If We Are Together, 사막도 바다가 될 수

I don’t know how many of you will be able to relate to this, but I’ve personally always lived in what I call “the middle”, and not in a bad way if I think about it. Not too smart, not too stupid. Not too beautiful, not too ugly - mainly according to social standards we all get kinda influenced by -, not too tall not too short, not the best at something but not the worst either and so on.

The same goes for the environment I grew up in and what I’ve been taught in it: there wasn’t too much hatred, but not too much support and activism either. None of the people who were responsible for my education and upbringing ever sat me down and told me to respect and tolerate what’s different in the world, nor explained to me what racism, homophobia, xenophobia, sexism and the patriarchy were, at some point.

Still, living in the middle means that these topics are still accessible, because none is extremist enough to keep you away from them and discover more about them, but it’s kinda up to you how you get access to it all. You’re pretty much on your own.

With this background though, and through other circumstances, I was taught empathy. Which I think needs to be practiced, learned through experience and examples, specifically when you’re a kid and you absorb what others show you. None in my family (I’m mostly talking about the elders) ever educated me on feminism’s roots or who Marsha P. Johnson was, but they always showed me a deeply seeded and intrinsic form of respect and humanity towards everyone around that stood out to me. The women in my family did, for the most part. My mom did, for the most part.

The middle means I haven’t been specifically taught that gay, trans, black people, women, minorities or discriminated groups of individuals deserve respect and love, but I haven’t been taught that they don’t deserve it either. My sister herself used to correct me even when I defined something as weird, telling me “that’s called different, not weird”.

All of this helped me not building any toxic structures in my head that would’ve made me an evil or conservative person, leaving room for learning and compassion instead. So that one day, when I was gonna discover the world and its colors, what it is made of, the different kinds of people that enrich it, I was gonna be ready to embrace and support it. Or even discover that I was part of that, one of those “different weirdos" I used to define as such.

Silly me, I'd say at this point. It's always easier to accept others in the name of humanity and leave room for compassion towards them, but when it comes to yourself, your own self acceptance... well, that's a whole different journey.

When questions started to arise one of the main tools available for me was the internet, social medias, virtual platforms - all of that told me which books to buy, which people to listen to, which movies to watch and how to give myself those answers my curious brain was looking for. Btw, just luck about that. Could’ve landed somewhere else, been badly influenced and have completely different beliefs today.

The peers I discuss this with all agree about this: there’s a lot of superficial factual knowledge required in schools, at least around here, and some important topics that would need to be discussed are ignored. From prevention to information.

When something happened locally, whether it was an isolated case or part of a larger phenomenon -homophobic aggressions, women hurt or killed, racist actions- it all used to lose its importance compared to what had to be done. Tests, marks, marks, tests, notions notions notions. A few, just two of my teachers that I have a splendid memory of, felt the educational responsability to address those topics here and there, and that rareness didn't feel so right back then.

I was the type of person writing notes about math’s formulas in class, while feeling madly outraged inside and thinking; “our attention should be somewhere else now”. I couldn’t focus and would constantly think of the bullies walking around the school that teachers pretended to don’t know, boys’ way of speaking upon girls got stuck in my head. I wanted sex education, affective education, I wanted someone to put on that damn board the last horrendous news about two gay guys killing themselves. I wanted them to put that in our faces and ask us "why do you think it's happening?".

With time you realize that’s just not how things work, and that schools can not do everything, not in the current real world. That there would just be so much to do, starting from families. That teachers are different, they’re not like us, their lives aren’t either, and most of them just do what they gotta do. I wanted change, to force my idea of education on the entire system even though smarter minds than me have tried before and failed.

Still my real worry was the idea of a student in that school whose life could’ve taken a completely different direction, someone who could’ve been a completely different person, if only that lesson happened. If only that random teacher told them, on a random day, that those two random guys died and it was not fair, instead of contributing to society’s will to let them and their names just disappear in silence. Maybe that student would’ve ignored it, or maybe he would’ve developed a sense of justice and indignation, nurturing his own empathy through a simple, small stimulus.

From those days on, I told myself I appreciate people who speak up. I like them and they’re needed. I’m just like those teachers, someone who does what they gotta do, I’m no activist, no special writer, no savior. I’m from that middle and everything that comes with it. But there’s one thing those teachers and I don’t share, based on my own experience, my own environment: and it’s that detatched look on their faces pretending nothing outside of their bubble concerns them. Oh man I did not like that.

I realized that judging them was not the right thing either, and that we all feel differently about the world and our role in it. And the urge to talk about queerness today is just the natural and impelling consequence for a space where we celebrate it constantly, where we discussed repeatedly over and over endless issues and conversations about same sex love and equality. The fear of misspeaking or being offensive’s high but I’m hoping that the great internet web makes it make some sense for someone.

“There’s no one else like me in the world”

As I said, a big, enormous contribution to my education on activism, rights and social matters came from online platforms, which led me to every other tool (books, movies, meetings, stories, protests) I needed to know in order to discover more. It’s the stories, specifically, that I wanna focus on now. Because some of them are out there, they exist, they’ve been shared for decades by brave and solid people who have made the decision to open up and they have touched me deeply.

