“Coming out is the most powerful tool you have to change your life and the lives of others,” he says. “You need not come out in the media or be a lifelong gay rights activist.
But you owe it to yourself, to your loved ones and to your LGBT community, to be honest about yourself, to not hide your sexual orientation/gender identity. It’s nothing to be ashamed of.
“If someone doesn’t accept you as a gay person, it’s their problem, not yours. If they don’t accept you, they don’t care for you enough anyway. So why care for what they think!
“If you have the conviction about your sexual orientation, please come out. But be prepared for the consequences. Don’t come out if there may be a threat of physical harm to you. It won’t be worth losing life or limb. If you survive today, you can fight again tomorrow.
“If you can’t bring yourself to coming out, at least don’t put in any effort to prove you are heterosexual, not different. Stand up for other gay people; don’t let people get away with homophobic jokes, challenge their homophobia. And most of all, please don’t get into a heterosexual marriage, create a lifelong mess, ruin many lives thereby at one go. Make any damn excuse to escape such a marriage,” he says.