Is being pround and happy with my sexuality the best way to deal with Homophobes

Well there is being proud, and shoving it in people's faces. You are obviously just being proud. Dealing with more serious, combative homophobes is mainly about learning to pick your own battles.

If I love the way I look and someone calls me ugly, do I really need to sit there for an hour and argue with them about it? Definitely, not.

Be yourself. Be proud to be yourself. In most cases, people wont try to harm you unless you allow the situation to go there with them. If you see that it might, just remove yourself.

 

Be proud. Don't let anyone push you into the closet if you don't want to be there.

But if you're worried, maybe sign up for karate classes.

 

Good advice, be proud, it's the antidote to shame, and even if you know karate (and you'd better be good at it), the best thing to do is still to walk (or run!) away...unless you are cornered...

 

Being a good person is probably the best way to do it, along with being happy and proud about being gay.

The people that know me at my job really like ME - I've earned their respect and liking. I'm proud if that, and I'm proud if the life I am living. All is well!

 

Karate's not about being violent, it's about being able to protect yourself.

You can use karate to stop someone from hurting you without hurting them back, if you focus on blocks and holds. (Most often when I need to deal with being physically attacked, my attacker is a disabled kid I'm taking care of, so I definitely don't want to hurt them.)

 

Dublin must be a shitty place to be gay. I have a lot of family there, and they're all very catholic... Aside from that, I would say that it could definitely be one of the more effective ways. The thing about learning karate or something like that is that people most likely won't charge at you with a knife just because you're wearing a gay pride shirt (hah, just remembered the Monty Python skit on defending yourself with fruit), so it might be kind of useless.

 

Be proud. Dont shove anything down someones throat (no pun intended. lol) but if you want to wear pride shirts and/or bracelets, go for it and don't take shit from anyone.

I live in the South and people here have a tendency to throw their religious and political views in your face. I put a rainbow flag patch on my gun range bag. Its my version of a pride bracelet. I open carry while wearing an Obama Pride PAC tshirt. Its my small way of saying "Yep. Im gay. Im holding my BFs hand. Which happens to be right next to my Sig Sauer 9mm. What?"

My hope by doing so is to change some stereotypes that people may have. Does it make a huge impact? No. But if someone sees me walking down the street with my arm around my BF and someone wants to call me a fag or say "the bible says blah blah blah" and sees Im also a gun toting 2nd Amendment advocate, maybe that will change their preconceived notions a little.

Hopefully I didn't go off on too much of a tangent, but just my $.02.

 

Maybe it's just me but I try keeping my sexual orientation to myself. No pride-bracelets, no anything; when people talk to me about it anyway, I try to stay calm and serious because many of them are very prejudiced BECAUSE all gay people seem to be happy-go-lucky and overly proud all the time. It's worked so far and I've even made some "homophobic" friends who accept me completely (it's easy for them to accept me because I try not to be too "gay" when I'm with them. Ah, that ambiguity )

Just don't shove it into anyone's face, you definitely WILL end up in hospital one day but you don't seem to be doing that anyway so it's fine. You're handling it pretty well from what you've told us

 

I think that the "except the one bigot who thinks I have a mental illness" says it all. We all have had that person in our lives. It is ONE person. Focus on the people that love you,even though it's really hard.