One of those people is Ian McKellen. I think everyone here knows him, has at least heard his name. We’re talking about one of the most talented and charismatic, sensational and intelligent actors and humans ever known. One of the reasons why he’s so popular, aside from multiple Shakespearean dramas he took part in or the fact he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II herself in 1991, is his role in the Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit as Gandalf. You must know who I’m talking about by now…

I think his story deserves to be told and I’m gonna put in this post multiple interviews and speeches he gave out during his life and career that I think matter. I would really love if you watched them all, if you think your time is worth it and when you got some. They were worth mine out of these busy and stressing days for sure, and listening to an actor and theatre man speaking is just so special.

In this “It Got Better” shooting I put above, I think you can already sense how inspiring and powerful Ian is. He starts off by saying he was born two months before the WWII started, his father was a civil engineer and his mother a secretary up to his sister’s birth. Just a regular family.

Something he immediately talks about - and that, we’ll see, is blatantly repeated throughout his entire career, almost in every discourse - is the insisting question he receives often: “when did you realize you were gay?”. His answer always goes like: “by the time other people realize they’re not gay, when the hormones start surging”.

His first love affair was with a girl, he was about 11. It was right after that “break up” that he realized he was attracted to the same sex. By that time he was in Bolton, in a very good local school, where he was bullied. He recalls laying on the ground on the flagstones, with boys laughing on top of him, wondering whether they detected in him a “different switch” they found unnerving. You know, feeling like people can see through when you're the one who does.

He had a best friend there, David, who he’ll find out, 25 years later, was gay as well the entire time. Ian is so conscious and aware of the hardships he has been through as a gay person, and the look in his eyes stays proudly profound and still. I remember him talking somewhere about the bishop of Glasgow accusing him of being the son of the devil, after he teared out bits of the bible he didn’t approve of; the interviewer back then asked him if that made him upset, and Ian replied: “no, because I knew I was right and he was wrong”.

He has that same look in his eyes now too. He knows he’s right, his best friend was right, every gay person who suffered and was imprisoned or discriminated or abused was. He knows it.

“To accuse someone of being gay or even to ask that question, it was thought to be the most insulting thing you could say about somebody. And if you did talk about it, they could be put in prison. I knew people who were. […]That was a desert for a gay person”.

Going to college changed things for him, going to Cambridge from the North felt “romantic” and he says he immediately noticed how many beautiful men there were. Still, there was no way to know if someone else was gay or not because you could not risk asking. “How would you know?” - he says - “it was the prolonged handshake, the look in their eye. The language and attitude of today just didn’t exist”.

McKellen made clear very often that it was only when he got away from home and church that he discovered there were other boys like him. They called each other camp, not queer.

Being gay in the ‘60s meant there was no word for it. It was practically illegal when he came out. It was just “the law of the land” and people like Ian were queer. That was the nicest word used about them. By definition, they were peculiar, strange, different… queer. But that didn’t stop him from living love and falling in love which, as he says, happened for him in 1964.

Discreet or closeted gay people were not outed, ever. Ian himself could - and had - to keep it a secret for 49 years, just to keep his career safe, thinking “they wouldn’t want me to play Romeo”, otherwise.

Nobody talked about being gay at the time. Even people who were openly out - Simon Callow, for example, a friend of his - when they talked about it in interviews saw those pieces being cut out. Ian recalls a visible change only arriving with AIDS, because in order to discuss it you had to talk about people being intimate. The world educated itself by discussing that people have sex and what kind of sex it was, in order to save their lives: it was sex between men.

“Once you realize that gay people can get affectionate in private in all sorts of ways, it becomes less threatening and remarkable”.

What really stands out to me is the fact that he precises not living in a lie, but just avoiding talking about his sexuality in certain situations and showing it in public. He was out to his friends, he and his boyfriend were a happy couple, but they wouldn’t hold hands or put arms around each other, certainly they didn’t kiss or show any affection in public. That would’ve meant “asking for trouble”, he says.

And years after being out, McKellen keeps mentioning the word "honesty", saying that at the time he couldn’t see why he needed the media or anybody else to know, but still his entire life felt like acting. This makes me reflect on how you don’t necessarily need to lie in order to feel lonely and dishonest, when your conscience knows there’s a part of yourself you’re purposely not expressing.

And being honest about it, as for his personal experience, just made him able to win his relationships. He felt like not being ready to introduce himself to the world meant he was not ready to introduce his love either, which could’ve broke things down.

This was such a powerful message. Such a need of freedom and transparency about speaking out things that society makes you feel ashamed of, making you doubt your own identity and values when they’re not the problem.

Those same values and needs are actually your true self, the things you love and believe in define you; and when you’re asked to suppress them it all casues a deep sense of loss and detachment from yourself. Those same values collide with the world’s absurd standards and impositions and you’re left feeling guilty. Ashamed. Wrong. This can mess up your relationship with yourself, completely.

