This isn't going to be a typical coming out story, since I'm not "out," per se, or one about homophobia, though I have plenty of those. This is a post about discrimination and prejudice from within the GLBTQ community. I don't have any gay friends my age, but I do know some, a few years older, who are very active in the gay community here. One of these people recently told me that I need to "stop acting straight" and embrace that I am gay.
What prompted this? The fact that I adore football, or soccer as everyone where I live calls it. I play it, I watch it, I love it. And that apparently is a betrayal to the fact that I'm gay. Because to really be gay, I have to be flamboyant and effeminate, I guess.
Gay is my sexual orientation, not my identity. I am a complex person, as we all are. I have played football since I was five years old. I love it and I will never stop. I also love watching it, and I am genuinely excited when my favourite club has a good match and it can throw me off my day when they lose.
I like to run around and kick balls and train and get dirty and sweaty and be active. I also love to get dressed up in nice clothes now and then and go out and dance to Rihanna and Ke$ha, and I will even stop complaining about Lady Gaga if I'm having fun. These are not contradictory statements. I am just as comfortable in a track suit as I am in designer clothes (given the situation).
I am not being "fake" or "straight-acting" because I am athletic. I am simply athletic. I can be athletic and be gay, and frankly I think the assumption that I can't is very insulting, to everyone.
There is so much homophobia and discrimination in the world. Do we really need to be perpetuating it in our own community? Everyone is different. I don't want to be like everyone else any more than the person who said that to me wants to be.
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