I know I don't contribute here much, but I thought I'd drop a book recommendation in here.
I wish I had this book 10 years ago.
I'm half way through it - ordinarily I'd be a bit hesitant to give a recommendation until I finished a book, but this has been one of the most intense reading experiences I've had. It's emotionally provoking, fairly harrowing in parts, but it's helping me to rationalise and understand so much about myself and others that has gone un-articulated for me to date. It's exposing things I didn't know I didn't know about myself. It's like someone's pried open my soul and laid it out on paper.
I wish I could make the whole world read this book. The highly abbreviated, inescapable conclusion - if you shame a child for something they cannot control (whatever that might be, not just around gender conformity or sexuality), you're engaging in no less than child abuse. So many gay people - most - have been subject to a kind of covert, collective abuse growing up. And it's continuing to manifest in some serious and dangerous consequences, despite all our political and legal advances. Everything from suicide, to alcohol and drug addiction (and addictions in general - to gym, to shopping, to people), cultural escapism, perfectionism, body image, co-dependence, counter-dependence, sex and relationships as a currency of validation, negative mirroring, health anxiety and anxiety in general... it all gets convincing treatment in terms of the all-to-typical catalysts present in a gay childhood.
If you're a little bit fucked up - and if you're gay, it's quite probable you are to some degree - I think this book may help you understand it. I can't speak for the latter part of the book which claims to move beyond explanation to guidance on overcoming the side effects of growing up gay, but hopefully that part of the book delivers as excellently as the first half has so far.