This topic was also mentioned in another important interview I wholeheartedly suggest you to watch:

It’s important to say that Ian McKellen came out on radio in 1988. He was 49. At that time, there was a law going through parliament called “Section 28” or “Clause 28”, banning the so-called promotion of homosexuality in schools. It was effectively introduced by Thatcher’s conservative government and was applied in England from 1988 to 2003. It was a loss, a limit, it was wrong. And the reasons why it was approved - the arguments, the principles it was founded on - were just disgustingly flawed. He says:

“It was insulting to young people to think they shouldn’t have minds of their own, and that if they were told about homosexuality then they would all be converted to it. As if you could promote it… you can’t recommend sexuality. I was recommended heterosexuality my whole life and I’m still gay. […] Society treated us unfairly, and without thought, compassion, they made the world a worse place”.

Mind you, by this time laws against gay people had been existing for years. Gay people were not allowed to dance together or gather together, it was illegal until 1967. And that just proved how love can not be stopped, or closed away, somewhere where people can pretend it’s not there. Love could never be denied or stopped even when the worse politicians and minds tried to.

“I was making love with my boyfriend until I was about 30, and we would break the law everytime we had sex. We had friends who were put in prison for that. You couldn’t serve in the military, you couldn’t teach, so the bad laws might be gone but there’s still a long way to go”

This was Ian McKellen in 1988, just for context. This is what he was talking about, this is how he presented himself on the BBC, the conversations he held and how he did it.

I mean, apart from his undeniable charm, composure, his attitude, his confidence…

I think we should all realize how big it was for someone in his position to address these topics. To openly talk about them and be so transparent and supportive. That’s what a lot of people at the time needed. That’s what lonely youngs, who feel like there’s no one else like themselves in the world, need in a time where being yourself can risk your life.

“People who are not gay just simply don’t know how it damages you to be lying about what you are and to be ashamed of yourself".

This is the radio interview where he comes out:

No big statement, no "let me hold your hands while I say this", no shame. Ian just threw it out there, in the middle of the sentence.

During this interview you can read Ian’s strong opposition towards the Clause I mentioned before, all while he was working on “Acting Shakespeare”, his theatrical USA tour “the proceeds of which were going to the London Lighthouse AIDS Hospice”.

He speaks up, he’s assertive, he’s arguing with Peregrine Worsthorne: a British journalist who believed that books could turn you gay, that local authorities should not promote queerness, and that giving gay people rights would’ve been just a “modern courtesy”. Oh, and he believed homosexuality to be a great misfortune. “The less frequent it is in any society, the better for that society”. He's remembered as a writer and journalist but I personally find it a bit offensive.

Going back to McKellen’s coming out, you can see how he held the debate in a smart, respectful, intelligent way. He casually mentions his own sexuality, his own queerness, in the middle of it, almost like he can not keep it in anymore, like his heart - I bet it was racing fast - chose and acted for him. And despite the absolutely relaxed and friendly attitude he does that with, it did was a revolutionary moment in his life. That changed everything.

The literal definition of turning your life upside down on a random Thursday.

That Peregrine dude that we’ll call PW is a pain in the ass for the whole interview. He keeps saying bullshit over and over and Ian’s such a great communicator in comparison. This part being the one that got me screaming *badass* over my screen:

Ian: “You think prople can be turned into homosexuals...”.

PW: “I do”.

Ian: “Well, you must give me an example before I begin to listen to you any more”.

PW: “I don’t wish to contravene the slander law…”

Ian: “[…] He is dodging the issue. Of course it is against the mores of time to promote your homosexuality in the sense of advertise it".

PW: “But you’ve just done it. Name me a single actor who claims they are heterosexual”

Ian: “Any actor who has his marriage photographed by the press has proclaimed his heterosexuality. […]There are no gay members of the House of Commons? Or the House of Lords? This is the times we’re living in. That homosexuality in an invisible minority”

PW: “Have you been to San Francisco lately? Before the AIDS epidemic, at any rate? There’s a whole quarter of San Francisco living opening. I’m not saying it’s a bad thing, but your picture of the world is one where homosexuality…”(gets interrupted)

Ian: “I’m talking about England. San Francisco is heaven for homosexuals like David Hockney who chose not to live in this country”.

PW: “I know a number of pubs in London too. I can give you their addresses”.

Ian: “You mean like the Garrick Club? You must accept that there are very few famous homosexuals in this country. There are no sportsmen who declare that they are gay because they don’t like to, because they are frightened of what will happen to them. And this is the area in which schoolchildren, who have no role models in society, discover fear and that they’re gay, they go to their parents where they get a dusty answer, and of course they go to the other adults in their lives, to their teachers. And their teachers need to be in a position where they can reassure them that it is not against the law, it is not wrong and they must feel at ease with it. This Clause 28 will restrict dangerously this proper activity of the schools”.

That day, such a small sentence, such a small statement, but everything changed. The support he had always been showing - as an ally before and as a declared member now - brought him to protest:

And to become some sort of poster boy for the emerging gay rights movement in the UK:

He was glowing, free, he wanted to make change happen with every single part of himself, completely dedicating his soul to his cause. A man with such a lively and driven spirit.

