I grew up in Orlando, Fl. I was raised in a very strict Catholic home by my grandparents. My dad sent me to Catholic School, and I never knew why the other boys were mean to me. One time I talked to a guidance counselor but I just didn't know. Now I do of course. It wasn't all awful - I had my little group of friends, half in which have now come out.
Middle School, of course, everyone is just in such an awkward stage. I wasn't out, but people knew. I didn't have much confidence at all back then and I was a total introvert. When I went into High School, though, the most popular people in school were gay.
I was out by tenth grade along with others in my class. I had changed into a vibrant extrovert by this time, homophobia was lame to me, and I was true to myself. But that school has its own personal issues and I hated it. People used my sexuality against me but that's just because of tension and issues there - Oscar was and has been our class president and was homecoming king and so was Joel, his boyfriend, at one time.
I switched to a school for "drop outs" where quarters were semesters and recently graduated early. Anyone sixteen or over could go there. I met such a diversity of people and I realized that the world really is a lot better these days. Almost no straight guy there even ASKED me about my sexuality - I guess part of that is my laid back personality. They knew I was, but they also knew I wasn't going to make moves on them or whatever.
Of course you have to expect haters here and there, though, which I do get. I have a pride bracelet and my grandparents made a ruckus. Recently at work, a kid who is a bit slow (But slow at the point where he has a job and goes to school, and probably just in in SLD classes, def. not stupid) called me a faggot because I wore my Santa hot forward instead of backwards. I reported him and his mother begged me for an apology, insisting she raised him better, was ashamed, and has a gay niece herself.
But then less tha a week later, this guy I thought was gay, eighteen years old, sees a hot girl and goes she's so hot at my job (I work at a grocery store). As she leaves, he's like "You should be ashamed of yourself. Why are you gay? You can fuck a girl in the ass, too, you know." I let it slide. I go outside to collect carts and when I come back in I politely say, "You know, there is sufficient scientic proof gay men's brains are different than straight men's, and gay people have several, specific physiological differences like being very likely to be left handed." Then he accuses me of saying gay people are better than everyone else, and he says gays have a mentality we're better than everyone else, and patronizes me completely to where I end up saying he's a prejudice son of a bitch - So now I def. cant report him. But I was so shocked - We have a few assistant managers in the front end, but our main boss is gay. Everyone likes him - And plenty of the employees are too gay, and open. I would have NEVER expected this from him.
And now I'm reading Rainbow Boys and the homophobia is incredible though I'm definitely inferring they live in some small hick town. But yeah, luckily, I've noticed at least in my generation most straight guys just don't care, I guess they see reality, and girls probably have a lot to do with it, since it's like, I dunno, illegal for a chick to be a homophobic, plus there being less and less people caring about religion helps ....
You know, I wonder how many people actually are gay. It's funny because in most surveys, at least forty percent of men admit to having had some sort of sexual relations with men (Credible surveys, you can look this up yourself) yet a MUCH smaller percentage say they're gay, and remember, those are just the ones who are willing to admit it. Because I remember in ninth grade, before I was out, I lied and said I was straight on the Garbage forum just because I didn't want to be a "typical fan" (though Garbage has a pretty even amount of gay and straight male fans, oddly) and even lied in a survey for an article going to be used in a fanzine! It never did get used, but still, if I lied, a shit load of others will, too. It's funny, because the difference between a "straight" and a "bi" guy is three drinks.

But yeah, guys and girls. Share stories. I want to know.

Alot. My best friend is bi-sexual but predominatly gay and people throw things at her shout abuse all at our college.
its fucking ridiculous
theres these two dumb ass cunts who call her big fat lesbian everyday
it really hurts her
i punched one of them
it helps sometimes to be tall :P

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Karmi .....

Where the hell do you live? That's awful. You should report her ... I was scared to report the first guy, but when I did, I knew it was right. If you let someone get away it, they'll do it again to you, and to others. Report them, let the wheels of karma move, let justice be served - No joke.
But most people are fine with it right?

well not all... there are still alot of homphobes out there
we live in Western Australia

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Karmi .....

How liberal is Australia on homosexuality? I thought they were very tolerant ....

we are it's just the guys really especially young guys alot of prissy girls are quite homophobic of lesbians aswell.

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Karmi .....

Not a lot nowadays. When I was in high school (all-girls) it was quite bad. I was the "new girl" and one girl decided it would be a GREAT idea to spread the rumour that I was gay.

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constantly. i just try not to bring anything sex/gender related.

My boyfriend calls me a big dyke every day.

Everyone calls everyone a "lesbo" in school! The dumbest part about that is I'm sure at least 75% of those girls will, later in life, pretend to be bisexual to impress a guy.

