Gays in the closet, lving in theSouth

[chad28ala]

Any guys still in the closet living in the South. I guess I just want to rant, but
I am so tired of these redneck idiots around here. I here the word fag everyday and just have to be silent. literally the word gay around here is looked at like you have committed the worst crime. Will the South ever change. Anyone else in similar situation? I know
everyone says move, but when you have a business and life it's not that
easy to just pick up. Add in a religous family and it only complicates things
more. Never told anyone I'm gay, anyone else as closeted as I am?

 

[gangineer]

Well, i'm not quite in the same situation. I'm in berkeley, and out, but i still hear fag used far too often. Maybe not everyday, but at least a few times a week. But I hope things do change for you. I really do.

 

[DON55]

It can be tough and mentally painful. Hang in there and just be yourself. If they can't take that...fuck 'em.

 

[Soilwork]

iterally the word gay around here is looked at like you have committed the worst crime. Will the South ever change?

Not as long as you all lay down and take it... no it won't.

You wanna change the world? It's not going to happen from behind a closet door.

 

[thegreenfury]

i'm not in closet, but i've lived in the South my whole life (born in Greensboro, NC and currently in Raleigh). I've had a remarkably positive experience, however, and, for me, it just comes down to who you choose to surround yourself with. I hear the slurs and insults around me often enough, especially when i was in high school, but those arent the sort of people that i associate with. they are an annoying afterthought. It makes it easier, i suppose, being out and being able to tell someone not to use derogatory language without fear of being outed but sometimes you have to let people know where you stand. the people that matter will respect that and maybe even try to get their friends to stop the ridicule and the ones who don't matter won't give you the time of day. the South will figure it out eventually, first in the urban areas and then elsewhere, but you must be patient and try to see the good here, because there is a lot of it.

of course, i'm willing to concede that both Greensboro and Raleigh are urban enough to escape some of the real backwards thinking elsewhere. how rural of an area do you live in?

 

[G-Lexington]

Soil's right. What exactly have you done to help move the attitudes along? If everybody waits for everybody else to do something, nothing ever gets done.

Lex

 

[DarthWufei]

I'm down here in Oklahoma, but I'm out and pretty much open about my sexuality. No, I don't flaunt or mention it at every drop of a hat, but I generally honest about it. Well except with my roommate, he's a total jock who has some very very narrow minded views towards homosexuals or any part of the GLBT community and I've tried to enlighten him, but it really was too much trouble.

I feel your pain though. I refused to come out until I graduated high school, and even then I chickened out with how I did it. I told a friend online to tell the rest of my friends. All while I was moving to Arizona, thinking I'd never see them again.

It's rough, grew up in a primarily Baptist family, very strict and set in their ways. A lot of my friends then and even now are quite religious and conservative.

So, I've definitely been there and see your reasoning for staying in the closet. I just have to say though, that I think it's within your best interest to just come out about it, regardless of where you live. It makes it so much easier on yourself to deal with really minor situations. Plus like others have mentioned, you gotta help change the way society flows. I kinda hope that despite the beliefs and views of my friends that I've made some kind of impact on them in regards to people and their sexuality.

 

[G-Lexington]

>>>i don't have the time or patience for people who discriminate against gay people. if they're 5 years old i'll explain to them cultural diversity and there's room on the planet for everybody and yadda yadda but grown adults should know better

Why?

In many rural and small-town areas, there aren't any (out) gay people around. So stereotypes are often rife and accepted as fact. And if nothing comes along to challenge those misconceptions, then obviously, those misconceptions are going to remain.

A few months ago, a fellow JUBber mentioned some anti-gay posts on a trucker website he was on. A few of us went to read it, but I decided I needed to go one step further. I can't blame someone for being ignorant if I don't at least attempt to educate them. So I got an account on that website, introduced myself as a homosexual, and offered to tell them anything they needed to know. Yes, I got some abuse and some lame jokes thrown my way, but I also engaged a lot of them in som eserious debate. And I think I made at least a few of them question their long-held misconceptions about gays.

I don't feel I was horribly brave for doing so. After all, I was an anonymous person on a messageboard. And I was standing on the shoulder of giants. For the last forty or so years, homosexuals, lesbians et al have been pushing for their rights, and demanding that people view them as viable human beings, not twisted perversions. It's a struggle that has gotten a lot easier in the past twenty years or so, but I don't think it's time to put my feet up and declare "mission accomplished". There's still homophobia out there, and it's been my experience that ignorance drives a very large chunk of it. If I can alter someone's way of thinking with a little time and effort, I think it's a damn good use of that time and effort.

Lex

 

[G-Lexington]

Not quite. But that's the sort of ignorance I'm talking about. They assume that we're a bunch of moralless girly men looking to take down the American way of life. And we think that they're a bunch of in-denial guys looking for any excuse to jump the fence.

The early questions tended to be the most offensively put. "After awhile, isn't it just like tossing a hot dog down a hallway?" got a bunch of "Haw! Good 'un!"s from other posters. But I answered it anyway. Most of the rest of the questions were fairly easy (and expected). "How can you not like titties?" "Why do you hate families?" "Why are you anti-God?" "How do you decide who's pitching and who's catching?" There was a lot of talk about how much they hated gays who hung out at truck stops and rest areas, and I had to explain that, for many years, that's the only way we could find each other. (With the rise of the internet, and the general acceptance of homosexuality, these places seem to be falling out of favor.) We got into a good debate about gay marriage, and I doubt I gained too many new people to the cause there. But by that point, it at least felt like they were treating me as an intelligent person on the other side of an issue, rather than some unknown concept that they've never come across.

Lex