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Outsider No More

By pw916

Whenever I arrive to a foreign land, I automatically feel like an outsider, and with good reason. But, I have noticed that, in a way, being gay gives me an automatic “in” to the culture I visit: being gay is sort of this connector, or equalizer, that transcends race, culture, social class. Despite the fact that people who identity as gay can be very different from one another, there is a perceived shared identity, a shared history.

This phenomenon was reinforced upon arriving to Rio de Janeiro. Rio has a sizable LGBT community, and when I reached out, I was warmly welcomed and on my way to making friends. But, as time has progressed, I have seen myself stepping out of the confines of the community because I don’t want to be surrounded by people who are strictly similar to me. Part of going abroad is to step outside your comfort zone, so I found it counterproductive to limit myself to one sector of Brazilian society.

In Rio I feel I can share this side of myself just as much as I can in DC; however, that isn’t to say that being gay here is the same as it is in the US. From what I have seen, the gay community in Rio is a bit more segmented than it is in DC. At least at GW, I think it is commonplace for individuals across the sexuality spectrum to frequent locations targeted towards a specific group (e.g. straight people going to gay clubs and vice-versa), whereas in Rio I have noticed this is less likely to happen. This tendency is intriguing, to say the least, but also makes me a tad uncomfortable because I don’t like feeling like I have to split my social life into two distinct categories of gay friends and straight friends.

As I look towards the second half of my semester, I only hope to continue making the most of the communities I've become a part of. Time is ticking and life’s too short to let sexuality get in the way of things, anyway.