"The Truth About Who We Are..."

Vito and Fernando, Photographer and Civil Servant - Rio De Janeiro
by thegaymenproject
photo by Kevin Truong

Fernando, in his own words: "I never thought what means to me to be a gay man. But I know or I feel it´s not just only to be sexually attracted to other men, it´s being comfortable with it.

Challenge or success of being gay? I think we only have challenges being gay! All of the people around us think about our sexuallity or our homosexuality, and rarely we hear good things from them. All the time we have to prove we are not pathetic or promiscuous.

"Coming out" was not very easy. Even hard! I think it was a process I took me some time to complete. It was not very easy to accept myself but keeping secrets is very exhausting. The first step of my "coming out" was to accept that I am gay, then it was easier to tell my sons and my family.

(If I could give myself advice before coming out I'd say) Don´t waste time!! Be happy!!"

Vito, in his own words: "It's really simple, to be gay is to be happy with myself and faithful with other people.

I keep having a challenge, because my family "doesn't know" about my sexuality, or they pretend not to... but it's ok, because we live too far away. I've been successful about being open with my friends, I've never had any problem with them about this. They are my family in Rio.

The gay community in Rio is really bad... we have always the same things happening, same parties, same places, same people.... same blah blah blah. I love the gay community at São Paulo, there's a lot of differences from here!

(With regards to coming out) I'm still in the closet...to my family! hahahhaha But in Rio, everybody knows, and it happened in the most normal way:
- Hi Carol, I'm gay.
- Ok. lets go have a drink!

(Advice I'd give myself) Face your family, they love you."