Tag Archives: pictures of gay men

Michael, Artist/Writer/Designer, Portland, Ore.

photo by Kevin Truong

Michael, in his own words:“It’s easy to forget where you came from. What I mean is, it’s entirely possible to forget formative events, or the face of your favorite teacher, or the name of your child (I’m looking at YOU, mom). But one thing you never, ever forget, is your “coming out” story, if you have one. This usually reflects the time and circumstances you grew up in, and my story is no exception.

It’s the fall of 1991, in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Yes, jerk, there is electricity and running water, and yes, New Mexico is a state. Despite Nirvana’s Nevermind just having been released, Janet Jackson’s Rhythm Nation 1814 is still in heavy rotation on my Walkman. I own all the cassingles from it. I’m still mourning for the last Star Trek movie to feature the original cast, The Undiscovered Country, and my future boyfriend is probably being born (long story).

My boyfriend at this ancient time in 1991, however, is sweet, kind Max, who also happens to be my first boyfriend. He’s pretty great: awesome musical taste, handsome, really funny. We meet in freshman acting class and instantly connect through our mutual interests of Drakkar Noir and making out. He tolerates my Star Trek obsession the best he can. I mean, like, you know how some nerds are sexy? Yeah, I wasn’t one of those. Max was also with me when I get drunk for the first time from half of a Bartles & James wine cooler. Good times.

So the Big Event happened at the dinner table one night. I had moved out to go to school at UNM, which stands for the University of New Mexico (but is secretly the University Near Mom), but it was a couple miles from our house. Both my parents were enthusiastic smokers, something I didn’t think about until I moved out and then came back to visit. What. The. Hell. is that smell, guys? Why is there a chest-level cloud in the house? And why is grandma wheezing so much?

I don’t remember what we were eating, but I do remember it probably wasn’t Mexican. Despite my latin roots (on my mom’s side), I never developed a love of Mexican food. I had been hanging out with Max more and more, and had brought him over to meet my parents a couple weeks before. I also don’t remember what my parents and I were discussing, but I do remember as the meal ended my mom finally broached the subject: “Michael, is Max bi?”

The needle could not have skipped harder on the record as I set down my fork and looked at them. I imagine that I was cool and collected, but in reality I probably looked like a deer in headlights as I stammered “Uh, no. Of course not.” There was a long, long pause as they just stared back at me. I decided it was now or never.

“Yes. Yes he is. And so am I.” I didn’t bother correcting them at the time that he and I were gay, not bi. Maybe asking the question this way was their way to soften the blow for themselves, that maybe for them me being bi was like being “only half gay”. In any case, they both went down the “We still love you, you’re still our son, nothing has changed” road. And honestly, on some level they must have already known. I learned their real reactions later: my mom, being a director of an HIV-advocacy organization at the time, and friends with several gay artists, took the news all in stride. My dad, being the son of a Lutheran minister, privately struggled with it, but put on a supportive face. Why? Because he loved me, and he realized that love was evolving.

I’m lucky. Now, 20-some years later, I’ve turned 40. Both of my folks are amazing and supportive. My dad asks me how my boyfriends are whenever I’m dating someone, reads my posts about the shitshow that is my dating life (pro-tip: if a guy is ignoring you, it secretly means he is ignoring you). My mom tries to fix me up with literally every gay man she meets. But in the end, I’m fortunate. There are a lot of queer women and men out there whose tale is a lot different, whose coming out story is more fraught with pain and outright rejection than mine. There are people who don’t even have a coming out story yet, because of circumstances in their lives.

I look forward to the day that we don’t even need coming out stories, that it’s just universally accepted that we love who we love. But for now, we have these stories, and slowly but surely, the stories will get better and better. Let’s share them.”

A Note from Francesco, in Italy…

“The story of my coming out is very strange, but let’s start from the beginning.

When I was a little boy, I thought of being attracted to girls, because this was the only reality I knew and so I started love relationships, but whenever the situations became intimate, I gave up (unfortunately I broke so many hearts). After that, I started to give a look around during the end of my second year at high school and I discovered that there was a hidden world, lived by wonderful, particular but common people, who were scared to show themselves. But I didn’t want to believe it. I said: “No, this is impossible. I can’t be gay, it’s wrong. Maybe I need to find the right girl”. So I tried to force myself not to be gay.

After a while, the desire of having someone by my side, with who share also stupid things, began to be felt. So I thought back to my sexuality. I thought: “It still is impossible that I’m gay, but maybe I’m bisexual. Yes, it has to be this. If I’m gay, how can I explain it to my parents?”. I decided to talk about my sexuality to my best friends (at that time they were 4 girls) and they gave to me their support, they said: “No matter if you like boys or girls, you ‘re special and we will always love you”. They were my strength, they were the reason that I came out to my parents, because I knew that if the situation got bad, I could count on them. Always.

I came out to my parents about 4/5 years ago, when I was 16, but not spontaneously, I had to do. I was so scared, because I knew what my parents thought about gays.

