Quotes About Being Gay

#1. As anyone who is gay will confirm, being that way is not something you become, it is a set of emotional and physical responses that just are.

Lance Loud

#2. I would like to draw your attention to the fact that in Russia, unlike in one third of the world's countries, being gay is not a crime.

Vladimir Putin

#3. I am very proud of the role I played in getting legal equality for people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender, and in helping get rid of the prejudice by being visible about it, helping to block the conviction of Bill Clinton of impeachment.

Barney Frank

#4. I was certainly open for something being on the edge of a nervous breakdown, perplexed by my own sexuality. I was gay.

Lionel Blue

#5. So let me be clear: I'm proud to be gay, and I consider being gay among the greatest gifts God has given me.

Tim Cook

#6. I've never been a partisan, I've never been a Republican, I've never been a Democrat, ever, which is why I was very frustrated being called a gay Republican when I never attached myself to that.

Andrew Sullivan

#7. I think being gay and gay people are the most wonderful things in the world. I wish all of us could have the power and pride to benefit from what is rightfully ours. Why isn't there an enormous building in Washington called the 'National Association of Lesbian and Gay Concerns' to lobby for us?

Larry Kramer

#8. The silence of those in positions of influence in the church who know, or have a strong suspicion, that being gay is a nonpathological minority variant in the human condition drives me crazy, far crazier than I am driven by any loud-mouthed purveyor of hateful nonsense.

James Alison

#9. Who is the more courageous? The big, tough gay-basher, or the LGBTI person who faces their threats on a daily basis and carries on being honest about who they are regardless?

Christina Engela

#10. There are easier things in life than being a drag queen. But I ain't got no choice. Try as I may, I just can't walk in flats.

Harvey Fierstein

#11. Isn't it interesting how nationalistic attitudes foster the notion that being gay is 'un-(fill in your nationality/ religion/ culture here)'?

Christina Engela

#12. While "caring about" conveys feelings of concern for one's state of being, "caring for" is active engagement in doing something to positively affect it.

Geneva Gay

#13. Just by being out you're doing your part. It's like recycling. You're doing your part for the environment if you recycle; you're doing your part for the gay movement if you're out.

Martina Navratilova

#14. ... gay marriage rights coming and going, always being an issue for the voting public when it should be an individual's private choice.

G.A. Hauser

#15. The best part of being married is that now when we walk down the street, people won't just see two guys and a kid, they'll have to see a FAMILY.

Patricia A. Gozemba

#16. About their wedding on a beach of Nantucket, after nearly 50 years together as a couple: "After years of being who we truly were only in the privacy of our homes or with a few friends, we were out in the world, under the sky, no longer pretending." - Norman Sunshine, co-author, Double Life

Norman Sunshine

#17. I think it's interesting: What is the generational effect of the experience of being a gay person in America? For my generation, it was very difficult.

Ira Sachs

#18. We're all whirling merrily through the void on a dying planet, and gay people are just doing their usual number, being shamelessly trendy as always. Right out in front on the cutting edge of death.

Lawrence Block

#19. I think a lot of what I've done is about people feeling as if they are part of the world but also not part of it at the same time. I don't know whether that's from being a gay kid, but I definitely think that resonates with me.

Greg Berlanti

#20. I have known many people who were seduced as children by same-sex partners and then spent their teen years being gay, and then found their way back to heterosexuality as adults.

Nell Zink

#21. You want to help gay kids, you have to reach them in middle school and high school, when they're being bullied.

Dan Savage

#22. Some women being empowered does not prove the patriarchy is dead. It proves that some of us are lucky.

Roxane Gay

#23. I've always wanted to be a writer. I've been writing since I was probably four years old - it was nonsense, but it was still my little attempts at being a storyteller.

Roxane Gay

#24. When you're a comic, it's like being born gay. It's what you want to do every night when your other friends are out at night going to parties.

Sarah Silverman

#25. I'm dead against the idea that you should try to "cure" people of being gay.

Ian McKellen

#26. Hustling sex for cash ain't dangerous if you learn the tricks quick, and that means puttin' yourself in a different mindset. Always scout for an exit for when you need it. Act confident and tough and you won't get hurt. Being scared or nervous will get you cut up and stuffed in a fuckin' bag.

