A Quote by Laxmi Narayan Tripathi
Being called gay is worse than transgender. I remember when I started fighting way back in 1999 for hijas' rights, and I said the state doesn't have the right to use my gender to club me into "gay." If I say I am not a man then who are you to question it? Being called gay or a man really upsets me.
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I've once gotten in trouble with certain gay activists because I'm not gay enough! I am a morose homosexual. I'm melancholy. Gay is the last adjective I would use to describe myself. The idea of being gay, like a little sparkler, never occurs to me. So if you ask me if I'm gay, I say no.
I hate being called a homosexual because I don't feel that way. It really upsets me ... Being gay can happen in any walk of life, in any world. If you have one gay experience, does that mean you're gay? If you have one heterosexual experience, does that mean you're straight? Life doesn't work quite so cut and dried.
The ball scene was never really only gay people. I think people have this notion that if there's a man hanging around a gay man, he must be gay, but that's just stigma. Back in the day, it was the same; there were lots of different people there: gay, straight, whatever. They did not care what they were called because they knew who they were.
I would train with a gay man. As long as he respected me, it's all right. I don't think much of it. The fact that a guy is gay doesn't mean he's going to accost you. He can be gay, have a relationship, live among guys who aren't gay. He can do whatever he wants with his private life.
I say, 'I'm bi, my love knows no gender,' and the straight community says, 'Oh right, that's just a cover-up - you're gay!' And the gay community says, 'Yeah right, that's just a cover-up - you're gay.' They both want to push me gay.
Loads of my friends are gay, I don't see myself in any sense as being opposed to gay rights, but I did express a view before the election - which by the way was also expressed by the party but then they changed their mind - that we didn't support gay marriage which is, I suppose for some, the ultimate destination, but not for everybody.
I don't buy into the idea that an Irish writer should write about Ireland, or a gay writer should write about being gay. But when I found the right story, I saw it as an opportunity to write about being a teenager and being gay. Most people, whether you're gay or straight or whatever, have experienced that relationship where one person is much more interested than the other.
I remember just calling myself gay was a big step for me, and I remember being in the bathroom brushing my teeth, testing out to myself in the mirror, saying, 'I am gay,' and seeing if the world was going to stop or if the ceiling would fall in on me.
I think being gay and gay people are the most wonderful things in the world. I wish all of us could have the power and pride to benefit from what is rightfully ours. Why isn't there an enormous building in Washington called the 'National Association of Lesbian and Gay Concerns' to lobby for us?
I was part of a show called 'Manifest Equality' in Los Angeles in 2010, and I realized there was a disconnect between people who are gay or have gay friends and are gay-friendly, and people who think they don't know any gay people.
Man, if you're gay we can be friends. If you're straight, we can be friends. I'm not gay, I don't plan on being gay, I don't condone it and I'm not sayin' I'm against it.
Being from New York, if you're gay, you're gay. I think it's important that if you are gay, you not be afraid to say who you are.
First and foremost, I'm an athlete. And I'm an Olympian. I'm not a gay Olympian. I'm just an Olympian that's also gay. I don't mind reading that - like, 'gay Olympian Adam Rippon.' It's fine. I hope that, in a way, it makes it easier for other young kids who are gay. If they go to the Olympics, they can just be called Olympians.
What has become clear to me is that it is not the inherent nature of being gay that causes such a reduced life; it is, rather, the social circumstances around being gay: the perceptions of it and the cultural norms that it is said to violate. As some of those norms have changed, I have been able to be gay, to have a marriage, to have a family, and to have - if there is wood to knock on - a fortunate and happy life.
My life's not about being gay - although one could argue I'm pretty professionally gay - but that's not how I experience life. Being gay is a profound part of who I am, but it isn't all of who I am.
What is fabulous about gay marriage is that it redefines the gender designated jobs, then you throw in transgender and you don't just have the five primary colors of the crayons. We have to really look at what it means to be a man or a woman in a much more generous and creative way.