He talks about the importance of LGBTQ media surviving, and he says that any publication, whether it is for gardeners or old people, gay or even not gay people, can be very helpful, in particular for those in the early years, in confusion, when the worst thing is to think “there’s no one else like me in the world, I’m on my own”. He jokingly says “just get out and about, find a mate…you’re not alone”.

But what really matters to me is the way he says he felt after that: "Once you are honest about your sexuality, you will feel better about it".

It was not always and immediately a positive change: he received death threats, even from public figures, just for his sexuality. Which is something I’ll always feel like it’s not stressed, highlighted, talked about enough: wishing someone the worst, from pain to death, just because of who and what they naturally and uncontrollably love and are, is completely reckless and cruel, selfish. That has no logical explanation, and it’s the kind of misery that you don't easily get rid of once you notice it.

When Mckellen came out things were still complicated and he often said that looking at the situation of anti-gay laws in different countries made him think: “this must be what’s like to be part of a race that’s being persecuted”. Which is a strong word, a chosen one, a specific term: persecution is consistent.

And the more I think about it the more it hurts: how long has it been? How long have people been fighting and defending themselves for existing in their own, self essence? How many people before me and you have dealt with different Peregrine’s in disguise and, when they got tired of fighting back, chose to lower their head and give up? How many kids have tried to open up with the adults they trusted but saw that same trust ruined by judgement and fear? How many kids have never and will never open up about who they are and what they love?

Ian visited different schools throughout the second part of his life, and saw 12 or 13 years old kids coming out to their parents. He recalls being a teenager and deeply closeted, scared of opening up with his family, even though when he told them they all confessed… they already knew and had been waiting for that conversation.

I assume he felt incredibly proud of those brave and self aware kids who had their whole life waiting for them to live it fully and in their truth. But I also assume Ian could not relate to them completely, because at their same age his coming out and that feeling of relief, that freedom, were still far away in time.

McKellen has always underlined the fact that his coming out - despite the hard times, the historical context and everything that came with it - changed his life for the better, almost overnight. He found himself approaching others, even his own partner, with a different attitude, and he was more emotionally available for his characters than before. But still, he says:

“What’s brave about coming out at 49? I also got angry when I came out. I thought I was a coward before then: happily a coward”.

These are words that I think need to not be misunderstood, they have to be applied to his personal experience, his personality, the context of his entire coming out: he grew up in a quite different time.

The pression and repression gay people - not to talk about closeted gay people - had to face in the 60s and 70s and 80s was so intense and normalized (in every aspect, from laws to politics to social norms) that coming out and being consequently confident in your sexuality had to feel so damn good. In a different way, compared to our days. Not in a better one, not in a more romantic or special or remarkable way: just different.

In his experience, it seems like coming out resembled coming to life again and probably got him thinking: “why didn’t I do this before?”. That’s where that “rage” comes from. From all the things you could’ve lived differently- even just on an emotional level- if you were more “brave”, if you opened up sooner, if if if.

But the word brave is still incredibly personal and nuanced to me, and it does not apply to “just” accepting who you are or even to “just” being out of the closet: everyone has their brave reasons and their brave battles every day. Just silently facing them can be a sign of courage.

Coming out can be brave because the moment you do it, you’re choosing to open up with the world, regardless of what it says or could say about you. You feel a bit closer to your fully authentic self because -and the greatest minds of different times have said this before me- that humans are social creatures. And as such it’s comprehensible how we all need, soon or later, for the community we live in, the world, whether it is all of it or just our world, to see a part of who we really are.

Coming out can be brave because you may be like Ian, and so it could be followed by intense activism and social battles that will inevitably make your life also a political and social matter. Remarking it and speaking it out loud can help an entire society’s future and if you’re that kind of individual, you could change lives.

Because right now, it doesn’t matter what country you live in: there could be someone who will think you’re evil, or that your love is, and the chances that someone would purposely hurt you both physically and psychologically just for existing, or would not want you to get the right to get married, or would refuse to bake your wedding cake, are a bit higher. I think this is why coming out it's still needed: remarking it until it's heard, respected, and doesn't need remarks anymore.

Coming out puts an oppressed 'minority' on a pedestal, a beautiful one, it means “look at me, I’m not like you but we’re still the same”. I’m literally here today thanks to these shining people and their generosity.

And it has been so powerful to help people feel better with themselves, talk to their families, find stability and mental health and love and peace of mind. A lot of people have lost friends, jobs, careers, promises, but have gained what they call “authenticity”, have reinvented their lives and became happy. It helps educating and divulging but most of all is a choice. It's your choice.

Ian's coming out was a choice, the one that suited him, the one he thought could benefit more than hurt him. That's his story, his brave, helping, audacious and inspiring story. And whether you're queer or not, it's still beautiful to listen to someone sharing their life with you. Terence would say: "Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto", I'm human and nothing human's alien to me.

