Lgbtq ugly people
The gay men risking their health for the perfect body
LGBT correspondent
"You're too ugly to be gay," a gentleman in a Huddersfield gay bar told Jakeb Arturio Bradea.
It was the latest in a series of comments from men that Jakeb says made him feel worthless. Last summer, following the comments, he tried to kill himself.
Manchester-based charity the LGBT Foundation has warned that body image issues are becoming more widespread in gay communities. It says gay and bisexual men are "much more likely" than heterosexual men to struggle with them.
A number of gay men have told the BBC they are going to utmost lengths to modify their bodies - including using steroids and having plastic surgery - just to become "accepted" by others in the LGBT community.
Several said pressure from social media platforms and dating apps was exacerbating their body issues.
"Guys with stunning bodies acquire the comments and the attention," says Jakeb. "I've not gone on dates because I'm scared of people seeing me in genuine life. I would honestly have plastic surgery if I could afford it."
Instead of surgery, a few ye
What it's like to feel ugly
The Sugababes Mutya Buena stares into a dirt-smeared mirror, and sings the immortal line: “When I was seven they said I was strange”. Tears begin to stream across my moon-shaped, acne plastered face. It’s 2005 — a year thick with nothingness, one in which culture was still stabbing round in the dark for an answer to what the millennium meant — and it was the first time I’d ever been made aware of the idea of ugliness as an feeling trait, not simply a physical one. A physical one with which I’d been long-suffering for the fifteen years of my existence prior to hearing this masterwork from the best British girl band in history (come on, @ me!).
Prior to this empowering anthem, I’d simply been ugly. I always feel like I’m complaining on the internet — cease being homophobic, halt being transphobic, cease being alive if you’re a cis white man amirite ladies??? — but this isn’t me boohooing because I was ugly, or seeking sympathy from the self-love goddesses on Twitter and Instagram who say me I was always a lovely soul, no. This is just societal fact (different to actual fact, but we’ll come to that) — I had bad acne, I was ginger (still am), obese (s
Biden condemns 'hysterical' and 'ugly' anti-LGBTQ measures
President Joe Biden on Thursday unveiled new initiatives to aid LGBTQ Americans and called recent anti-trans efforts "thoroughly unjustified" and "ugly."
Biden was set to host the White House's largest-ever Celebration celebration but had to postpone due to the heavy smoke that inundated Washington, as well as other major U.S. cities, from raging Canadian wildfires.
Instead, he discussed the initiatives during a press conference with British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak when asked about his message to families who no longer feel safe amid increasing legislative onslaughts in Republican-led states.
Biden, who first touted his administration's work to reverse the transgender military ban and his signing of the Respect for Marriage Act, slammed the effort to rollback such protections.
"Our fight is far, far from over because we have some hysterical, and I would challenge prejudiced, people who are engaged in all you what see going on around the country," he said. "It's an appeal to fear and an appeal that is totally, thoroughly unjustified, ugly."
Biden continued
INTERVIEW: ‘The situation for LGBTIQ+ Indonesians is ‘ugly’ and has deteriorated’
Intolerance of non-conventional sexual and gender identities and diverse genders and sexual orientations in Indonesia seemingly remains stubbornly high.
The results of a survey in 2016 conducted by Indonesia’s Wahid Foundation showed that just over 26 percent of Indonesians ‘disliked LGBT people’; and a 2020 survey by the Pew Foundation establish that only nine percent of Indonesians agreed with the statement that homosexuality should be accepted.
Dr Dédé Oetomo is an activist and founder of the GAYa NUSANTARA Foundation, Indonesia’s longest running gay rights organisation, and an Adjunct Lecturer in gender and sexuality at Universitas Airlangga.
He spoke with Melbourne Asia Review’s managing editor, Cathy Harper.
How would you explain the legal and social reality of LGBTIQ+ Indonesians?
It is ugly. For example on Valentine’s day, in many small towns, and not-so-small towns, the so-called public order police, or sometimes the proper police, go from hotel to hotel—cheap ones, they would not go to the Marriott or the Hyatt—and raid rooms that might have a man or woman, or increasingly th
Why representation is important
It’s no secret that mainstream media struggles with queer inclusion. It’s part of the reason why fanfiction has been thriving since the 2000s — audiences craved queer characters so strongly that they began to create their own alternative universes and headcanons (ideas held by fans that are not explicitly supported by the content itself).
While representation in entertainment media is slowly improving, progress is sluggish — and sometimes misguided.
Queer representation now comes in many forms, and it isn’t always positive. On top of that, even accurate and compelling forms of gay representation can sometimes be very upsetting to gender non-conforming folks. Representation is a nuanced topic, not just because diversity is hard to depict, but also because different forms of representation can achieve very different outcomes.
Let’s explore the complex path of gay representation together.
Proper advocacy helps combat stereotypes and ignorance. And this isn’t just a theory. A 2015 study found that, when straight people are more exposed to queer characters on TV, they become more accepting of gay equality. On foremost of that, a 2020 survey by