And even dumber than that is the fact that it will probably work.

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I dunno, I know a fair few guys who did just try it to see what it'd be like. I guess they'd fall into the "everyone's a little bit gay" category, but to all intents and purposes (as in, whether I can expect a shag out of them or not) they're straight.

I haven't really had much homophobia. People are jerks, but people are always jerks. I don't know, they probably are homophobic, but as far as I can tell, they have just as much of a problem with everyone else.

Very rarely but I live in this city's gay neighborhood so that's likely why. I know people that use the word "fag" or "gay" in non sexual terms or as insults to friends they know aren't gay. But I don't think any of them would actually have a problem with gay people. And I swear some of them may have tendencies but that's another story. We are right near "tranny lane" or what use to be, they moved a few blocks up..but yeah, constant trannys around selling their ass and some of these same boys would point out how hot they were....and yes, they knew they were men.

At work we are all about "diversity" and we had our first GLBT get together and I sent out a mass email to let people know, I got some interesting replies. I had to scold two people but they apologized with the expected reply of "i have family/friends that are gay" blah blah whatever. I was a bit disturbed because its the work environment where this kind of shit should never be allowed to be discussed (as in any problem with religion, sexuality, race, gender or whatever), and they even ask during your hire paper work if you are gay just to beef up their diversity numbers so you would think people would be better at keeping their lame fucking opinions to themselves.

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"How wrong it is for a woman to expect the man to build the world she wants, rather than to create it herself."

"I postpone death by living, by suffering, by error, by risking, by giving, by losing."

"I will not be just a tourist in the world of images, just watching images passing by which I cannot live in, make love to, possess as permanent sources of joy and ecstasy. "

-from the goddess that is Anaïs Nin

"Some of my best friends are gay"... ugh. I always say "Oh, very few of my best friends are gay. I still wish AIDS on them though." Same as I don't have any black friends, but I'm still a fuckload less racist than most people.

Over the diversity at work thing, I've always wondered: you know those HR questionnaire things are supposed to be anonymous? Does this mean I can totally lie about everything on them and no-one would be allowed to say anything about me being a 50 year old blind Caribbean fat chick?

Hahaha. I don't know. I'm not sure how anonymous they are and honestly I don't even like that the question is there. It's so fucking irrelevant and you know it's only so the place can go on and on about how diverse they are. What a crock of shit. We have an office administrator and everyone has this sneaky suspicion that he has race issues. Incidentally he has hired nothing but white folks since he got there, and incidentally none of them have the skills to do the job (he flew his buddy in from a fucking Seattle Home Depot to do this job he is obviously not qualified for), yet they all have back up BLACK people with the skills to essentially cover for them. It is so unbelievably disturbing that I want to puke. I'm really hoping he slips up and gets his fucking ass fired.

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"How wrong it is for a woman to expect the man to build the world she wants, rather than to create it herself."

"I postpone death by living, by suffering, by error, by risking, by giving, by losing."

"I will not be just a tourist in the world of images, just watching images passing by which I cannot live in, make love to, possess as permanent sources of joy and ecstasy. "

-from the goddess that is Anaïs Nin

The County Council has a little round robin e-mail now and then that's like "Is anyone disabled? Like, even slightly? Even tinnitus or a bad back now and then? Cmon, you must have something wrong with you!"

I don't see any harm in saying. I don't know that anyone does read them, and I'm sure anyone who has a problem with your sexuality is going to have it anyway.

Well knowing a disability is necessary for emergencies....depending on the disability. Sexual orientation er...not so much.

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"How wrong it is for a woman to expect the man to build the world she wants, rather than to create it herself."

"I postpone death by living, by suffering, by error, by risking, by giving, by losing."

"I will not be just a tourist in the world of images, just watching images passing by which I cannot live in, make love to, possess as permanent sources of joy and ecstasy. "

-from the goddess that is Anaïs Nin

Yeah, this isn't for emergency stuff though (because they say it's anonymous, even though everyone's e-mail address has their name in it), the only logical reason I can think of for it is that it's just HR making up numbers. Basically, they wanted people to make a big deal out of really minor disabilities that no-one bothers to mention because, frankly, they're not obvious and they don't particularly want to think about them. My mum's going deaf in one ear, but I doubt very strongly she'll ever regard it as a disability.

I think that's why it bothered me. It's fine to ask, but every time you ask after that is just going to make it seem more like a witch hunt. I doubt anyone who didn't "declare" the first time around would do so the second.

I got called a lesbian at school all the time for some reason. Is it homophobia if you aren't actually gay?

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