But choice means freedom and freedom means choosing. And that means you don't have to come out in order to feel authentic, better, free. You never owe anything to anyone unless your peace of mind to yourself. And I'll go there in a minute, just after this one last thing I want to address about this special man.

There is one particular interview that I truly appreciate and that I watched as soon as it was posted months ago, which made me write about it right after (yes, it took me so long to let this post go and share it). Just for context, this is an interview Ian had for the movie 'The Critic', which came out in September. He interprets Jimmy Erskine, a film critic, who's gay and in some sort of glass-closet.

It must be the devotion and confidence Ian shows while talking about his art, acting, that makes me astonished. Or it probably could just be that beautiful "Jacob and the Stone" song in the background, making everything really touching.

But every part of it made really clear to me how soon or later everyone is destined to find their own sense in life and live it fully. It made me feel like life doesn't have to make sense, but that being alive will inevitably lead you to find one. Everyone has their own little motive and hearing Ian saying his life began to make sense as soon as he connected to himself, was such an heartwarming experience.

Everything he's been through led to that exact moment: the peace in his eyes, in saying "everything changed - for the better", in admitting a scary change during scary times can be positive in the long run.

It's what I wish to us all, what I wish for people who have been in conversion therapy, for kids who don't know who to talk to about their doubts, their questions about their own identity, for everyone who's stuck in this world's dark rules; it's what I wish for teenagers, but also for adults who never had the support and strength to accept themselves, and for the unaccepted sons and daughters and everything in bewteen, and for the loved ones who still judge themselves a bit, and for every human being who's having a hard time at trying: I wish them that peace of mind, that self love.

"I think this country", Ian said, "will be a healthier place if people in public life who are gay announce that they are, so that the majority in society would understand that homosexuals are their friends, their supporters, and a major contribution to the cultural and healthy life of this nation".

Ian's words touch just the most sensitive part about coming out, the paradox of it, as a regular person but mostly as a celebrity: coming out, as a public figure, could benefit yourself and people who love you, even those who put their life in your hands as their idol; but it could also hurt yourself and the people you love. It could put your safety at risk, and it's scary, sad, but real.

I don't know how many of us were around when Frank Ocean opened up about his first love right on this app. It still moves me nowdays in a way a few letters do. These were his words, if you wanna read them again or haven't.

This was not a coming out, I'll never define it as such. This was a story, simply a story being shared and put out. Putting aside his incredible way with words and the humanity of it all, that's properly a piece of soul being vulnerably gifted, in a way I've seen a few people do before. I felt joy and empathy when I read it for the first time, that's what I feel now, that's what I'll always feel. The words "we are all one love" keep coming back to me when I think of this.

I used to think I was a bit stronger than others on some aspects. I mean, in my defense, I was too young and naive to understand how wrong that sounds and is. And to understand that I thought it, but didn't actually believe it.

I kept telling myself "that's never gonna happen to me", or "why would I ever deny and hide who I am?". I was sure. I had all the tools I needed, I knew the stories and read the books, I had heard the news and felt bad about them, I had the right education, I had my sibling's wise words: I had everything I needed to be better than people who hid.

And then it happened exactly to me, in that exact same form and shape, like it happens to anyone else, because none is better than anyone. Everything I built was useless, I thought, I’m as lost as anyone else. I looked at those boxes given to me - bisexual, heterosexual, pansexual, homosexual - and they felt tight and scary and, at times, disgusting. So I just disguised it as uncertainty, confusion, cluelessness. And ignored it.

It was not. Despite those being definitions that make a lot of people feel safe, recognized, free, for me it was the opposite. At one point, I had realized who I was, but every available way to put it into words felt reductive. I thought to myself love can not be caged, or at least the way I felt and thought of love was so ampious and warming that one word could not even symbolize it, labeling it was useless, we should have just let ourselves fall in love.

Once I realized that, the feeling of discomfort was still consistent and it still haunts me every now and then. Am I avoiding myself? is the daily question: am I avoiding who I am, by not defining my identity? How does someone explain this to people? I felt like I had to adapt to society's schemes, otherwise I was gonna be left out and alone.

Something bad happened when I was in high school. A dear friend of mine was outed by a family member to her parents, who were not okay with the news at all. They were deeply homophobic. My friend is fine, now, she's doing okay; but, apart from the violence and the fear that arised back then, and the endless ways I tried to help with that turned out being stopped for my own safety, that period was immensely challenging because it brought home - my home - a discussion we had never had before.

My mom asked me a couple of times, like her mind just opened a new door and possibility thanks to my friend's experience, if I liked girls too. She told me there was nothing wrong with it, that she'd love me anyways, and she said it so calmly it felt unreal: it was special, safe, I knew I was safe with her. Even though her eyes were really demanding.

She looked me in the eyes and reminded me that loving a family member is all that matters and a gay daughter was not the end of the world. I can still smell the air and hear the noises that were around that day, the light and the feelings, all the details my brain collected to keep that memory from fading away.

