A Positive Slant On Being Gay

Rick Evans, a manager, planner, trainer, and leadership coach for over 20 years, wrote a very inspirational article, "The gift of being gay," on Advocate.com (August 23, 2005). The synopsis of Rick's writing is, "if gay men are, as is increasingly revealed through research, natural components of the human spectrum, we must have particular gifts to offer our fellow human beings. What might those be? Let’s start a dialogue." Rick took on some interesting research about gay men throughout history and how society viewed them, and what "gifts" gays have given to those societies. One example is the Native American Indian concept of gay men as sharmas, spiritual healers of the tribe, who are neither masculine nor feminine. Rick states that, "Certainly, all individuals have gifts of various types and degrees to offer. Just as traditional masculine and feminine roles call for certain gifts, so there may be a genetic gift in being gay. Additionally, we all have our own personal gifts to offer, whether we’re gay, straight, bisexual, or transgender. Society would benefit if we all realized our gifts more fully." These gifts are developed in if we're raised in a nurturing enviornmnent. And each gay individual should strive to find out what his gift is. My hope is that gay individuals, especially younger gay men and women, would realize they are not "less than human" because they are different, but that their differences would be seen as an asset to society.