lgbtq

Me? I had no dreams. No longings. Dreams only set you up for disappointment. Plus, you had to have a life to have dreams of a better life.

When are you going to get a fella?" Lily asks Rose after a year or two of dancing. "I have one who wants to take me kissing, but I think I should wait for you to have one."Rose flushes. "I don't think I'll ever have a fella.""Why not?" Lily bristles. "We're plenty pretty.""I don't like the look of them," Rose says.Lily purses her lips at the dance floor, appraising.After a moment long, Rose says, "Any of them."Lily looks at her a long time, as Rose tries not to hyperventilate.Then Lily shrugs and says, "Well, then it's you who should have learned to lead, isn't it?" and when Rose clasps Lily's hand, she clasps it back.It's the closest they've ever been.

Any story dealing, however seriously, with homosexual love is taken to be a story about homosexuality while stories dealing with heterosexual love are seen as stories about the individual people they portray. This is as much a problem today for American filmmakers who cannot conceive of the presence of gay characters in a film unless the specific subject of the film is homosexuality. Lesbians and gay men are thereby classified as purely sexual creatures, people defined solely by their sexual urges.

The Santa Ana Windgusts downdesert canyons.Hot. Dry. Electric.Some say it ignites tempers.I say it ignited us.

I didn't set out to do a gay comic, but given the current political and religious climate in this country, I feel it is important as a gay person, and a Christian, to create stories with humor and honesty.

Every single courageous act of coming out chips away at the curse of homophobia. Most importantly it's destroyed within yourself, and that act creates the potential for its destruction where it exists in friends, family and society.

To all my friends who constantly talk disparagingly about the supposed 'homosexual lifestyle' and stereotype gay people and the community, I'd like to get this straight. There are essentially two worlds _ the 'gay scene' and the gay (or LGBTIQ) community. The 'scene' is like the tip of the iceberg; what is seen by others because it is visible on a street, suburb or pride parade. Like the ninety percent of the submerged iceberg, the community is larger and less visible. It consists of organisations, groups, support networks and also gay and lesbian singles and couples living 'normal' lives in the suburbs. Occasionally there is an overlap but not often. Some live, socialise and work in both. Many never enter each others worlds. The values, lifestyles and culture of these two worlds are as different as Asian culture is to western is to African is to Middle Eastern. Dig down even deeper below the surface and you find it is not a single community but diverse communities and subcultures that are separate but not necessarily divided. The common thing that binds them together is their experience of inequality, discrimination and their desire to make a better world for themselves, others and future generations. If you believe that all gays and lesbians are shallow and obsessed with sex, body image, partying, nightclubs and bars then you are obviously an observer from the outside or mixing in the wrong circles.

If you don't know for sure, then what's the big thing about trying stuff out?" Jamie said, looking not at me but looking out at that statue, just like Hennitz.I still didn't have any of the right words. "It's more like maybe I do know and I'm still confused too, at the same time. Does that make sense? I mean, it's like how you noticed this thing about me tonight, you saw it, or you already knew it - it's there. But that doesn't mean it's not confusing or whatever.

With those shared personal stories and our own valued experiences we all, sometimes unknowingly, have a unique quality to impress vast and contrasting individual footprints onto this world. You may not relate to me as a drag queen, or even a gay man for that matter. However if you take away that small portion of my life, you__l soon discover that I__ just like someone who__ already a part of your life, that you__e close to. First and foremost, I am someone__ son, someone__ best friend, someone__ partner or someone who you may perhaps meet on the street one day, extending his hand to you when you need it the most, without judgment or hatred.

Without people coming in to our lives we never evolve, we just remain stagnant. Surely there is more to life than standing still whilst letting it pass you by. What__ even worse, is living a life pretending to be someone, or something that you believe others want you to be.

Juvenalius has problems... though like most kids on the threshold of sexual awareness he only knows life sucks... he isn't clear about why. His mother rants on and on about the iniquity of his school having a gay straight alliance. She's quite safe about that, as Ryan is too shy to join, or is that scared? His only friend is a dog so the question of boy or girl-friend hardly arises... until he gets a valentine... from the least likely boy in the school.

Everyone's life matters and everyone deserves to be happy but not everyone is in a place where they think, or even believe, happiness is possible.

It__ much, much tougher when you__e a 17 year-old gay boy, part of only 10% or less of the school population and your possible loves are all in hiding, just as you are, due to the fear of being socially ostracized, laughed at, condemned and physically harassed by your peers.

It__ never too late to find that one person who can change you, for a reason, a season or a lifetime.

It wasn't the first time I'd been with someone, but it was different this time. Maybe it was because when I told them I was bisexual they weren't like the girls who thought I was *really* a lesbian; they weren't like the boys who thought it was hot. Maybe it was because when they told me they were genderqueer I just said that I knew and they cried as they smiled at me. Or maybe it was just because our limbs fit together, maybe because it tasted like salt water and was the colour of sunlight through grass. Or maybe it was just all these things.

Gay rights aren't predicated on being born gay or having the right gene. Gay rights are predicated on having choice and consent. If you're a man and you can find another man that consents to have sex with you, it's the consent that gives you the right to have sex with him. Genetics are irrelevant when it comes to sexual rights. Just as gay rights are based on choice and consent, so are prostitution rights. All sexual rights are based on choice and consent.

Maybe some people enter in your life to create wonderful memories before they leave. Its hard to come to terms with that whether they walk away alive or dead.The only thing we can do is keeping that person in your memory as long as you can. That person does not need to please you like a girlfriend or a boy-friend but they can make you happy.That person does not need to cherish you like parents, but they can give you warmth & they are always ready to protect you.That person does not need to make us laugh at all times like friends, but they can make you smile.That some one who you won't go into hysterics when they leave, but they will always be in your memory forever. JUVENALIUS

Juvenalius, 15 and gay, has been raised in a difficult family and has been held in his aunt's Diana suffocating iron grip for all of his life. He has been made to feel worthless and ashamed; with no freedom, only obedience. Yet this begins to change one day when he meets a boy named Davis at his high school who has drawn the meaningful letter 'C' on his right hand. Now Juvenalius has hope but his behavioral changes are seen as an act of defiance in his aunt's eyes until she catches Juvenalius and Davis kissing out back under the school's library windows. Then Juve's life is unexpectedly transformed.