"The Truth About Who We Are..."

Alexander, Prague, Czech Republic by thegaymenproject

photos by Kevin Truong

photo by Kevin Truong

Alexander, in his own words: "Being gay is a part of my identity. I did not choose to be gay as well as I did not choose my skin colour, body shape or mother tongue. I would love to say that it as simple as having blue eyes for example, but things are more complicated when it comes to your sexual orientation, of course. I understand it as an integral part of me nowadays. I am not ashamed of being gay nor do I take pride in it, because it does not make me any special, better or worse than others.

It has not, however, always been like this. It took me a lot of time to come to terms with my own sexuality. Most of the challenges of being gay I have faced in my life were only in my head. I spend my growing up years living in self-denial as I unconsciously separated my fantasies and desires from the unreal picture I had of myself. It was a foolish mistake. What you long for will always eventually find you, so I gradually learned to embrace who I am. Even though I did not come out to my parents until last year, my hardest coming out was coming out to myself.

The society has not helped me much with my feelings of insecurity. Although it is true that the Czechs are tolerant and Prague is a gay paradise compared to the most parts of the world, this tolerance comes with a price. It is rather ignorance than acceptance. I feel that this is a deeper issue connected to disappearance of ideas and values from our modern democracy. It is easy to tolerate something unusual by overlooking it, but to genuinely embrace something strange is another story. It involves leaving your prejudices, which, I am afraid, cannot be enforced by any law.

Gay marriage or adoption is not on the table here right now and the limited public discussion which we have is carried out quite poorly. LGBT rights do not establish any special privileges for a small group of people as some media or even activists claim. On the contrary, their purpose is to eliminate a shameful discrimination against minority which is legally in force now. LGBT rights are universal human rights and therefore we must fight for them at any cost, because we are human, after all. Some of us just happen to be queer."

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"Fear Eats the Soul"