Dealing with the older generation (Homosexuality)

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This is a issue and if you are having problems you should try to explain how you feel. You should also point out that you feel you are under pressure from people who you thought would support you. Explain that it is just who you are and you are still the same person.

Of course this doesn't just apply to the older people but generally it does. In the era that they were brought up in that determines what they think is morally right. So we will just have to accept it.

Believe me I know

Rylan

Without question. I don't know how old you are, so at 42 I may be the "older generation" to you. But the generation before me had zero outward acceptance of homosexuality even if many inwardly had gay or bi feelings. When I was growing up, the gay community was a counter culture kept out of sight while most folks had no problems with making bad jokes or slurs about "homos." The generation that is younger than me, however, seems to have a lot of acceptance for the alternative lifestyle. So as a bi-male, I feel like I'm kind of caught in the middle. If I'm talking to someone older, I keep quiet about their disgust for gays, but if I'm talking to someone younger, I feel more at ease about my own sexuality. Strange world.

I think it's not only a matter of oldfashioned socio-religious morals. Older generations may have grown up without any conceptual framework of homosexuality, so they simply don't recognize it as a natural variation of human sexuality that has always existed, and as an important, self-defining characteristic. If they have heard anything at all about things like homosexuality and transgenderism when they were young, they were likely made out to be bizarre fetishes or perversions.

So they might not only reject homosexuality as morally wrong, they might think of it as some newfangled fad that young people are infected with by the media. Or, worse, as some unspeakable paraphilia that shouldn't ever be discussed, especially not between parents and children. Some even think that sex in general is an inappropriate topic in a conversation between the generations.

I guess the latter describes my parents. They were raised to address their own parents as "mother" and "father", sit quietly at the dinner table, don't ask too many questions, avoid conflict and never talk back, best don't talk at all unless spoken to, always be respectful and reserved in the presence of adults, and avoid embarrassing or difficult topics. Of course they didn't raise me quite as strictly as they were brought up themselves, but I couldn't imagine to discuss anything sexual with my parents. Which is one reason why I don't have any contact with my family anymore. We simply don't have anything to talk about.

Some people have the insight and are not too damn ignorant. Whereas some are the opposite.
The "Counter culture" is still apparent in many ways but at least you get a few people who understand.

I am A LOT younger but I have had my fair share of problems too.
Sometimes humans ignorance disgust me

Rylan

I'm 45 and I'm amazed at how much the zeitgeist has changed since I was a teenager. I identified myself as gay in my early teens which was in the early 1980s, a long time before the birth of the Internet. As Catamount says at this time being seen as gay was genuinely dangerous and something to keep hidden. The fashionable view was to be homophobic and this was reflected in newspaper articles and television programmes. People still openly said racist things but it was becoming trendy to be anti-racist. Being pro-gay, however, was a tolerance too far.

Things have improved a lot but I appreciate there's still a long way to go. I guess that most of my generation sadly kept to the views that they formed at this time. I see the younger generation far more open about things. I hope that it is even a little bit easier for them.

Well, the topic is a generalization, but that's been my experience, too.

For me personally, it would be about acceptance of me being transgender. Contrary to the stereotype, my grandma is much more accepting than my mom.

As for the younger generations, they just don't care.

Well, my experience certainly parallels Catamount and Falloy. I would be interested in hearing from someone from the generation before ours--when I was growing up homosexuality may have been countercultural, but it was nonetheless acknowledged and legal (though unequally so, in this country).

But men over 70 were adolescents in a time when homosexuality was criminal, and during which there were often aggressive attempts to suppress homosexual activity. I wonder if their view of my adolescence is comparable to my view of the adolescence of today's 20 year olds?