Gay role models

[sweetlad2010]

Right what are your opinions on this?

My gay role model is Stephen Fry....

[sweetlad2010]

I thought this maybe a good thing to talk about on here...........

[Jay]

I would say Ellen Degeneres.

I have utter respect for Ellen. Her confidence is something that I kind of envy for. My personality is pretty much like Ellen but with less confidence. I'm trying to learn as much as possible from Ellen.

[XRIMO]

Yeah, Ellen is a big role model. I would say Ian McKellan is great role model as well.

There are several of them, from performers to politicians (ie, Harvey Milk).

oh yeah, can't forget Dan Savage one of the creators of the It Gets Better project.

[Mattlj92]

Neil Patrick-Harris
Derren Brown
Stephen Fry
Ian McKellen

[East]

Lily Tomlin

[sweetlad2010]

Right what are your opinions on this?

My gay role model is Stephen Fry....

I have a few more now:

Ian McKellen

Eddie Izzard, he has such a lovely partner/wife/GF lol I cant remember which one he has lol. - I watch a programe which was about hi's life. I look up at him because he is happy who he is...

Stephen K. Amos - what a dude xx

Thats so far lol

[marshlander]

I guess I'm a bit old to be having role models. Everyone is fallible and it's a bit disheartening when we realise this - whenever that happens.

If you're going to have a gay role model though, I'm sure you could do a lot worse than Stephen Fry, whose work I admire immensely. There are many characteristics I admire in others too including, for example, Peter Tatchell, but I couldn't say he's a "role model", although I wish I had his courage and his tenacity.

I really don't think that, since my first crush (a male teacher when I was ten), I've had a "role model" as such. Were I to have to choose one I'd probably have to give serious thought to someone like Desmond Tutu (not gay obviously), however odd a choice that might appear for an atheist like me.

[sweetlad2010]

I guess I'm a bit old to be having role models. Everyone is fallible and it's a bit disheartening when we realise this - whenever that happens.

If you're going to have a gay role model though, I'm sure you could do a lot worse than Stephen Fry, whose work I admire immensely. There are many characteristics I admire in others too including, for example, Peter Tatchell, but I couldn't say he's a "role model", although I wish I had his courage and his tenacity.

I really don't think that, since my first crush (a male teacher when I was ten), I've had a "role model" as such. Were I to have to choose one I'd probably have to give serious thought to someone like Desmond Tutu (not gay obviously), however odd a choice that might appear for an atheist like me.

I'm still young I guess..

If you talking about non-gay role models the mean I got is Billy Connolly as he had a similar childhood than me
and think the way he was got over what happened by telling ppl what happened gives me some how I'll be able to do this same..

The other person has to artist Alison Lapper, who was born with no arms and shortened legs due to a congenital disorder.
She was the model for the statue of a pregnant, disabled artist was unveiled in Trafalgar Square, as a tribute to motherhood and people with disabilities.

[Wintereis]

I suppose I am a bit like Marshlander in that i may be past the point of having a gay role model. Though, I certainly did have several when I was younger. I grew up in a rural town far away from gay culture when there weren't many out and proud people in the media.

But, I came across a website in my teens that focused on gay history and writers. As a result, I attached myself to Whitman and Wilde. I read their works, their biographies etc. As I said, I grew up in a small town in the mountains and I would wonder out into the forest around my house listening to opera on my CD player, so, I was really able to relate to Whitman's writings which, with their Romantic commentary on the sublime and their reference to nature, really connected me to him.

Italian Music in Dakota:
http://www.bartleby.com/142/274.html

Later, after I went to college. I was filled with a whole lot of rage at the oppression I felt as a minority and a gay man. I became very political. So, I was drawn to Allen Ginsberg and James Baldwin.




Finally, I became more interested in the larger social and historical context of sexuality and then became very fascinated with the French Historian and Philosopher, Michele Foucault:




I still love and admire all of these men, but I don't really feel the same attachment to them that I once did.