Coming Out: Irish Gay Experiences
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"Coming Out: Gay Experiences is a testament to the lives of gay women and men, their families and friends in Ireland over the past few decades. It is a testament, some of the time, that contains fear and pain, lives maimed, decisions postponed, secrecy and shame. Equally, it is a testament to joy, acceptance and fulfillment. It is a tribute too, to those organisations and individuals who offered help with such selfless ease and care when help was desperately needed by gay people and by those close to them. These stories are useful now, not only as history - what the search for love and sexual self-realisation was like in a dark time - but part of what is happening all around us still, as, in the silence of the self, and in the society we have built, young people come to terms with who they really are and who they might become." This book is offered as a resource not just for the gay community, but also for their family, friends, work colleagues, indeed anyone who wishes to understand what being gay means. Ultimately this book asks the question: 'Is it better to be hated for what we are than loved for what we are not?'.
Complete reversal17I, deaf, lesbian22Father and son I29Father and son II32Fragments of a fairy35A woman dispossessed45I never knew I was gay52Mary and Joe58Silent screams60Dublin in the rare auld times63A rambling garden67How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?72Enjoying retirement80Life begins84Coming to terms with being gay89Out of the cold I have called my son93My teenage friend coming out to me106My grandmother, God and I108Two ordinary lives111Mary, my daughter121Gay in the shadows123Lesbian mums and their baby boy127A bad story with a good ending134David140Being gay : it's only part of who I am147A chat in the kitchen151I was so lucky with my gay son156Enniscence164So far along the road176'Til deceit do us part181Being different in a rural area184Changing through life's journey188Coming and going191A window on my soul197We're gay but still mums206Growing up gay in the '90s211Priesthood : no place to hide223The Saturday night lad228Galway wedding235My gay dad239To A.242The Bible and Christian living : homosexuality as a test case247Love's endeavour, loves expense260The Garda gay liaison officer269Implementing equality for lesbian, gay and bisexual people275Welcoming church279
