Being gay – my story
I received an overwhelming response to my previous mailer.
The topic? Being gay.
It’s quite something, even in 2024.
A 62-year-old mother with two gay children emailed me. She shared that their journey wasn’t easy, but no one in their small conservative town ever gave them any grief about it. Today, she wouldn’t have it any other way.
I also heard from an old school friend. I always suspected that he was gay, but today he is married to a woman and they have a child together. He just said, “You are very brave.” I can’t help but draw my own conclusions from those words.
Many other stories. Mostly positive, but also some very sad ones: boys and girls who have lost their families, friends who committed suicide, people who continue to live inauthentic lives.
Sad.
And it doesn’t need to be.
We need to fix it.
And one way is to talk about it.
I think if everyone in this world knows someone who is gay—someone they love and respect, a friend, a colleague, a family member, a celebrity—they will be more tolerant towards other gay people.
It’s when something is foreign, when we don’t understand it, when we can’t relate, that we easily judge it.
Over the last year, I’ve been writing “a book” about my life: my childhood circumstances, big events that shaped my thinking, the tools and habits I instilled, and the rules that I follow today. I’m not ready to publish this. To be honest, I don’t know if I ever will.
There are three chapters in it on me being gay: my earliest memories of it, how I fell in love for the first time, and how I came out of the closet, first to my mom and then more publicly.
Those chapters are my real and authentic story about being gay.
If you would like to read it, I created a PDF doc with the three chapters extracted for you that you can access here.
If you don’t know any other gay person, it’s my hope that you can now know my journey a little better and hopefully that can lead to more acceptance towards others too. I don’t think any gay person makes this choice consciously, and we all need to navigate a very challenging journey in a world where this isn’t generally accepted.
The next time you cast judgment, think about the person behind that journey. They also have a story.
And if you are reading this and you are gay, I applaud you for being brave too, and I want to challenge you to share your story.
We need to fix the stigma around being gay.
And one way is to talk about it.
Marnus
Ps. I would love to hear your thoughts – on being gay, on these posts, the book’s content – let me know in the comments section below.
M
June 21, 2024 at 8:44 am
Thank you Marnus for sharing these very personal experiences! You are brave indeed! And wow, reading this really makes me think again about authenticity and the implicit acceptance from family when they stop asking about potential girlfriends and actually starts to mention your ‘flatmate’ by name.
Marnus
July 1, 2024 at 2:40 pm
Thanks for the comment M. That’s a beautiful gesture from the family – it’s without a doubt difficult for everyone and not something we get taught how to deal with. <3
Jethro
June 25, 2024 at 8:45 am
This resonates some profound emotions of my childhood. The journey of discovering ones sexuality can have so much ire to it, yet it can actually be a very fulfilling one indeed.
Thank you for being so brave and creating a safe space for us. To provide us courage and determination in knowing that we can not only make a success of ourselves, but to actually leave a foot print behind without any shame.
Marnus
July 1, 2024 at 2:35 pm
Thanks for the nice comment Jethro. The thing about this “journey” that always boggles my mind, is how long it takes. For most at least 20 years, for others, a lot more. That’s a HUUUUUGE part of your life and so much more intense since it’s happening in your formative years. But like you say, it can be fulfilling indeed. Much love.
João Vitor
August 21, 2024 at 3:29 pm
It’s great to have a space to talk about this.
I’m 26 years old, I’m originally from South America, where being gay still means a very strong change in social and family paradigm, last year I moved to Sub-Saharan Africa, where I lived for 7 months, this experience marked me, I until then believed having evolved in my own self-acceptance of my homosexuality, in a very dangerous environment for lgbtqia+ people, this short period of social repression made me experience something that I experienced when I was 15 years old, the reflection, denial and feeling of guilt for being gay, I went through a lot , I experienced someone from the city where I lived being killed due to homophobia, it’s bizarre to think about that in 2023, it’s strange to think about it even today, after that I felt like I needed to change.
I made the decision to change everything again, even though I was experiencing my peak of professional and academic self-realization. I have currently been living in Europe for 4 months, I completely changed my life again, I left aside my entire academic professional life and placed myself in the opposite state from where I worked, now as an immigrant, and with all the difficulties I never thought about living in my life, and do you know how I feel about all of this? freedom I feel alive, I can feel myself, be myself
With so many things that I am currently experiencing, my feeling of acceptance of being gay is one of the happiest achievements of my life.
I remember the first time on this new continent that I had headphones on and started singing a gay song that I always listened to as a child/teenager in my country and never, due to fear or judgment, was able to sing in public. It was one of the most liberating and touching experiences. that I lived here
I also take the feeling of being able to walk hand in hand down the street with a man like a hug in my soul.
It is essential today for my life to never hide from myself again
Thank you for having the courage to share your story, this is inspiring 🙂
Marnus
August 22, 2024 at 11:47 am
Thanks for sharing Vitor!