Check out my coming out story here.

So this page is all about your stories.  Please share with me! You can use the contact form below or send me an email (thatssogayemail@gmail.com).  I respond to all emails and I love to hear your stories.  This is all about community so please share.  Your story may help someone more than you know.

I will only share your story if you tell me it is ok to do so.  Also, I will change any personal information in your story so that we can respect your privacy.  Lastly, if you don’t want me to share your story it’s ok! Share with me anyway and I will still respond.  I’m here to help.

Email me directly: thatssogayemail@gmail.com

J from Mexico.  Mexico City.

I come from a very conservative and catholic raised family. Here in Mexico, about 7 years ago, being gay was not something “normal” or that you could see anywhere without receiving a bad look. I came out when I was 18 years old, when I spoke with my mother she started crying and asked me not to go out with my friends anymore because they accepted me just the way I was. Still, I tried going with her to take several coffees and talk about the subject. She really never liked the idea of me being gay or even bi. 

When the time was right, I was supposed to tell my father, but he got a little ahead of me. I had a journal since I was 17, when I first fell in love with a guy. All my feelings, things I did for the guy, how he made me feel bad and stuff was in that notebook and tried to keep it guarded somewhere only I could find it.  After graduating from high school, in summer vacations I went out one night with my friends to grab a coffee and I remember it was just like 9:00pm when my father called me. It was a Sunday. He wanted me to go back to the house ASAP and he was mad as hell. I went home, saw my parents in my bedroom with my brother (he already new I was gay and always bullied me because of that), and my father had my journal in his hand. I didn’t know what to think or say because I also wrote my first time (and some others) getting high. He started yelling at me, disrespecting me, calling my mother names, blaming me for being “weird” and even if I tried to calm him down, it was impossible. 

 He finished yelling and all that telling me that I was the stain in the family, that I was not worthy of being called his son, etc.  That night everyone went to sleep without talking to me, my mother and my father kept yelling at each other in their room and my brother just gave me an “I hate you” face and went to his room.  I slept with tons of thoughts in my head and in the morning I had to go to my school because I was taking summer classes. I wasn’t even awake when I felt an arm pushing against my chest and fist hitting me on the face. It was my dad. He hit me more than five times and I couldn’t push him away because he had me paralyzed with his arm. When he finished, he said “I hope that with this lesson you stop being a fucking fag”. We argued, my mom came into the room, yelled at my father, he slapped her in the face and then left for work. We were in complete shock since my father had never violent. After that day I could not receive phone calls, log in hi5, myspace, MSN or anything that could let me talk with my friends. If they went to my house asking for me, my parents said that I had gone on vacations for a month and so they kept me like that for a complete month without even being able to go out to the front door of my own house. after that time, my father let me go out with my friends with the condition that I had to be accompanied by my brother or my mother to any place I had to go so they could know my friends weren’t trying to make me do “gay” things.

 When I had to be enrolled for university, I was supposed to go to Monterrey.  My parents didn’t let me go study there, instead they wanted me in (hidden to protect identity) so I got enrolled in the university there and through the whole semester I had to prove my father that I was “reformed”. To finally prove that to him, he got me a female prostitute at home when my mother and brother weren’t in the city. He locked me in my room with her and told her that I didn’t want to do it because I wasn’t even attracted to her. She made sounds and pretended to have sex with me like for 15 mins and then, when we came out of the room, she told my father that I was “OK to go”.

After 7 years, he finally accepted me. He doesn’t want to know if I’m seeing someone or anything about that part of my life, but things got better.

Thank you J for sharing your amazing story.  I have highlighted some areas that I found especially interesting from this story.  Also, I want you all to know that I have been in contact with J and he is doing quite well for himself.  He has his own business and is living in several cities in Mexico including Mexico City! Good for him!! The family situation is better now.  Mom and dad “realized they need to focus on different things”.

 Tim, NYC

Tim shared his story with me and asked that I write up his story since his English is not  the best.  Tm is from a small town (a village in American standards) about 90 minutes outside of Hong Kong.  Tim came to NYC in 2004 from China to get away from the anti-gay and oppressive culture that he grew up with.  Tim had a long-term boyfriend in China who he continued dating when he moved to the US.  The two had been together for about 8 years.  Not long after Tim moved to the US, his boyfriend got married (to a female) and started having kids.  The boyfriend who we will call Tom still wanted to date Tim…Tim wanted to part of that love triangle so decided to move on.  Tim told me just how hard it was for him to grow up in China.  He said that people are sent to the hospital to undergo “treatment” for being gay (similar to what the Mormon Church did with their “gay therapy”).  “I had no choice.  I had to come to America to escape the crazy of where I was from.  If I stayed, I would have had to get married and live a lie”.  

Sadly, this seems to be the norm in the town where Tim is from and many other small towns/cities in China.  The culture is very conservative and “will not tolerate openly gay men”.  According to Tim, coming out would bring great shame to the family and has even caused parents to commit suicide after a child comes out.  Tim is 35.  Openly gay in NYC but not out to his family in China.  He avoids the topic of dating at all costs when he is visiting his family and is truly living a double life.  I asked Tim if he would come out to his family some day and he said, “Never.  It would kill them and I would be shunned.   I would be dead to my family and be alone.”.   I asked Tim if he knew where this ant-gay culture came from and he said partially religion but mostly “that is just how it is in China.  You are very lucky to be an American.”.