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I don't want to lie about who I am, even if it doesn't matter. It's who I am. It's part of me.John Corey Whaley
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– Do they know? That you're gay?– Why waste their time with it? It's not like it'll ever be an issue anyway.– Yeah, but, it's who you are, right?– I guess so, – he said. – I don't really know how to be any way else.– When did you know?– I was twelve, maybe. Something I just knew one day, even though I hadn't known it the day before.– So it's like that, huh? A feeling? Not just being into other dudes?– Oh no, it's that too. Of course it's that. But it's more, I think. Not so much a feeling as a fact, like having blue eyes or brown hair. It's just maybe something you don't discover until you're ready to understand it better.– Like being straight, – she said. Only we don't have to deal with all that closet bullshit.– Bingo, – he said.John Corey Whaley
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The different strategies and visions of ‘reformists’ and ‘radicals’ are not the only subject of major debate within lesbian, gay, bisexual and queer politics. The fact is that only a tiny minority of non-heterosexuals are involved in any sort of political activism. Various writers and activists have noted with rising alarm an almost mass depoliticisation of lesbian and gay communities in the 1990s. The crass commercialism of the gay scene and the rise of the so-called pink pound and of ‘lifestyle’ as a signifier of sexual identity (and human worth) has allowed huge profits to be reaped. Playing on the insecurities of people sells ‘packages’ which can include everything from ‘gay apartments’ to ‘gay holidays’ and ‘gay clothes’ to designer drugs.Richard Dunphy