Jake Shears Quotes

Since puberty, I've always known there was a possibility of me being with a man. It wasn't anything I felt the need to explore until the time came to explore it.

You know, I'm gay and I grew up being aware of that at a very early age, in a fairly repressed family.

I came out around 25 publicly.

I can't speak for other people, but for me, I feel like gone are the days that you need to come out of a closet. I never felt like I was in a closet. I never did. I always felt comfortable with who I am and the decisions I made.

People who were close to me - family and friends - they knew about my sexuality.

I was raised thinking I'd burn in hell for being gay, but I didn't have a choice. It's just who I am.

As anyone who is gay will confirm, being that way is not something you become, it is a set of emotional and physical responses that just are.

I think one's sexuality can be the center of life, and coming out and discovering your sexuality is something that really can define your existence.

I wanted so badly to be straight like my friends. But I couldn't change it any more than I could change having brown eyes. And I knew I would never fit into what kids thought was normal.

I didn't know if I was heterosexual or homosexual.

I really didn't talk about my sexuality until I wrote my autobiography.

It was shortly before my 18th birthday when I came out and admitted that I was gay.

Not everybody comes out when they're in their twenties, you know?

It was never like I had to go, 'I am gay.' Slowly, almost by osmosis, by the way I was behaving, it became obvious and accepted.

It doesn't inspire young men and women struggling with their own sexuality to be confident in who they are if I'm not confident in who I am.

Being gay, you're kind of forced to ask, I suppose, very existential questions from a very, very early age. Your identity becomes so important to you because you're trying to understand it, and, I think, from the age of, like, 9, you're being forced to ask questions... that other kids maybe don't have to ask.

I actually don't label myself, but... Some people call me queer; some people call me bisexual, whatever it is now. I'm happy with all of it 'cause it all sort of represents me, in a way. I spent a majority of my life in the closet.

It takes some intelligence and insight to figure out you're gay and then a tremendous amount of balls to live it and live it proudly.

If I was gay, there would be no closet. You would never see the closet I came out of. Why? Because I'd have burned it for kindling by the time I was twelve... If I was gay, at this stage of the game?age 37, aging alternative icon?I'd be taking out ads.

When I came out, when I was 17 years old, it was one of those things where I realized that there was going to be so many obstacles, but being gay doesn't mean being weak. And being gay doesn't mean that you are less than anybody else. It's just who you are.

I'm gay. I just didn't think it was anybody's business.

I've wondered what my sexuality might be, but I've never wondered whether it was acceptable or not. Anyway, who really cares whether I'm gay or straight?

On YouTube, if anything, coming out as gay or bi or trans explodes someone's popularity.

The gay community just recognizes what their closets are and we straight have to spend years trying to figure out which closet we are trapped in.

When you're a young kid and you're gay, you're out there on your own. And you're trying to figure this thing out. And your parents typically aren't gay.