Big Gay Closet

Lesbian actress Amber Heard has said people in her profession are dissuaded from coming out in Hollywood and end up becoming part of a “detrimental lie”.The Rum Diary star told Women’s Health magazine: “You can’t respect yourself if you’re afraid to be who you are. It requires bravery to do something no one else around you is doing.“But the risk was outweighed by the possibility of playing into this horribly detrimental lie that some in Hollywood perpetuate.”

via Amber Heard: Staying in the closet in Hollywood is a “horribly detrimental lie” – PinkNews.co.uk.

By 14, Matranga, didn’t want to pretend anymore. So she handed a note to a classmate at Theodore Roosevelt Middle School in Kenner, scrawled with the words, “Pass it on.”

Inside, she wrote: “My name is Jeannette Matranga. I am gay and I’m proud of it. If you have any questions or comments, meet me at the second tree during second lunch.”

via Gay people are coming out younger | NOLA.com.

I remember at the age of about 13 having an argument with my very Catholic grandmother. We were arguing about the rights of gay people. It wasn’t the first time we’d had the argument, and, as you might expect, I was very pro-gay equality and she was very much not. It’s not like she wanted homosexuals executed or anything, but she considered it an illness. She thought that Oscar Wilde had “ruined his life” with his homosexuality and believed that HIV and Aids were god’s way of eradicating gays.

I remember at the time having not the slightest doubt in the power of my position. I was one of those annoying little gits that went around describing themselves as “an equalitarian” (I’d read it in the dictionary and instantly adopted it) and as I grew older I met friends who were gay or who would later come out as gay. I even wrote a thesis on Oscar Wilde as a school student and remember feeling mortified when, commenting on the death of Freddy Mercury, a family member ‘joked’ to a neighbour that it “served him right for being a poofter”. (Imagine the embarrassment when the neighbour in question replied with “my brother’s gay”).

I guess the point of mentioning this, is to highlight that I myself never had any issue with homosexuality. Or bisexuality. Very much the opposite. That makes it all the more baffling to me that it took me so very long to realise that I myself was gay. I was into my twenties, had completed my degree and had even got married. And then it hit me like a train. I’d made a terrible, terrible mistake. I wasn’t the person that I had thought I was – actually the person I married turned out also not to be the person I had thought he was either, which at least made it slightly easier to leave. But that still left me with a massive problem. I could leave him easy enough – I was pretty much stuck with myself. There was no leaving that behind.

I didn’t so much come out of the closet – more exploded out of there, hurting myself and a few others on the way. I told a close friend what was muddling around in my head. She seduced me. I tried to resist and then thought what the hell. The first time I kissed her I was terrified. No amount of alcohol seemed sufficient to calm my nerves and in the end I just had to swallow them. Once I’d taken the plunge I knew there was no going back. I think it probably remains the best kiss of my life, not only for how damn good it was but also for everything it symbolised. I then fell crazy in love and had my heart broken. It took me three years to patch it back together.

I went off the rails, had some brilliant and some awful times and never stopped to look back. It needed doing. I suddenly had all this catching up to do – there was a whole world out there that I had always known existed, but had never thought applied to me. Now it suddenly did.

I occasionally wonder why it took me so long. The gay community is now the centre around which my life resolves; it’s where many of my friends are, it’s where I go for support and a huge chunk of my social life. It’s where I feel safe. Accepted. Me. I simply can’t imagine my life without it – and I doubt I would want to live somewhere without a significant gay scene. And I suppose the answer is in the two stories I started this with. While I was able to know that there was nothing wrong with being gay, my entire experience of any discussion about homosexuality had been that of it being ‘othered’ by people. Being gay was what happened to other people – not to me or anyone in my family. It’s not like I had the kind of upbringing where we were encouraged to think about the kind of people we were or the lives we wanted for ourselves – there was certainly no questioning, let alone challenging, or perceived norms. We were all assumed to be straight, to be destined for a lifetime of unsatisfying low-paid work, marriage and kids. I bucked the trend by going to university after my history teacher talked me into it, but otherwise I was sleepwalking towards my future. It took the (apparent) finality of marriage and the prospect of a miserable life to jolt me awake and make me ask myself who I really was and what I really wanted. For that reason alone, I remain glad that I did it.

When Yasser hit puberty, he grew attracted to his male cousins. Like many gay and lesbian teenagers everywhere, he felt isolated. “I used to have the feeling that I was the queerest in the country,” he recalled. “But then I went to high school and discovered there are others like me. Then I find out, it’s a whole society.”

This society thrives just below the surface. During the afternoon, traffic cops patrol outside girls’ schools as classes end, in part to keep boys away. But they exert little control over what goes on inside. A few years ago, a Jeddah- based newspaper ran a story on lesbianism in high schools, reporting that girls were having sex in the bathrooms. Yasmin, a 21-year-old student in Riyadh who’d had a brief sexual relationship with a girlfriend and was the only Saudi woman who’d had a lesbian relationship who was willing to speak with me for this story, told me that one of the department buildings at her college is known as a lesbian enclave. The building has large bathroom stalls, which provide privacy, and walls covered with graffiti offering romantic and religious advice; tips include “she doesn’t really love you no matter what she tells you” and “before you engage in anything with [her] remember: God is watching you.” In Saudi Arabia, “It’s easier to be a lesbian [than a heterosexual]. There’s an overwhelming number of people who turn to lesbianism,” Yasmin said, adding that the number of men in the kingdom who turn to gay sex is even greater. “They’re not really homosexual,” she said. “They’re like cell mates in prison.”

via The Kingdom in the Closet – Magazine – The Atlantic.

Lesbian comedian WANDA SYKES was so scared about revealing her sexuality to her parents, she broke the news to them in a “long distance phone call”.