And I felt on the top of the world, for a small instant. The luckiest one, just when my friend was going through hell a few miles away. My mother had always made me feel safe in a natural and loving way, the only person to love me more than her own self. I could have just said it: "yes, mom, I think I like boys and girls too". I knew she was gonna love me anyways, I saw her doing it, nothing was gonna change in a bad way. I believed her, I knew I could. But instead, I chose to deny it. "No, I don't", I said. Nowdays, after all this time, I still wonder how believable that sounded and if her ability to read my eyes unexplainably failed or not.

In that moment, I was ashamed. Shame was deeply rooted somewhere inside of me, and I dind't know where it came from. Never judged my queer friends, never saw them as weird at all. But still, in that moment, something stopped my tongue from being truthful.

It was myself. That same voice that stops you from being spontaneous thinking everyone's watching you, when you're actually the only one overwatching yourself. It was a random, evil voice in the back of my mind, reminding me that someone out there - a stranger, somewhere in the world - is just like my friend's parents. Someone out there would have thought I was sick and ill, and would have hurt me for that.

And it kinda happened too. Some of the wrong friends I opened up with's parents believed I was a pervert, mentally ill and unstable, and if you've ever lived in a very small town you'll know what I'm talking about. They looked at me at birthday parties as if I was a different, monstrous being. Supporting my queer friends just meant feeding those believes, but ignoring the rumors as if they didn't hurt just had me falling in an even more self judging loop I had to handle silently in order to move on.

That voice in the back of my mind reminded me not everyone in the world is like my mother or close to that, and that not following any labels was not percieved as brave but coward, puzzled, eccentric. As someone who had built their entire system on being loved, accepted and positively perceived by everyone, someone who had quite good marks and blushed easily, and looked shy, and adults used to see as trust worthy for their kids to hang out with, that realisation scared me. So I chocked and lied.

And when I go to sleep at night there's a bit of that same shame and sadness in that same back of my mind leading me to sleep. I asked myself where it came from my whole life, where I heard it and learned it, who taught me that, who hurt me right there. And so I felt what probably Ian felt while those kids were beating him up, and what Frank felt before hitting share on that post, and what probably the majority of closeted celebrities, that fans try to push so bad towards opening up, are feeling right now: the world seeing right through yourself.

Channel Orange, the album that made Frank Ocean drop that note, also spoke about the LGBTQ experience, but it was subtle and poetic. I read a writer defining it as "a project allowing sexuality to be incidental". And that's exactly what it was, what sexuality was for me and what Frank's way of opening up represented: queer people - and so queer artists - are allowed to choose where to draw the line, what they wanna share and what not, how far they want to go with publicly embracing, addressing and showing their sexuality. Queer people can simply and just exist in their beauty, they can just be.

Ian said to recognize our queer celebrities as a great contribution to the nation, but I dare to say most queer celebrities - expecially the closeted ones - have to be recognized for that first, in order to come out then. Some of them can come out only after proving their own worth over and over and over again.

Queer celebrities usually - and mostly in specific countries - need to build a legacy that can hardly be removed or diminuished, in a way more difficult and challenging manner than it's required for others, with such strong emotions and impact attached to it that they can hope for people to don't forget them.

And still none assures you that once you're a global popstar or an oscar winning actor, people will allow you to be who you are openly. Some people will change their mind, leave you behind, insult you, see it as a flaw and as a ruining element staining your talent; some others will stay, accept, ignore, or make it your entire personality forgetting your art instead. That's why building a strong sense of self matters.

When it comes to BTS and the endless talks fans engage on different platforms about their lives and their sexuaities, I really love seeing people making space for "partner" instead of "girlfriend" and "lover" instead of "woman", just like their own splendid leader Namjoon has been doing consistently.

It's such a harmless detail that powerfully leaves a second door open: "my artist might not be straight, so I'll respect that possibility by using the right words". It doesn't hurt, it doesn't assume or speculate, it just respects. And if one, or two, or all of the members, turned out being queer one day, that would have only made them happy and would have only been a considerate gesture. There's no harm in being more inclusive.

Being private and painfully hiding are two separated things and I wish everyone, my artists included, to always know and tell the difference. To always try their best to live authentically and freely, fully, looking for their own sense. Once you're honest about your sexuality, and I mean with yourself, with your heart, your own judging inner voice, you'll feel better about it and about yourself: that's true.

But I wish everyone here, and again my artists included, to never believe coming out is a must or is needed to reach that acceptance. That's your choice. Not doing it can be as brave, as normal and as human as doing it is. Queer people are allowed to exist, unembellished and unannounced. Forever and ever. They were never meant to be remarked and normalized in the first place: humans created discrimination and we just adapted to that.

My mom would have been okay with my revelation, my siblings are the most open minded people I've ever known. A big part of my family would have not really cared: I was lucky. Disgustingly and shamelessly lucky. But still, something stopped me. I got caught up in my head, told myself I had to forget about it, I had to push that side of me away. Only god knows how mean and torturous my thoughts have been with me for no explainable reason.