There was a blog about my school (called GossipGirl Frattamaggiore) and one day the anonymous writer wrote about me and what I did at a gay party ( I kissed a boy). My mum have a facebook account and she saw that I post the article on the wall of one of my bestfriends. After reading it, my mum called me in the living room and she said: “There is something you want to tell me?”

“Emh no, why?” But inside I knew she knew.

“I’ve just read an article about you.”

“Really? I don’t know what you are talking about” and my heart started to beat so fast that I thought it would have stopped.

“Ok mum” I said “What you read, it’s true. I’m gay. I know that I’m a disappointment as a son, but what else I can do? That’s what I’m and believe me when I say that it’s difficult for me to admit that”

Unexpectedly my mum told to me: “Bebe, I’m your mother, I’ve always known. I put you into the world, you’re my son and my love for you is unconditionally.”

My life’s begun with my coming out. My mum helped me to told what I am to my father and my brother (they also accepted my situation, with some difficulty of course, they are men, I know that it’s hard for them to understand).

I know that Italy is not ready for us, but the situation’s changing, I can feel that. I changed minds of the guys in my school (now I’ve a lot of straight people that approve my cause). My first relationship ended so badly. After a month, my boyfriend left me, because his parents had known that we were togheter. They didn’t take it well. But now I know that people around me are open-minded, I can see in their eyes (not everyone, the road is still so long).

From my outing (and since my boyfriend left me, breaking my heart) I’ve alway tried to be helpful to other gays in difficulty, giving to them some advices (to show themselves always strong, no matter what, also with their parents they have to have the closed fist), that my house is always open for them, that we need to show to the world, more than ever, that we are not sick, we are not clowns, we want to give love and recieve love cleanly, as everyone in this world.”

photo by Francesco

Ariel, Journalist, Panama City

photo by Kevin Truong

Ariel, in his own words: “I have never felt guilty or shameful about being gay; however, one of the greatest experiences I faced as a result of my sexuality was letting go of the expectations that society and my family planned for me. Society tries to teach us what is right and wrong, and coming out of the closet is a rebellion against those expectations and rules. You have to learn to live not just to be accepted, but to be yourself. The world out there is a big place and there is a space for everyone.

I came out when I was very young at the age of 14. Being still an adolescent, I had to educate the people around me, especially those whom I loved the most, like my father. This was a big challenge because they had little-to-no understanding of what it meant to be gay: for them, the raunchy, dirty sex acts where the first things to come to mind. Moreover, these were always filtered through a religious/moral lens. They were not immediately able to think of the love and companionship that might be involved in my relationships. Coming out at this age was especially difficult because one depends on his/her parents for everything.

Now I’m glad I came out when I was so young because my family has had many years to process, learn, and get over their fears and prejudices. Today, I live very openly with my family and they are very accepting of my life. For example, when my boyfriend comes to visit from the United States, he stays with me in my bedroom at my father’s house. During holidays, he comes to all of the family parties, and my grandmother even buys him a present. Today, when others see this, they often tell me how lucky I am; however, what they don’t realize is that this level of acceptance took more than ten years.
Panama is a very small country with a very small gay community. Gay people want things to change, but they are too scared to do anything about it. Because of pervasive homophobia in society, many feel that there is more value in staying in the closet than taking the risk of coming out. Moreover, there is a lot of discrimination (gender, race, class, etc.) within the gay community itself. Change is happening, but it is slow and incremental.

To come out of the closet, I wrote a letter to my mother (as I was used to doing at the time to say important things), but I had no idea what I was getting myself into. She talked to my father that the same night and then the nightmare started. They thought I was confused and sent me to a psychologist the very next day. Thankfully, he was a good man and didn’t try to change me.

My mother was upset and did not talk to me for several days; however, I did not pay that much attention to either of my parents because I never thought I was doing anything wrong. After a few days, my mother got over it and soon became my best friend—I could even talk to her about boys. However, in a country where machismo runs strong, there was not much that she could do immediately to change my father. Within the space that she had, she did what she could to protect me. I was lucky to have her by my side.
For my father, it was much more difficult: he was so sure this was a choice and that this was something that I could change if I wanted to change. I could have made things easier for myself just by telling him that I was going to try to change even though I had no intention of doing so. But I refused. I told him that if it was so easy to change, that he himself should try to change his heterosexuality to be attracted to men. We stopped talking and we grew apart. Every once in a while, he would repeat his question, but I always had the same answer.

While most of my friends were out having fun at this age, I was at home grounded because I refused to change. Now, I think about it as a joke, but I was basically grounded for six years with very limited freedom or time to go to parties to socialize with friends. The upside is that I had plenty of time to read, think, and understand my sexuality and what it meant to be gay. This only made me more confident in my ability to combat their homophobia with well-articulated arguments.

Coming out is a continuous process: as we go to our jobs, hang out with friends, shop for groceries, spend time at parties, go to large dinners, we are constantly meeting new people and one never stops coming out. If you are not entirely honest or coy, people will often gossip about what you are doing, so I just prefer to be honest to remove all of their fun.”