Being your authentic self is so much more important than trying to fit in with the crowd. That said, I like to think I’m thankfully long past any conscious efforts to be ‘straight-acting’ and just want to simply be ‘David-acting’. For most of us, we’re still works in progress. If you never ever experience feelings of internalized homophobia, good for you. I’ve written about feeling internalized homophobia before, so won’t go on at length about it here. Well, what sort of pride is that? Certainly not gay pride, I’m ashamed to say. Hooray for me… still passing as straight. The second reaction, if I’m being totally honest, is a small flush of pride. Perhaps because being gay is so much a part of my own identity and life (I work for an LGBTI news website, after all), I think I must project gay-ness to the world. I’m not sure why but I tend to assume people can discern my sexuality just by looking at me or reading my body language. My initial reaction is, firstly, slight surprise. I have been told ‘you don’t look gay’ a handful of times over the years. It’s followed by a photo of a person dressed in a rainbow flag. There’s a funny meme doing the rounds of social media.
