Okay i noticed alot of people from this forum would like to tell their whole school they are gay. I did too until after i went to therapy (trying to commit suicide) i said that i would like to do that to my therapist. And her reply really made me think. She said if the first thing people hear about you is that your gay then thats probably all they will remember. When i heard that i completely changed my mind about coming out. The only people i told were people i actually cared about knowing. I have come out to all of my friends now. I am also out of therapy . But yeah I just wanted to say something before anyone on this forum made any big deisions about tell your whole schoo. Because chances are most people wont accept you. I just wanted to add this to the forum because it made me think so i hope it makes you think too. -paul
I think the point that Rain is making is that, particularly in less accepting communities, it is probably much wiser to carefully choose the people to whom you come out, so as to maximise potential support and minimise potential stigma. It really comes down to a point I have seen made many times - which is that our sexuality is merely a part of what we are - it doesn't (or shouldn't) define the person that we are. So it makes quite a degree of sense that people should get to know you as a person first - in that way they know YOU before they know your sexuality - and hopefully (as said before, especially in less accepting communities) they can then assess your sexuality as just one factor in what they know about you - not make a (possibly homophobic) snap judgement on you based on the ONLY thing they know about you. It makes sense to me - and is probably something well worth considering for a large number of people. After all, not everyone lives in places where saying "I'm out and proud - get used to it" will garner you respect from people... You (I see) live in L.A. - don't you think that gay people are reasonably well accepted there? Whereas, if you lived in the bible belt...or somewhere even worse - well, I suspect you would better understand.
This is good advice depending on where you live. if you live in an accepting comunity i dont think it will really matter what people learn about your sexuality. but personaly i dont think i would realy want the friendship of a biggot....
