coming out – Steve Gershom

Guest Post: Pushing Back

1 year ago with 1 comment

My friend Daniel Quinan made an excellent observation on my recent post about coming out, the people who advise against it, and the reasons they give for their advice. I thought it was worth sharing here (with his permission). I’m not exactly sure how to put this into words (although I’ll give it a shot)… but I think there’s an even deeper-level critique of Fr. ...

Constipation Theory

1 year ago with 9 comments

When Father T used to discourage me from coming out, he used to say that he didn’t want me to be “pigeonholed” — by which I think he meant that, once people knew I was attracted to men, they’d just think of me as That Gay Guy, and the Gay part would get in the way of them knowing me. But of course what really got in the way of people knowing me was the fact that I had to ...

National Coming Out Day 2016

3 years ago with 19 comments

Happy National Coming Out Day. Since I came out as gay in 2013, my life has gotten more complicated in some ways and less complicated in other ways. It’s more complicated because I have to take being gay seriously as a part of myself. I don’t have the freedom anymore to say that it isn’t that important, that it’s always something manageable, that it doesn’t touch ...

Interview: Homosexuality, Suffering, and Coming Out

5 years ago with 6 comments

John Paul Shimek of Catholic World Report interviewed me after the recent Courage conference. An excerpt: CWR: Some people seem to want the issue of homosexuality to go away. A good gay Catholic is a closeted gay Catholic, according to them. How can we welcome and accompany those people? What have you learned about how to deal with those people? Prever: With questions like this, I always try ...

Four Short Graybles For My One-Year Outiversary As a Fancy Man

6 years ago with 10 comments

One year, almost. On August 9, 2013, my WORLD CHANGED FOREVER when I invoked the patronage of Daffy Duck and Edith Stein, in that order, and wrote a post telling the whole world that I [mostly] fancy men, and am therefore, arguably, myself a Fancy Man, which why isn’t that a euphemism yet? (“Did you ever wonder if Joe was a little…you know, Fancy?” “What, you ...

Redlining, Part II of V: I Can Deal With That

6 years ago with 9 comments

I am trying to answer the question of whether a man can fall in love with another man. Last time, I talked about when I did, in fact, fall in love with S.; which might or might not mean that the answer is exactly “yes”. On to the next part of the story. ★ Ryan had just invited me to spend the weekend at the beach house his family had rented, which was perfect, because I had just ...

Catholic Sexuality

6 years ago with 6 comments

A few weeks ago I headed down to Darkest Jersey to help record a series of video interviews and conversations for catholicsexuality.com‘s section on homosexuality. So I found myself in the august company of Eve Tushnet, Gabriel Blanchard, Joshua Gonnerman, Melinda Selmys, and Ron Belgau. It was fun! And a little exhausting, because we filmed for like eight hours. Anyway, it turns out ...

Thanks

6 years ago with 23 comments

I heard a nice idea from my sister: every time something happens that you’re really thankful for, you write it on a piece of paper and put it in a jar. Then, at the end of the year, you read the pieces of paper, to remember all the good things. I think I missed some big ones — I guess I forgot to keep putting stuff in the jar — and some of the things are on a whole nother ...

Ain’t No Thing