Do You Change When You Are Gay?

“When you’re gay, nothing changes. You stay the same. Your personality doesn’t change; the people in your life don’t change; who you are doesn’t change; nothing changes.” 

This is a real quote made by a drastically unqualified heterosexual man with good intentions. He shared this during a mandatory diversity training session. The company's HR representative had asked, “Do you think people change after coming out as gay?” This was back in 2001, and despite being open about my sexual identity for only five years, I had a lot to say on the matter. Why? Because after this vanilla, Southern boy (i.e. me) came out as gay, a lot did in fact change. 

Growing up, I always presented signs of being gay. I toted a purse in which I carried my hot wheels cars and a turtle I once found on the side of the road. I made my male Star Wars action figures make out with each other. But I never told anyone I was gay until I woke my wife a little after 2 am on a weeknight back in 1999. And despite have displayed “gay tendencies” my entire life, it wasn’t until I began sharing those two words with others (“I’m gay.”) that life changed.

To adapt and become accepted in my new cultural identity, I listened to Brittany Spears without complaint despite her inability to sing well, I wore skimpier Halloween costumes (pictured), I never bought underwear in a multipack again, and I added "girl" and "bitch, please" to my vernacular more often than I care to admit. Like most people who identity with a culture, we do this to adapt and fit in, for survival. 

Does this apply to all gays? Of course not. I only speak for myself, but let me give you an example.

Catch Phrase is a game where one player has to have their team guess a word or phrase. The one player gives clues to their team without using the word, words that rhyme with the word, or part of the phrase.  If you were to have two teams (one of them heterosexual men; one of them homosexual men), I promise that you would give drastically different clues depending on what team you are playing for.

For example, below is a list of bolded words and phrases. Below that, potential clues given by heterosexual men are on the top, and potential clues given by the homosexual men are on the bottom. 

And yes, as a gay man, I am fully aware of my usage of "top" and "bottom" in the previous paragraph.

Chicago

• Team Hetero: Home of the Bears.
• Team Homo: (singing) And all that jazz!

George Straight

• Team Hetero: Sang ‘All My Ex’s Live in Texas’.
• Team Homo: Uhhh…Heterosexual of the Jungle?  I don’t know.  Who the fuck is this?

Linoleum

• Team Hetero: I just installed this in our bathroom.
• Team Homo: Poor people use this for their kitchen floor.

Beaches

• Team Hetero: Gulf Shores, Gulf Port, Biloxi, Ocean Springs, Pascagoula
• Team Homo: Bette Midler and Barbara Hershey movie.

Hammer

• Team Hetero: Tool used to pound in nails.
• Team Homo: Alex used this last week to kill a spider.

Internet

• Team Hetero: Used to watch porn.
• Team Homo: Used to watch porn.

So whenever someone tells me that nothing changes when you begin identifying as gay, I like to provide this example. Once upon a time, I would have provided the clues on the top.  However, the deeper I found myself in my gay world, surrounded by gay people with "gay" interests, the more I found myself answering “Beaches” when asked to provide the 1988 movie starring Bette Midler and Barbara Hershey and directed by Garry Marshall that included the hit song Wind Beneath My Wings which won Bette Grammies for record of the year and song of the year in 1990 (all of which I could not have cared to learn if I didn't identify as gay).