Heterosexual people take being able to show each other affection in public for granted. Sadly for us it can be different. When you put your arm lovingly around your significant other walking down the street people can react as though you are having anal sex with diseased 3 legged Guinea Pig! It is so rare to see people from our communities showing affection in public that our relationships are largely invisible. As much as we’ve been trained to not show our love for each other in public, the great news is that if we identify what is holding us back we can share the same freedoms as straight people.

One sad fact is the need for safety. It probably wouldn’t be a good idea to hold hands with your partner while wearing a sequins lime green off the shoulder number in the main streets in the outer suburbs.

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Online dating websites have created a revolution in gay dating.  Because the gay population is relatively small in comparison, it is still quite difficult for our gay population to find love online … but not impossible. In some ways, the Internet provides safety, relative anonymity and a global reach that creates a huge number of new possibilities.  The World Wide Web makes the playing field much more level.

Gay and lesbian online dating sites have been around for over 10 years and these sites often have thousands of members at any given time, so you really don’t have to worry about not having enough choices.  You just have to be persistent about looking.

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“Through therapy, you can heal the pain and fear underlying your abuse…”

Dealing with substance abuse is of particular concern to members of gay and lesbian communities throughout the country. There are common characteristics among all individuals struggling with addiction; however, gay men and lesbians face additional difficulties that can lead to addiction. Social taboos and judgments, hurtful comments, the need to hide one’s identity to avoid loss of family, friends or church community – are a few examples of the emotional and relational pressures that lead gays and lesbians to self-medicate or to seek companionship and connection in bars.

Given the statistics, which reflect an exceptionally high incidence of abuse among gays and lesbians, it is important to recognize the risk factors and to know that there are effective alternatives for dealing with the pressures faced in this community.

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Last Tuesday (12th October 2010) was “National Coming out Day” in the UK. To quote Wikipedia, this is “an internationally observed civil awareness day for coming out and discussion about gay, lesbian, bisexual, asexual and transgender (LGBT) issues”. It seems appropriate then, for this week’s blog post to be about working with gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender clients.

I’ll start off with stating that I don’t give two hoots whether you are gay, lesbian, straight, bisexual or transgender. We are all OK and there are no goods or bads, rights or wrongs, there’s just us.

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