Jon Michaelsen

#27. I think being gay is a blessing, and it's something I am thankful for every single day.

Anderson Cooper

#28. Being gay is not a political accomplishment in itself. It's not enough to constitute a political platform.

Jens Spahn

#29. I don't believe being gay is something you can change, no more than you can change the color of your hair or your eyes. Well, I dye my hair, so maybe that's not the best example. But your eyes!

Patricia Polacco

#30. I had always been interested in politics. I had assumed, for a variety of - well, for two reasons, being Jewish and being gay back in the late '50s, early '60s - that I would never be elected or anything, but I would participate as an activist.

Barney Frank

#31. The good thing about being gay was always that you didn't have a wedding. People would say, "He's gay, but at least he didn't make us go to his wedding. He didn't make us fly across the country. He didn't make us choose between the fish and the beef."

David Sedaris

#32. There's lots of stuff about me being a fan of Cliff but not being gay. Which suggests that he is, but he's not. Anyway, this is Channel 4, let their lawyers sort it out.

Johnny Vegas

#33. My activism did not spring from my being gay, or, for that matter, from my being black. Rather, it is rooted fundamentally in my Quaker upbringing and the values that were instilled in me by my grandparents who reared me.

Bayard Rustin

#34. Americans know as much about Canada as straight people do about gays. Americans arrive at the border with skis in July, and straight people think that being gay is just a phase. A very long phase.

Scott Thompson

#35. Feminism is just an idea. It's a philosophy. It's about the equality of women in all realms. It's not about man-hating. It's not about being humorless. We have to let go of these misconceptions that have plagued feminism for 40, 50 years.

Roxane Gay

#36. Its hard not being with someone you have an attraction to yet have neither seen nor meet, but your heart aches for.

Matt Trevitz

#37. I graduated from high school in '62 and I didn't know any people who were gay. I'm sure there were people, but I didn't know any. For years and years, I guess, I was very uptight about being a gay actor. I thought it would make me less hirable.

John Glover

#38. When I see young men and old women come out of the closet and face being called faggots and dykes and pariahs and betrayers of the family dream, then I am honored to be gay because I belong to a people who are proud.

Arnie Kantrowitz

#39. If you are not personally free to be yourself in that most important of all human activities ... the expression of love ... then life itself loses its meaning.

Harvey Milk

#40. What was interesting was talking to older gay men about what it was like being gay in the Eighties.

Dan Stevens

#41. Ultimately, I felt fortunate, because in many ways I did identify with aspects of being gay that were very stereotypical. I was a big theatre kid in high school, I was creative, I was very emotionally sensitive, even hypersensitive. I loved female divas.

Christopher Rice

#42. If I don't get a TV show next year because someone looks up my Wikipedia and it says 'openly gay,' then it's worth the risk because I've had so many years being openly gay and proud of myself as a role model.

Max Von Essen

#43. You know you're really famous when there's rumors about you being gay.

Jared Leto

#44. Because anyone who thinks there is something wrong with being gay is like those people you read about in History who believed it segregation.

Michael Barakiva

#45. Being brought up in a Christian home and still identifying as Christian, I get pretty annoyed with the Christian lobbies around the world who say gay marriage destroys the family and all that kind of rubbish. They claim to follow someone who always stood up for the oppressed and marginalised.

David Pocock

#46. I think the best part about my dad being gay is that I'm much more open-minded. I feel more at peace and I'm a good listener. I learned so much from (my dad's partner) John. How would I have turned out if this weren't my life?

Judith E. Snow

#47. Being gay doesn't mean that you are less than anybody else. It's just who you are.

Bob Harper

#48. And thus I wonder about so many gay men I've met since, pillars of the community, out to everyone else but Mom, who still refer to their lovers as something between a roommate and a valet. Just who is being protected here, and who thinks queer is wrong?

Paul Monette

#49. "Not being virulently and overtly racist against black people" and "treating gay people like human beings" are necessary conditions of greatness.

Mallory Ortberg

#50. The truth of the matter is being gay is the way I was born. I believe this to the core of my being.

Nate Berkus

#51. I think Justin Timberlake verges on being gay, he gets gay airplay. Britney gets loads as well. If you're male and you're black you're not going to get much play in a gay club.

