A Quote by Masha Gessen

For years I was the only publicly out gay person who was not a full-time gay activist: my position as a quasi-foreigner gave me a privileged perch, and my ability to earn money by writing for western publications made me almost impervious to discrimination. Other Russians were not in a hurry to come out.
I came out as a gay as I have earned myself respect as an athlete. I have only lost 2 out of 22 professional fights. I knocked out some of my opponents in the first round. But I never really received respect as a person. That's something I had come to realize over the past few years. The end of my boxing career is no longer that far off, and it was time for me to make peace with myself. And there was a second reason for me to come out: I hoped it would make me a better boxer.
One time I was doing an interview for a gay magazine and halfway through the journalist found out I wasn't gay. He said, 'Sorry, I can't continue the interview.' Because they only had gay public figures in their magazine. I felt so crestfallen. I wanted to tell him: but I play fundraisers for gay marriage! I'd rather my kids were gay than straight!'
I noticed you right away." She gave me an approving look. "I like quiet, polite men. And men who wear Hugo Boss. I was hoping you weren't gay. Or that you were only half-gay. Like Paul." "Uh...sorry," I said. "It's pretty much full-time now. The pay's not great, but the perks...
I'm a straight guy and I date women, but I get on really well with gay guys. I'm very comfortable with my sexuality. The weirdest thing for me is when straight guys get really freaked out by gay guys. It's almost like they're insecure in their own sexuality. For me, I can be in a room full of gay men and have fun.
One of the things I had to really wrap my head around is I have no control over what people call me: advocate, activist, gay, Filipino, undocumented person, gay person with an Asian face and Latino name.
I would never come out and say I was gay, because I'm not gay. And there's part of me that kind of wishes I was gay, and I think that that comes from anybody who is constantly wishing they were in the minority, you know, and constantly wants to be kind of fighting everybody off, you know?
My dad was a homicide cop in the gay neighborhood in the city when gay neighborhoods were desperate, depressing, sad places run by the mob. The only gay people he'd met when I came out to him were corpses.
For a while I was a completely unknown artist with no fan base and no draw in the clubs. The only people that would give me a shot were the gay clubs. Gay clubs were so open to me coming in and trying things out.
I have straight married friends that other friends think are gay, and I have gay friends who don't throw that vibe at all. I know there's a full range out there, but I feel that gay men who aren't flamboyant are underrepresented on-screen.
I cannot prevent anyone from getting angry, or mad, or frustrated. I can only hope that they'll turn that anger and frustration and madness into something positive, so that two, three, four, five hundred will step forward, so the gay doctors will come out, the gay lawyers, the gay judges, gay bankers, gay architects I hope that every professional gay will say 'enough', come forward and tell everybody, wear a sign, let the world know. Maybe that will help.
There are tons of gay issues that are important, from gay marriage to adoption rights to work-place discrimination and more... but I think the biggest gay issue is the level of involvement of the gay community to demand change. So many gays think that other gays will take care of it. To fix this, people need to realize that they CAN make a change, but no one person can do it alone.
I would like to see every gay doctor come out, every gay lawyer, every gay architect come out, stand up and let that world know. That would do more to end prejudice overnight than anybody would imagine. I urge them to do that, urge them to come out. Only that way will we start to achieve our rights.
I'm certainly not going to tell other people what they should do with their own personal lives. I think it's certainly easier for a director to be out. The public is not going to see a movie because the director is gay or straight. It's maybe a little harder for an actor or actress because of, you know, the love roles and stuff. But gay people have been impersonating heteros in the movies for years. So, hopefully, that is becoming less of an issue. I think it would have been really great if a gay person had played a gay person. That's brave!
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.
People have to stop saying that just because someone is an anti-gay activist they might be gay. They're DEFINITELY GAY!!
They always try to make it like jocks discriminate against gay people. I've been a big proponent of gay marriage for a long time, because as a black person, I can't be in for any form of discrimination at all.
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