![]() ![]() I can’t imagine what it must feel like to exist in a body that isn’t of the same sex as you know yourself to be, and that it literally horrifies you to look at. The transgender guy’s story was particularly moving. Undeterred, he married his soulmate on a chapel-style Pride float instead as it made its way through crowds of similarly brave and big-hearted individuals at NYC’s Pride Parade this year. One had watched with dismay as the residents of his home town had held a protest against allowing him and his long-term partner to legally marry. He has been brave enough to move forward from this, to be proud of who he is and to never look back. ![]() He was hurt, humiliated and left the church in tears. One, who had been a keen church goer, had been told that he was no longer welcome at his local church in Georgia and was publicly asked to leave when he showed up anyway. He was extremely hurt, but he bravely went to the wedding anyway. One, upon coming out to his family, had been asked by his father not to attend his sister’s wedding because he would "probably make everyone there too uncomfortable”. One, at age 16, had told his mother – whom he lived with and was very close to – that he liked boys and she had told him to either “stop liking boys” or to “leave the house”. This week I met four gay men and one transgender guy who each confided in me about their upbringings. Not everyone in the LGBT community had their loved ones turn away from them when they came out of their metaphorical closets, but a startling number did. I emerged from Pride Week with acute awareness of my privileged upbringing, and I barely suppressed the urge to cry when both friends and strangers decided to share stories of their different, less fondly-remembered experiences. They are fighters, they are lovers, and they are an inspiration. ![]() These people, who are often mistakenly thought of as merely “loud and proud” are actually so much more than that. A valiant unity of vibrant people who never quite fit, or wished to fit, the cookie-cutter mold and who decided not to seek validation, but to build a new and better family out of those who would love them not in spite of, but because of, all the unique facets of their being.ĭespite rejection by loved ones, insults from strangers and societal prejudice, this is a community of people who might have curled up into a ball and wept, or decided to suppress everything that made them feel alive in favour of acceptance, but they didn’t. Over the last week I learned that the LGBT community is one thing above all others: it is brave. But it is also something else: something I have long mistook for plain gregariousness. Never do I enjoy such a sense of carefree jollity as I do when I’m with my gay friends. The LGBT community gives the impression of being audacious, free-spirited and fun, and it absolutely is. What I expected were rainbows, latex hot-pants, heaps of glitter and some Kylie Minogue. Having just emerged from Pride Week in NYC, I have to say that it wasn’t quite the week I expected! ![]()
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