Being gay – or certainly growing up gay – can involve trauma for many people. Trauma for the young gay person. Trauma for the young gay person’s family and friends who are cowered into a “don’t ask, don’t tell” mentality. Or worse still “ask but don’t tell”.
Coming out of the closet involves relief, liberation, freedom, new horizons and a whole new positively electrifying outlook on life.
Then, after the clubbing, the parties, the parades, the activism, the therapy re-visiting and re-mapping the past to understand the identity of being who you are in the here and now, comes a new phase: being post-gay.
Being post-gay means being gay without that being a central element in your life. It means going to any clubs, not just gay clubs. It means being a writer without only writing about gay topics or characters. It means being a comedian without telling gay jokes. It means being a politician without just campaigning on gay issues. It means travelling to New York City without making a pilgrimage to Stonewall. It means having a kaleidoscope of close friends, not just close gay friends.
I figure that if Barack Obama can run for the presidency by being post-racial, then I can run my little life by being post-gay.
If being gay is liberating, being post-gay is truly emancipating. Being post-gay means having progressed into an evolved soul, whereupon in life you can always be yourself, because everyone else is already taken.
Being gay is winning the battle. Being post-gay is winning the war. And finally being at peace.
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