strong. Tears on our faces and this made me feel so proud of him as a son and as a gay man!

The advice I’d give to the younger myself is: Do not care about the others; opinion, do not care about yours and others sexual orientation. Just care about feelings. Respect everybody and claim for the same respect!”