Is anyone else playing the 1500 PLO today? I'd love to do some swaps if anyone is interested. Send a PM/post if anyone is interested - it would be cool to have a reason to Rainbow Sweat someone to a final table.

#rainbowgrind Brasilia 31 - gl to all heroes

Apologies - bank holiday weekend.

I suppose I was thinking of any circumstances where men and women are divided because of the rules of some organization or because of culture.

In the UK women can join the army but not fight on the front line.
In sport men's and women's events are kept separate.
Although they can no longer do so insurance companies used to weight men and women differently for the purposes of car insurance.
In the UK only people of the opposite gender can legally marry.
A number of jobs can legally be advertised as open to only one gender.
There are social groups, ie. swimming, reading etc. only open to one gender.
Where issues of nudity or privacy are concerned men and women are separated ie. toilets, changing rooms, hospital wards.

In my opinion some of these make sense and some don't; some I think should be changed and some I couldn't care less about. But I'm not sure that in any of these cases the opinion of the person in question as to their gender should trump everybody else's. I happen to think women should have the same right to go around killing foreigners as men do but it's going to be the army in the first instance and ultimately the courts that decide whether or not a particular soldier is a man.

To be honest, leaving aside the politics of the above examples, I don't really understand why it really matters how someone else categorizes you. Maybe it's because I am very clearly white and very clearly male that issues of the race or gender a person fits into seem largely irrelevant to me even though I understand these things can be hugely important to people who wish to or feel they ought to belong to one race or another or one gender but are deemed by others as on a blurry borderline.

I could be on the borderlines of clever and stupid, old and middle-aged, short and average height, fat and stocky and all sorts of other cusp-like places without it being some great issue what someone else's opinion happened to be and without it being an issue of my rights somehow being trampled on should they disagree with me. In fact it sounds odd to me to talk in terms of rights at all in these cases. I don't really understand why it should be different with gender. If I think I'm a woman and someone else thinks I'm not, so be it. I can't imagine that I'd feel they were breaching my right to self-identify or that rights talk would cross my mind at all.

lol maybe if you told me you were gonna knock me out, i would have swapped with you ;-)

Bump because I am at an unreal level of excitement for EDC. Hope to catch some of you there.

Vanessa, I run the purest of pure with rundowns and the worst with aces. I busted like 22x, really lame (with aces, of course). I'm a rather awkward individual, and I'm sure it showed through, but it was pretty cool meeting you. It was fun while it lasted.

As an aside, Timex is dreamy and seems like a really nice guy, though I'm told he plays for the wrong team (for this thread)

http://www.pokernews.com/live-report...hips.31024.htm

Go Protential! #rainbowgrind

Still hanging in there with 24 left...gl Ryan

Protential at FT of event #33! This is his 2nd WSOP FT now in 2 years! GOOO!!

Ended up taking 7th for 56k, was a really cool exp and loads of fun.

thanks for the support everyone!

http://www.hrc.org/files/assets/reso...ica_Report.pdf

Here is a brand new survey by the HRC of 10,000 GLBTQ youth. lots of good info.

Holy hole in the statistics, Batman! And congrats on your Final table!

Reading the major concerns of the GLBTQ youth vs. the straight crowd is a little bit worrisome to say the least. It's unfortunate that teenagers are not as accepting of GLBTQ youth as they should be; same goes with GLBTQ youths' families.

Another interesting stat I noticed from that survey: individuals of any sexual orientation look to be significantly happier when they move away from their hometown.

Congratz Protential! 2 wsop final tables now, solid I guess you know one wasn't just a fluke now

In short, Nike - Just Do It.

My advice/tips, coming from my own experiences,though surely pretty similar to the experiences' of many others, from what I've heard:

Coming out is just a tough thing to do, but I can't stress how much happier / less stressed I was after finally coming out. Even with the pre-approval of my mom (she told me, "Will, if you are gay, that's okay with me"), it still took me like 2 more years of hemming and hawing to finally tell her. She was totally accepting, but even still, she had her worries/concerns for me as a mother. She knew I would face challenges that I wouldn't have to otherwise being gay, and I think some of the worries came from an outdated view on LGBT-dom, having come from a different generation.

The excuses that "it's my sexual life, none of their business, etc." is easy to make, but if you are being honest with yourself, I'm sure you know just how critical the gay part of your identity is. The centrality of this has shifted over time for me - diminishing from "consuming my every thought" before coming out to the more "normal" level it is at now. I cannot stress how relieved I was after coming out.

I had friends and family who made anti-gay comments around me before coming out, and I am reminded how many of these people (I think) just didn't have a face to put to a gay person. There were "no" gay people in my high school while I attended, and this resulted in the LGBT issue being so distant and lacking in a human quality. By coming out, to some, I imagine that I put a face to this identity; in my presence, it seems like the comments decreased. (and to this day, when a something anti-gay is said in my presence, the tension created is palpable and delicious)

TL;DR - any specific things you wish to ask, PM/post - hope this was helpful and not too incoherent - BEST OF LUCK! #rainbowgrind

I know that my parents, sister (and most likely her husband), and brother will all be accepting, and I live on my own, but I still can't get myself to tell them. I really have nothing to fear, nothing to lose. I've seen tons of youtube videos of people's coming out stories and advice, and I know Willie's advice of "just do it" is right, but I still have some mental block on it and I don't know why.

I was on this forum for years (I think) before 'coming out' here, and I'm glad I did it. It's easier to post and interact with others when you don't need to constantly watch what you're saying. I'm pretty sure coming out to family and to friends would be even better.

I wish I could offer some advice or encouraging words, but all I've got is a similar story that doesn't look like it's going to change any time soon. I don't know if that helps or makes things worse.

