For LGBTQ+ folks who want to blend in, what tips or advice can you give?

  • NABDad@lemmy.world
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    4 days ago

    Less is more.

    I knew a guy who was gay, but closeted at work, or at least, he thought he was closeted at work.

    He came out to a friend of mine at work, and she took me into confidence, nervous about revealing his secret. I had to tell her everybody knew. I suggested that she let him know that he could be out to the rest of us and it wouldn’t make a difference (partly because no one cared and partly because everyone knew).

    When one of the guys was getting married, the gay guy was the one that insisted we had to have a bachelor’s party at a strip club for him. We all went to a strip club because we weren’t supposed to know he was gay and we couldn’t just say, “Dude, you’re gay. Straight, adult guys don’t really do this. Can we just go to a restaurant and get dinner or something?”

    Straight =/= misogynistic. In fact, I would argue misogynistic would usually mean some kind of confusion or anxiety about sexual identity anyway.

    Straight people aren’t all the same any more than LGBTQ+ people are the same. I’m a straight, CIS male. I don’t like sports at all. I don’t drink beer. I like deep, emotional movies. I like show tunes and musicals. I sew. I also like trucks. I like the outdoors, but I would never want to go hunting because I don’t want to kill anything.

    There’s a guy from my high school who everyone thought was gay. He’s not gay, but there’s have probably always been people who thought he is. He has a kind of flamboyant persona. He’s married to my wife’s best friend from high school and they have two grown kids.

    My advice, just be who you are. If you can’t be out, don’t be out, but you don’t have to put on an act. The closer you stay to the truth the easier it is.

    • heavydust@sh.itjust.works
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      3 days ago

      To give another example from a not-gay guy: I drink beer, I enjoy stupid movies like Gladiator where almost naked guys bash each other’s heads (but not because they are naked, because the movie is funny), I don’t like musicals, I sew too, but I don’t care about trucks.

      Why all this? Don’t know, don’t care, being myself is hard enough, I don’t have time to think about it or give excuses.

    • heavydust@sh.itjust.works
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      3 days ago

      Being gay is weird for a lot of reasons I can’t understand. I have a friend who is “almost closeted” but too old to hide it fully. We respect his decision not to talk about it, but we always laugh when he makes jokes about blowjobs or crude stuff that only gay bros can do. He’s a great friend and doesn’t look repressed or depressed, but I always hope that he’s not unhappy inside.

      Edit: shit, I made 2 answers on the same comment, well, fuck it.