I don't mean in any way to compare my situation to the actual struggles that kids of homophobic environments have to face daily, so I'll just say I was really close to being miserable and repressed. That empathy I had been taught as a kid, and the small love I knew I was surrounded with, are the same things I want to use not only to help myself but also to interact with who needs to feel understood and seen. I don't blame people who are scared of coming out and feel like a scam because of it, neither I blame people who don't want to and feel like they're hiding cowards: you're not.

Everyone makes their choice. And sometimes the choices we make come from different influencing factors. Ian made his choice, Frank made his, I made mine back then in a very not-conscious and ingenous way. And still now, I don't feel ready to talk about it openly, face to face, with some people around me. Maybe because I always made it something about others, and never about myself. Maybe beacuse I never focused on embracing and loving that part of me, for what it is and not for being anything that separates me from others, instead I worried about who was gonna embrace and love it for me.

BTS and inclusivity

When Jimin's FACE came out - and so the photoshoots, the concepts, the small details - I felt immensely proud. His pants in the LC music video were showing this picture of Robert Mapplethorpe (whose photography embraced different themes, not only nudes and gay nudes)...

...and it all left me wondering if Jimin just wanted to make a raw stylistic statement or if there was more attached to it. Maybe both, but that smooth hint felt just right.

In his Self Potrait photographs, Mapplethorpe blurred his gender identity by juxtaposing conventional signs for men and women. He questions these established roles, defining them as socially constructed terms. And so in one image he's manly and masculine, and in the other... he's not.

Don't know if this double-sided thing reminds you of anything or anyone. A specific music video, a specific eyeliner, a specific make up. If it doesn't, I won't force your brain to see it.

There's both a documentary about his life called "Look at The Pictures" and a movie called "Mapplethorpe", if you're interested, and the fact that Jimin included someone as Mapplethorpe, with such a strong background story, in his concept amazes me. Do we really believe he doesns't know any of this?

Born in a catholic family, he looked for comfort in that religion's rules and tried to repress his nature with them. In the movie you'll see him secretely buying homoerotic magazines, fantasizing about them and about making art with them. He was attracted to the beauty of the human body, the male body, to its surface, the way its muscles contract. Away from his family and often on drugs he finds New York, where the LGBT community it's fighting for its rights: and he strarts to photograph it.

That's where his divinely-guided first meeting with Patti Smith happens, both restless souls finding each other. They stay at the Chelsea Hotel, they become lovers, they share everything together, their bond is historically irreplacable. They see each other acting for change and support the other through their artistic path unconditionally, even when Robert moves with the man he falls in love with and leaves her, in 1972, and even when he's going through the worst symptoms of AIDS and she's by his side, closing one of the most important and culturally innovative pages of the 20th century.

Listening to Mapplethorpe talking about his art and his pictures in those few interviews we have left makes my heart beat fast. Just reading the passion in his eyes, that clean face getting old and tired through the disease, but that spark hardly leaving. His mind, his visions, his entire conception of the world were... on another level.

Mapplethorpe died infact due to AIDS complications. He was just in his twenties when he started to flaunt some machoman-self image to reject his sexuality, that he ended up embracing and discussing openly. He was criticized, controversial, but he was a genius and his art was what his generation needed. And no, he wouldn't have made it without those few close people who truly and wholeheartedly loved him: they helped him finding himself.

Jimin must have known what he was doing and was probably not just making a tribute to photography and a random famous photographer. That was his subtle brave choice in a way he felt comfortable with and that still connected him to a lot of people who felt seen and represented.

I believe there was intent, and recognizing and discussing it doesn't seem wrong to me. If we're incorrect about it, it will just be a wrong interpretation; but if we're right, Jimin must feel like his attempt worked well and what he wanted to express was received. I wanna give him that benefit, I wanna honour that possibility.

That’s what he felt was safe and right to do in that moment. That was his poetry, part of his story, his soul piece. And it was audacious.

And in the same way I appreciate and protect with care and love Namjoon's inclusive lyrics and songs, his constant support to the community, his loud and wise way of asserting that love is love, over and over again throughout his career. Sharing LGBTQ books, suggesting songs, movies, expressing his thoughts in a gender neutral way. That's either what he can do or what he feels is right to do, and I just appreciate it.

I loved listening to Equal Sign by Hobi, seeing him killing gender roles and society's expectations on men. Just like Yoongi does, and Tae does, together with including gay couples in his "FRI(END)S" Music Video, supporting queer movies on social medias, supporting gay artists. Just like Jin showing a beautiful rainbow and a beautiful Pride Flag in his "Running Wild" Music Video too.

When it comes to Jungkook, I often assume his way of moving through the world and presenting himself is the closest to Frank's way of opening up and sharing his first love's story. No big disclaimers, no big statements, no big words and actions: he just is. They both just are. They both seem to have a story that they don't feel the need to openly address as an extraordinary phenomenon, and the reason behind it stays unknown, maybe because it's a territory strangers and outsiders were never meant to explore in the first place.

He embraced an entire campaign, as an ambassador for an ally brand, wearing both jeans and jackets and crop tops with a bob cut and heavy make up. He embraces himself in front of others, he looks free with himself when he does, he enjoys it. He shared queer songs himself, and supported those openly gay artists himself. His valentine's day flower bouquet was called "various loves, because there are various kinds of love".