I would like to also mention that I think coming out is a much better route than people finding out, at least for those people closest to you. It isn't something that you owe another person because f*** this society for making coming out such a big deal (or even a thing at all), but it can be a really great experience between you and another person with whom you are close.

On more than one occasion, someone who had found out through the grapevine would come up to me and say something like, "why didn't you tell me?" I don't think most of them were hurt by my lack of direct coming outs, but there were definitely some who were. I know that we don't do this for others, but it can help build a closer relationship (as you mentioned).

Finally, I know that in my still freshly come out self (in gay years), I am pretty encouraging of others to do the same, and I think this is a common pattern for fresh new LGBTs. "It's such a great relief, everyone should come out." My roommate in college, who was also gay and had come out before me, thought he knew what was best for me to the point of him outing me to several people. I don't intend to seem wise or anything, but I just think this is a common feeling among newly-out people.

Cliffs: Do what ya gotta do, but coming out >>> people finding out. (from my POV)

I do agree with the sentiments here, especially concerning gansta's situation.

I believe that for the most part coming out >> staying closeted. The only times i feel it is opposite is in cases when you feel that your family will have a negative reaction and you rely on them financially yet.

hope everyone has been doing well, glad to see more active discussions running ^.^

I think everyone should be able to come out on their own schedule and for their own reasons. Personally, I took quite a while to come out as well, and I think it was due in large part to two main hurdles.

First, when I was in school, and first entering the job market, I felt very insecure. I still relied on my parents for some financial assistance and I also happened to be working in a state where you could be fired for being gay (and I had some pretty homophobic coworkers at that time), so, even though I thought my parents would be supportive and that my boss would still recognize me as a good employee, I was afraid that coming out would be cutting a hole in my financial safety net. Building up some savings and some additional good will at the office made it MUCH easier to come out, knowing that I'd be ok even in the unlikely event that thinks went haywire with my family or professionally.

Second, once I realized that I liked women, I wanted to be with women... Lots of them... I didn't want to settle down and get partnered up, I wanted to make up for the time I had lost while I was trying to convince myself that I "just hadn't met the right guy yet." In a weird way, not being out made this phase much easier because my friends and family weren't there to hold me accountable for my shenanigans. It wasn't until I got a bit older and started wanting a relationship that I realized that I was going to have a girlfriend some day and that I would want her to meet my friends and family (and that they would want to meet her), and that it would be incredibly unfair to her to be potentially viewed as the person who "turned" me, or "made me gay.". So I realized that I needed to come out to the important folks in my life so that they would have time to process the news (and I'd have time to see their reactions), BEFORE I brought some random girl home for Thanksgiving dinner...

Finally, I'd just like to say that most people in my life were cooler and more supportive than I could have possibly imagined, that I became much closer to my family once I no longer had to hide an important part of myself, and that I discovered an amazing world of people once I allowed myself to hang out with "the gays" in public

Anyway, that's just my 2 cents... Good luck.

I never thought of that angle.

+1 on being totally surprised (in a good way) with how certain people reacted when I came out.

I'm usually just lurking, and not so much posting. But reading this talk about coming out reminded me of a tv show over here. And realised this would be the best spot to ask...

So the tv show is about people coming out to their family/friends. Usually they talk to one person specific about it, someone they have the most chance of reacting positive, i assume. So that person can support them when they tell everyone else.
Sometimes they ask to not have the camera's actually present when they talk to their parents, which kinda defeats the point of the show, i think. Although i completely understand that they don't want that filmed.

Now i'm wondering if there's ever a benefit of doing this in front of camera's and on national television? Does it put more pressure on the person to go through with it, because you have this whole tv crew there?

I'm also glad that the few times i have seen it, that i haven't seen a lot of negative reactions, and most people are very supportive.

Anyway, i'm sorry if this is off topic, just wondering...

I think it would be great if RMC and Ganstaman has a coming-out prop-bet, in the true spirit of 2+2 Degeneracy. That would provide some incentive to just do it. You could get it on camera or something for the enjoyment of those in this thread.

Since that probably won't happen, be careful slutting about and have fun

In all seriousness,

oh, i wish all of you guys that are struggling with it, would have a mom like mine. She has always, always, always made sure i knew that if i wanted to bring a girl home instead of a guy, that she would be completely fine with it. That aslong as my significant other treats me right and we're happy, it does not matter to her what gender they are.

Just to clarify, i'm not gay, but it's comforting to know, that i could have gone to her at any time, if it were the case. I think it must be terrible to have something this important in your life, and you have the feeling you can't even tell your parents.

For a hetrosexual you understand surprisingly well.

This, to me, was the biggest thing about coming out about my bi-sexuality. The fact that I knew my father, mother, step father, and sister would all be ok with it, and totally accepting was a relife beyond words. It felt so good knowing I could just be totally open and completely truthful with them, without any fear of them cutting me off, or never talking to me again or anything like that. I really feel for anyone who feels like that can't even come out to their families.

This is a good idea.

Or, you could just say you are shopping for a gift for your gf or friend.

If buying something on the sexy/slutty/risque end of things is what you are doing, say you are buying it for your gf.

If it's something more along the 'normal' every day line, maybe say you are buying if for a friend of yours. In this case they might think it a bit odd, since most guys don't have the fashion since to shop for cloths for girls, and might think you are gay, but they certainly won't jump to the conclusion you are buying it to wear yourself.

Actually, a lot of stores have experience with guys trying on women's clothing. They just don't talk about it much.

As a sometimes wearer of women's shorts (though not a full-fledged CD), I recommend checking out thrift stores. Where I used to shop for colorful, short shorts, I didn't usually feel super judged or anything in the women's section because the stores were usually busy and a bit challenging to navigate. I imagine shopping at a department shore would be totally different and unwelcoming of such activities, as you stated.

#rainbowshorts FTW