Meeting your new guy’s friends By Kimberly Dawn Neumann

Things are great when it’s just the two of you. But then one day your new beau utters the phrase, “I’d love for you to meet some of my pals” and you know it’s time for the Friend Test. Don’t panic. This is actually a good thing. He’s seeing you as someone who might stick around for a while, and he’s ready to gauge how you fit with the pieces already in place (i.e., his social circle). But that’s also precisely why it’s very important to make a good impression at this juncture in your relationship.

“In the gay world, meeting a new beau’s friends for the first time is like meeting his family,” says Joe Kort, MSW, a psychotherapist and author of 10 Smart Things Gay Men Can Do To Find Real Love. “A gay guy is going to look for his friends’ approval before moving towards exclusivity.”

With that in mind, we’ve gathered some expert and real-people advice to help you sail through that first friend meet-up. Read on to learn more.

Could a newborn baby be gay?

The “Tuscan initiative”, sponsored by Italy's equal opportunities ministry, promotes a billboard advertising campaign which uses a photo of a baby to express its message concerning homosexuality.


Baby Used in Homosexual Ad Campaign - Vatican Objects By Deacon Keith Fournier


My question as a gay man and gay therapist is, "What is wrong with considering babies and children as gay or lesbian?"


The article is about the Vatican objecting to an ad against discrimination of homosexuality showing a baby wearing a hospital bracelet.


The hospital bracelet worn by the newborn bears the French word "homosexuel" in the place where the child’s name would normally be placed to tell the waiting world of his or her identity. The campaign slogan is "Sexual orientation is not a choice."


The Vatican and others are criticizing it including a gay man himself.


Yet, Gianni Vattimo, well known postmodern philosopher, a self professed homosexual, is critical of the advertising campaign. In an interview with the daily "Corriere della Sera"newspaper he questioned the idea that homosexuality is genetic. As for the billboard campaign, he said "The initiative is in bad taste, in fact they've made a mess of it."


The reason anyone would think this is in bad taste is that no one likes to think of children as already being homosexual and later coming out as gay.


My thoughts are that it is because when people hear the word gay they only hear gay adult sex. They don't consider homosexuality as anything other than sexual. But when we think of children being straight we don't think of them in adult sexuality terms. We think of them being romantic and cute with opposite gender peers and teachers.


"Do you have a crush on Mrs. T?" we ask a kindergarten boy.
"Do you like Bobby in class?" we ask the first grade girl.


This usually means something romantic and sweet not sexual! So why do people think of gay children as sexual and not sweet?


What do people think of this? Why is this?

Homophobia is still alive and well...in New Jersey!

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The LGBT Mental Health Syllabus

The Lesbian and Gay Mental Health Syllabus

Introducing a new website created by the LGBT Issues Committee of the Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry (GAP).

The site's goal is to teach psychiatry residents about caring for lesbian, gay, bisexual, trangender, and intersex patients. The LGBT Issues Committee hopes it will also be useful to all health and mental health trainees and practitioners.The site includes a series of modules that can be used sequentially to provide a comprehensive learning guide for working with LGBT patients.

The eight modules are:

* The History of Psychiatry and Homosexuality
* Taking a Sexual History with LBGT Patients
* Psychological Development & Life Cycle
* Psychotherapy * Medical and Mental Health
* Transgender
* Intersex
* Diversity / People of Color

Each module begins with a pre-test to help participants assess their existing knowledge about specific topics. After the main body of each module, a post-test helps assure that learning goals have been achieved. Modules also have relevant links, resource lists, and references to facilitate deeper exploration of topics.

Development of this site was supported by a generous grant from The Gill Foundation.

The Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry (GAP) is a U.S. organization of nationally respected psychiatrists dedicated to shaping psychiatric thinking, public programs and clinical practice in mental health. Its 29 committees meet semi-annually and choose their own topics for exploration. GAP Committees have pioneered the exploration of issues and ideas on the frontiers of psychiatry and in applying psychiatric insights into the general medical, social, and interpersonal problems of our times.

The GAP web page can be found at:

http://www.groupadpsych.org/files/aboutgap

Loving Someone Gay by Don Clark

This book, now in its 4th edition, was the first time I had ever read anything about homosexuality from an affirmative point of view. It was given to me by a gay man who was two years older than I was in college. I was a Junior at Michigan State University and he was in graduate school. He saw my pain and panic struggling with my homosexuality. He gave me this book and it changed my life forever. I still have the original book which has yellowed and torn in places.

Loving Someone Gay by Don Clark helped start my coming out process and prompted the beginning of my becoming a clinical social worker and working as a psychotherapist with lesbian and gays providing Gay Affirmative Therapy.

Mrs. Hughes Live at the Ice House

This is hysterical and so true! This woman is very good.

Joe Kort's Workshops

Joe’s Workshops/Classes Dates

Click on the workshop title for more information and to register.

Getting the Love You Want (Heterosexual Couples)
March 1-2, 2008Dec 6-7, 2008

Getting the Love You Want (Gay and Lesbian Couples)
April 19-20, 2008Oct 18-19, 2008

Keeping the Love You Find (A Relationship Class for Gay, Lesbian and Straight Singles)
April 22 - May 27, 2008Sept 9 - Oct 14, 2008
(6 weeks)

Reclaiming the Man in the Mirror: A Workshop for Gay Men
June 21-22, 2008

Click on the workshop title for more information and to register.