Support can come with time, is a personal matter, and can happen in different ways. Not many celebrities are asked to do what BTS are constantly pushed towards, but still their good heart and humanity make them balance safety with expression and I'm here for whatever their hearts make them do or say.

There are endless expectations on these boys, endless requests from every side: someone wants them to kiss girls, someone doesn't, someone wants them to come out of the closet, someone thinks there's no closet at all.

What I see in these seven men is an overall inner validation, despite insecurities and hardships we don't know about, but mostly acceptance. I believe they've faced themselves on many aspects, a trip through themselves supported by the others, happening in the spotlight at a very young and vulnerable age.

They were all really young and Jungkook was, in fact, the youngest. He probably made it because he was raised in a certain way, and probably because he has been surrounded by six loving young men his entire life. But there was one person, his catalyst, the guy who helped him break walls before they were even built, that made Jungkook's heart not get lost and lonely. And that person was Jimin, it was him.

And it was made clear by JK himself, in a very grateful and emotional way, throughout the years. Jimin was the person Jungkook did not want to lose and hear saying "you're on your own now", while slamming the door and leaving. Jimin was his best friend, the person Jungkook called five times before not hanging up and asking for help. And he was the person he cried for under the rain, when they were still trouble-maker young boys, and argued over nothing that seemed everything back then.

Jimin is the person who looked for Jungkook when he got drunk on his own, and found him by himself in pain and sadness, we never specifically knew why. But we know he bursted out crying, and that led them to organize their first Tokyo trip, and got them closer, and got them caught up in a special bond that fulfills them mutually. Jimin is the person Jungkook thanks, and apologizes to, and looks up to and looks after. Jimin is the person Jungkook thinks of and misses. What they have is the result of a deep connection and a deep form of safety they feel around each other.

Everyone needs someone, don't fall for the narrative that says the opposite. When you understand how tough things can get and how lonely you can feel, you need someone who takes care of your heart. Every BTS member found in their brothers a light at the end of the tunnel.

Everything proves that love is everything to us all and we're close to nothing without it. It's the driving force of the entire world. And you choose how to live it. Whoever you are and whatever choice you made, I hope you gave yourself chances, and that you'll leave every door available open for yourself, looking for that person or those people around who can hug you when you need it.

Some people feel safe with labels, some don't. Someone wants to come out, someone doesn't, and maybe it's because they just wanna be queer freely without announcing themselves, or maybe because they're scared and holding back.

Your fears and your lies might all be just human. But don't think you have to go through it by yourself. If you got a solid support system around you and feel safe, share your story. Be yourself at least with them, love yourself by letting your favorite people touch you deeply: try to contemplate the idea of not being scared of vulnerability anymore. The end's always up to you, but the journey is made of all the people we'd be nothing without: the ones that you love and love you back.

And if you feel ready or impatient, or both of them, then try to follow that impulse. Do what your heart won't regret, what makes you shine in a way you'd like to see your dearest friends and relatives do. McKellen was a great actor and human even before anyone publicly knew who he was inside, everyone's someone even when no one sees it; he had success, he managed to keep his private life away from the spotlight for 49 years, half a century: so what could have ever changed, at that point?

Everything, he says. Coming out changed everything, but I'm quite sure it had not much to do with the world seeing him, and more with him seeing the world while being free and revealed.

To anyone who might have that same searing voice in the back of their mind, telling them they're wrong and different or twisted, I wish you to discover who put that ghost in there instead, because it does not belong to you and it's not who you are. And if, just like me, you feel like not everything is figured out yet, give it time.

I used to listen to Moonchild way more often and I'm going back to it right now. RM says some people might feel like they don't fit in, like they haven't found themselves and their real happiness: they're moon children. But when the sun goes down and the night comes, the moonchild shines too. Your uniqueness is such a beauty and even the dark times could bring it out. Sometimes we need to look for part of ourselves in the weirdest and most unexpected places…

No matter how disturbing what you've been or are going through is, no matter how hard what life throws at us is, it will pass. Your time will come, just like the day and the night alternate. There’s a whole ecosystem, a bunch of animals, only able to come out in darkness. What would it be of them without it? Darkness is needed as well. You'll be happy, you can be it in your own skin, even though nobody teaches us that. Why not?

It's okay to wish things were different, I've been wishing for that my entire life. Looking at my middle-self, at my friends, at my small town, hoping for the world to be fixed and to heal. I read all these people's stories I mentioned and more, and it all felt so unfair for such a long time.

It is hard to find a sense of any kind in that mess. To even imagine of a life that "begins to make sense" in it. But RM says "someone will be consoled by looking at your thorns for sure", and I realized how humans can truly find support in each other just by sharing themselves: just remember that it’s your choice - if you do that - how to, when to, and with who. I hope our lives make sense too…to us first.

it's okay to shed the tears, but don't tear yourself

we are each other's nightscape, each other's moon.