Andy Bell

#52. Being gay is a fundamental part of my being - the core of who I've always been, and the thing that I had repressed and run from all my life.

James McGreevey

#53. I think I started out okay but with AIDS came a great deal of silence about gayness and this period of lose and morning, but at the same time a kind of feeling like you wanted to get back into the closet because being gay was such a terrible thing at that point.

Margaret Cho

#54. We all have to embrace the idea not to be worried about there being other women in the room. Gay men work with such solidarity.

Rebecca Miller

#55. I don't think you can really be proud of being gay because it isn't something you've done. You can only be proud of not being ashamed.

Quentin Crisp

#56. The Republican path to victory is compromised when gay Americans are perceived as being attacked for just being how God created them.

Reince Priebus

#57. I remember my first friend who got sick. It was 1981, and the disease was called the gay cancer. I don't think the word 'AIDS' came out until '84. I just remember it being terrifying as more people got sick. We didn't know how you could catch it, you heard all kinds of crazy things.

Ellen Barkin

#58. Being a Boy Scout saved my life. I was a bookish, introverted kid, shy and withdrawn, unhappy and easily bullied. I was also gay, although I didn't know it yet. I should've been miserable. But being a scout got me out of myself and into the world.

Christopher Bram

#59. My own belief is that being gay is a regularly occurring nonpathological minority variant in the human condition, and that an appropriate analogy is left-handedness, which also, as it happens, used to be regarded as some sort of defect in a normatively right-handed humanity.

James Alison

#60. My being gay is not a social issue; it's a fact. It's not something to be debated. It's a reality.

Jose Antonio Vargas

#61. Being gay is just one aspect of my very complicated life. I do not wear it on my sleeve.

Patricia Cornwell

#62. This excerpt includes both a cautionary tale of being caught en flagrante and a stirring defense of getting fucked.

Redeeming social value, indeed.

Simon Sheppard

#63. [Marriage] a bond for life, and whether you're gay or straight, it makes no difference to being married. What marriage stands for is that you love that person ... You want to commit yourself to that person forever.

Cheryl Cole

#64. I don't see anyone as being different than anyone else, whether you're gay or straight or whatever - everyone's the same. That's how I was raised.

Lea Michele

#65. I love being gay. I love gay people. I think we're better than other people. I really do. I think we're smarter and more talented and more aware. I do, I totally do. I really do think all of these things. And I try very hard to remember all this.

Larry Kramer

#66. Membership of a larger group is not an identity. Being Asian is not an identity. Being gay is not an identity. Being deaf, blind, or wheelchair-bound is not an identity, nor is being economically deprived.

Lionel Shriver

#67. Conservatives believe in the ties that bind us. Society is stronger when we make vows to each other and we support each other. I don't support gay marriage in spite of being a conservative. I support gay marriage because I am a conservative.

David Cameron

#68. If you join the Boy Scouts without understanding the underlying agendas and biases of the organization, you might grow up to believe that being gay is a bad thing.

Douglas Rushkoff

#69. Chadham's idea of an open-minded, modern town had no room for faggots. Being gay made you about as welcome as a turd in the swimming pool.
Piner, Huston (2015-05-12). Light in Endless Darkness (Kindle Locations 25-26). Torquere Press. Kindle Edition.

Huston Piner

#70. Outside of being an actress, I feel like being out is the biggest way that gay people can change perception. There are people that give millions of dollars to gay organizations but are closeted to their own families.

Jill Bennett

#71. Let the people who want to have kids, have them. And let the rest of us spend the extra money on ourselves. Being gay doesn't make you a bad person. Not wanting kids doesn't make you a bad person. Perhaps crushing the bones in one little girl's hand makes you a bad person, but that was an accident.

Augusten Burroughs

#72. So many people in the gay community have always asked me to come out, say it like it is, and help our cause. But for me ... I think my biggest statement I could give to the world is to be strong being myself ... you have to make something of yourself, and that's what makes us strong.

Johnny Weir

#73. Being transgender, like being gay, tall, short, white, black, male, or female, is another part of the human condition that makes each individual unique, and something over which we have no control. We are who we are in the deepest recesses of our minds, hearts and identities.

Linda Thompson

#74. Religion is so focused on family. These days, for many people, being gay is also focused on family.

