My brother is gay. Well, to clarify, we are step-brothers. We became family members very early in age. I was one and he was two years old. My step-father and his biological father has and continues to be the epitome of macho. Lifts weights, watches sports, etc. etc.
Being so close in age, the both of us had a very similar up-bringing. We were involved in many different athletic activities, and were even disallowed from entering Boy Scouts on the grounds that it was "faggy," as decided by our father.
My brother was always different than me--for as long as I remember. As a disclaimer, I'm not trying to typify "gay" behavior or what not. Anyway, I can remember very early, around 7 or 8 he would often dress in our older (my biological) sister's clothing--on multiple occasions.
During the early hair-gel encrusted nineties, he would often agonize for hours in front of the mirror before we were supposed to go to school. He would sometimes cry because he couldn't get his hair to look right (he'd even refuse to go to school if the hair wouldn't cooperate).
Pretty early on, he became extremely sexually active. To this day, he's slept with far more women than I ever have (or would want to)--all between the ages of 14-18. I recall he had made friends with a gay boy during this time. They were pretty good friends for a while, but eventually they ended up in a physical confrontation after said friend made a sexual advance. My brother put a hole in our basement wall with his friend's body. Looking back, it seems obvious that he knew about his sexuality much sooner than he came out, and acted out against it.
Well, sometime when I was a freshmen in high school (and he a sophomore), I stumbled upon some gay porno on the household computer. It was a pretty huge mind-fuck for me at the time. I thought it was my step-dad at first, then I thought maybe my sister was the owner--but then I figured I was rationalizing a bit much. I confronted my brother about it, but he only blamed it on one of his friends.
My brother had his last heterosexual relationship when he was 18. It suddenly became very obvious that he had been so for quite sometime--a very long time. He did not decide to be gay, nobody made him gay. He was just gay.
In a painfully stereotypical turn of events, he went on to have a lot of irresponsible sex when he moved out of my parents' home. He contracted HIV and is now living a pretty tough life and is currently living at my parents.
I just want to explain very clearly that my brother did not choose to live this life. He did not up and decide one day, "Oh, well, I suppose life would be much more fun if I were to be gay. Then I will surely be ostracized and disdained by my own father, mother, and many many ignorant strangers!"
It is difficult for me to see what environmental factors he had imposed upon him that I did not--as we were raised very similarly with a very small gap in age. In hindsight there are many specific events that need not be shared that shed light on his homosexuality from a very early age.
I know that there is a bit of a conflict on whether or not homosexuality is genetic, so I'm not willing to say ye or nay here. However, it seems apparent from my isolated experience that biological predispositions (not necessarily heredity based, but possible developmentally, etc.) play a large part in an individual's place on the sexual spectrum.
I find these sexual conversion therapists to be despicable pieces of shit of the very worst kind and wish nothing but pain and doom upon them. Nobody would choose a life of inner conflict and overpowering social disapproval. This isn't some kinda of mental illness, phase, joke, or any other thing. This is another human's life. FUCK YOU.