The funnywoman ‘came out’ publicly in 2008 after attending a gay rights rally in Las Vegas, and the 46 year old admits she spent years worrying about how to tell her mother and father the truth.

Sykes reveals she conquered her fear by making sure her parents were a “six-hour plane ride” away when she confessed her secret.

She tells newsman Larry King, “I have parents who are still alive. So yeah… that’s why you suppress all that, you bury it, and to try to fit in. I’m 46… My father’s in the service. Right, retired colonel. So (I told them in) a long distance phone call. We’re talking, like, coast to coast. You always want to give your family like a six-hour plane ride before they can get to you.”

And Sykes admits her relatives are still coming to terms with the revelation.

She adds, “We’re working on it… They love me… I know without a doubt, my family, they love me. And you know, we’re working on it. Keep praying for us.”

from ContactMusic.com via Diva

At the Television Critics Assn. summer press tour in Beverly Hills, Gilbert spoke openly about raising a boy and a girl with her partner, TV producer Allison Adler. The kids were born in 2004 and 2007. She’ll be discussing motherhood, parenting and more soon on “The Talk” with co-hosts Julie Chen, Sharon Osbourne, Holly Robinson Peete, Leah Remini and Marissa Jaret Winokur. Press materials for the show hadn’t mentioned Adler in Gilbert’s bio — a decision the actress said was hers, not the networks, according to Entertainment Weekly.

“Ive been acting my whole life, and Ive never really discussed my personal life. This is a talk show,” Gilbert said. “So obviously, I’m going to be discussing my life more, and I felt that the first place I wanted to do it wasn’t in a CBS press release.”

“It just seemed impersonal, and I felt like I’d rather come in person and talk to you about all that stuff here.”

via Sara Gilbert puts it out there: Shes a lesbian | Ministry of Gossip | Los Angeles Times.

Ok this one I need to file under “WTF?”.  I didn’t realise she hadn’t come out officially. Last week, even, the headlines were talking about her as a lesbian mother on television.

Congrats, Sara Gilbert. It’s awesome to be out. It’s more awesome that you were never really very in.

“While some people find change threatening,” Diamond says, “others find it exciting and liberating, and I definitely think that for women in middle adulthood and late life, they might be the most likely to find sexual shifts empowering. We’re an anti-ageing society. We like people to be young, nubile and attractive. And I think the notion that your sexuality can undergo these really exciting, expansive possibilities at a stage when most people assume that women are no longer sexually interesting and are just shutting down, is potentially a really liberating notion for women. Your sexual future might actually be pretty dynamic and exciting – and whatever went on in your past might not be the best predictor at all of what your future has in store.”

via Why it’s never too late to be a lesbian | WorldbbNews.

Fantastic blog post on Big Gayborhood about being closeted at work and how those stupid comments can affect you so much, and about how we worry that our children will pay for our honesty. Read on…

A year ago, I was working in a child care center in a very small town. At a staff meeting, a colleague said, “This small town is not ready for gay marriage.” Bear in mind that I am a Canadian, living and working in Ontario, where same-sex marriage has been legal for a number of years, so it is inevitable that this teacher will encounter a child of same-sex parents at some point in her career.

In fact, she already had the child of a lesbian in her care, and didn’t even know it. She was my daughter’s preschool teacher.

I should have spoken up. I should have asked, “How do you know there isn’t a child in your room who is in that situation right now?” I should have defended my child and the life I was beginning to live. Instead, I was silent.  It was easy enough for me to hide my sexual orientation, I was single at the time, and my internalized homophobia created shame, when I should have been defending my right to raise my child with another woman, if I so chose.

I was acutely uncomfortable with my working situation after that comment was made. Not only did I feel unsafe about coming out to my colleagues, I really felt as though my daughter would be treated differently if the teacher became aware of our situation. Whether or not any small town is ready, teachers need to be prepared to set aside their own biases in order to truly love and accept the differences of all the children in their care.   It is essential to preserve a child’s self-esteem, to educate, and to teach love and inclusion over hate.

read the rest at Our Big Gayborhood.

While talking to a reporter at an event for The Trevor Project, Breakfast Club and High Art star Ally Sheedy told a reporter that her daughter is a lesbian.

“My daughter has just come out,” Sheedy told the reporter.

via Ally Sheedy: My Daughter is Gay  | News|Advocate.com.

Should young gay performers still keep their sexuality a secret?

It’s part of the game. If you’re going to be a romantic idol and try to get every teenage girl to love you, then you’d be an ass to come out and say you’re gay. That’s why Ricky Martin was so smart — he did what he did, he made his millions, and then he said, “Guess what, everybody? I’m gay, I’m having this life, and here are my children.” It didn’t matter anymore because he didn’t have to bring in 16-year-old girls.

Since we’re getting into Newsweek territory here, did you buy Sean Hayes as a romantic lead in Promises, Promises?

I thought he was adorable. What’s there to buy? It’s a musical, for God’s sake. We already know the plot, we know they get together in the end, and there’s singing and dancing. What, we’re looking for reality here? It’s so stupid.

What do you make of the cadre of female comics who have come out as lesbians later in their careers?

Well, with comedians it doesn’t mean a damn thing, because there’s not the same romantic thing involved there. No single guy ever had Ellen DeGeneres’s or Rosie O’Donnell’s picture up on the wall and thought, Maybe one day I’ll meet her and she’ll marry me. No one cares what a comedian is. All you’re thinking about is if they’re going to make you laugh.

It’s not too late in life for you to come out, Joan.

I’ll probably do it right before my new show comes out. You should only come out when you need the publicity.

Read more: Joan Rivers Better Work | Film | Advocate.com.