Andrew Solomon

#75. You won't hear me talk about my politics, you won't hear me talk about my vegetarianism, you won't hear me comment on the Iraq war. You'll only hear me talk about being gay and being an actor. I am just public on those two issues.

Ian McKellen

#76. I was raised in a household where being gay was like, the most normal thing. My brother is gay, all of my best friends are gay. When my brother came out of the closet, it wasn't a big deal for my family.

Ariana Grande

#77. I don't keep it secret that I live with my partner Gio. I'm very proud of my gayness. But there is lots I wouldn't want the press to write about me ... it is a matter of regret that being gay is the most interesting thing about me.

Evan Davis

#78. He offered to make-out with Hunter if it would prove that he's ok with me being gay."
"Hmm," said Adam. "Yeah I think I need to see proof."
"Shut up."
"Tell him it has to be shirtless. Wait, let me get my phone out-

Brigid Kemmerer

#79. For some reason, President Obama is being heckled about "don't ask, don't tell," which may be revoked. The president wants gays to be allowed to serve openly in the military.

Bill O'Reilly

#80. Being gay was a bit like the Olympics: It disappeared in ancient times, and then they brought it back in the twentieth century.

Nick Hornby

#81. But thats their image of us so we stay tense, holding our breath, hoping we wont be found out. - about being gay from the film Love My Life

Ebine Yamaji

#82. Being gay immediately placed me outside the values of the society I was growing up in. Apartheid was a very patriarchal system, so its assumptions seemed foreign to me from the outset. I've always had the advantage of alienation.

Damon Galgut

#83. What the Pope thinks of being gay does not matter to the world. It matters to the people who like the Pope and follow the Pope ... It is not a reflection of all religious people.

Lady Gaga

#84. Binder didn't plan on being disappointed either. He felt a growing obsession to unstring the secrets the house held, to unravel the Gordian knot time and myth had only tightened.

William Gay

#85. I love being a mother; I hate being a housewife - the cooking, the laundry - because it takes away time I could be with my kids.

Marcia Gay Harden

#86. Even though I'm from the Midwest, the majority of my life has been spent on the coasts where being gay wasn't really much of a conversation.

Andrew Rannells

#87. I felt like I was being attacked, personally attacked - our community was attacked. Now, I gotta get in their face. I'm proud to be a woman. I'm proud to be a black woman. And I'm proud to be gay.

Wanda Sykes

#88. I spent my entire youth being in love with gay men because they were the most interesting and compassionate people I knew.

Jane Hamilton

#89. Being gay has taught me tolerance, compassion and humility. It has shown me limitless possibilities of living. It has given me people whose passion and kindness and sensitivity have provided a constant source of strength. It has brought me into the family of man, Mama, and I like it here.

Armistead Maupin

#90. If being queer meant loving Aaron, then he'd own the label, at least internally.

Tibby Armstrong

#91. When someone isn't ready we must not try to force them out. People are being bullied and committing suicide because they're gay and it's horrible.

Ricky Martin

#92. I'm not ashamed of being gay, never have been and never will be. For that I have no apologies.

Tommy Kirk

#93. I think knowing people by first names, not by what they do sexually, is really what it's about. Not being afraid. Fear is the enemy. I've always been comfortable with being gay.

Herb Ritts

#94. One thing the gay rights movement taught the world is the importance of being visible.

Charles M. Blow

#95. Religion looms as large as an elephant in the United States, to the point that being nonreligious is about the biggest handicap a politician running for office can have, bigger than being gay, unmarried, thrice married, or black.

Frans De Waal

#96. Being from New York, if you're gay, you're gay. I think it's important that if you are gay, you not be afraid to say who you are.

Sue Wicks

#97. They tried to say that being gay is a sin, and I said that adultery is a sin. Adultery is responsible for breaking up more marriages, but do we put that in the Constitution? It's absurd.

Al Sharpton

#98. Is there something about the gay experience, being gay and the gay experience, that pushes us even more than other people toward competition?

Peter Thiel

#99. I'm totally changed. I've been emancipated from all this Republican dogma. Whether it's being anti-immigration, being-anti gay, being militaristic and wanting to engage in all these military interventions across the planet. That's all absurd.

Thomas Ravenel

#100. Being gay or lesbian is not a choice.

Barack Obama