what advice do you usually give lil gaybys?
I think there’s a few things I’d say
Lil Gayby’s, there’s still so much of you to figure out and discover and understand. You absolutely will not be the same person you are now, and that’s okay! Don’t be scared of the wonderful, open, welcoming, and loving person you can be, especially since society keeps telling you that you can’t be that person. You determine who you are, nobody else can do that for you.
Don’t put people on pedestals. Anyone and everyone have the capacity to hurt you, and they just might - even if you think you’ve chosen correctly. But you will hurt people too, even unintentionally. There is a huge difference between learning how to forgive the forgivable versus accepting treatment you don’t deserve just because you want to keep someone around. Being human means making mistakes and learning from them, but if people don’t learn and don’t do better, then that’s where you need to draw the line.
Listen to others and learn your history. All of our journeys are valid, but they don’t excuse us from sympathizing and understanding somebody else’s experience. Our community is the strongest when we work together and lift each other up. We’re gifted with queerness - which lets us explore the diversity and bounds of the human experience. When we let others divide us, we become smaller chunks for others to eat up. There’s so many lessons learned from others, and it is important to understand so that we don’t repeat past mistakes and do better every time. This means understanding intersectionality and how to fight for equity as well as embracing ALL members of our community of all colours, origins, ethnicities, bodies, genders, etc.
Get tested for STI’s often and know your HIV status. This goes for ANY community, not just gays. Having sex and liking sex is not shameful. Not having sex and not liking sex - also not shameful. But what ISN’T good is having a callous disregard for your own and others’ safety. Sex needs to always be consensual and that includes being informed about health, decisions about the use or not of protection, PrEP, and other details. Stigmatizing sex and sexuality divides us, and as long as it’s consensual, comfortable, and not endangering people - that’s the foundation for a good time.
Trust your gut. If someone is giving you a strange vibe or feeling, it’s often because your subconscious mind is recognizing something that may be wrong. Yes, getting out of your comfort zone is important, but trusting your gut is a different thing. Hindsight is 20/20, but you’re an important factor in determining your own safety.
You always were, always are, and always will be worthy of love. It’s a fact and a certainty. Although you may not love yourself or feel good or deserving, you are worthy. Give love out to the world, and it will return to you. You have so much to share, so much value to bring, and so much to offer that you don’t even know. But even if you can bring a smile to one being, in that moment you are the most important person in the world to them. We’ve been taught to hate ourselves and hate each other by people who don’t know any better and who are propagating the hate they learned. Don’t feed into that. You matter.
