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I don’t know… all I know is that it haaaaas to play a part…

I had a cousin… let’s call her G, she was a year and a half younger than me… she committed suicide 10 years ago cause she realized that she was gay… being a lesbian in a small town isn’t easy… + she had fallen in love with her bestfriend who had just started dating her first bf…

I remember how devastated I was back then… you know how there’s always one person you always look forward to seeing in huge family gatherings? how there’s that oooone person you get along great no matter how long it’s been since you last saw each other? the one person whose presence to whatever event, even the ones you are planning on finding yourself an excuse to avoid, makes you change your mind and you end up going anyways? she was that person for me

I did question my sexuality back then, (heck I questioned everything about myself back then, it just hit me that hard) but I settled on : “not that I know of” cause I just had no clue and trying to force myself into answering that question when I just had no idea if I was straight or not felt useless… I figured I’d eventually find out.

a couple of years after G committed suicide, my second favorite cousin (let’s call him B) did his coming out. we didn’t hang out much when we were younger cause back then the 3 years difference seemed huge… so he qualified to hang out with the oldest cousins, while I settled for being an outcast with G cause we weren’t old enough to hang out with the ones old enough to go to bars, but we were too old to enjoy the company of the young ones 5-8 years younger than us…

since B’s coming out, I had always made sure to hang out with him a lot… I thought it was because after G’s death I had sworn myself to be an advocate for gay rights wherever I went in her honor. at least that’s what I thought anyway… yeah pretty naive I know… lol hanging with him a lot brought us closer, he’s like a big brother to me now.

he’s the one I came out to first once I (fiiiinally! lol) realized I was gay… it was by hanging out with him that I found myself back into the “am I gay?” phase that led to the ultimate what if “what if I can only be truly happy with a woman?” when I met a cute lesbian couple that were friends of his… which eventually led to “ok so I’m a lesbian, so what?”

I remember what B’s dad (who’s acknowledging his son but doesn’t wanna hear anything about his sexuality) once told him when B told him I was gay as well “for fuck’s sake it runs in the family?”

and I remember thinking it was funny… bittersweet in a way cause me and B both wish G could still be with us… we wish we could have figured ourselves out before she did as to set out an example for her that it’s ok to be gay… so that we could have been there for her… I guess even though she was younger than both of us, she was so ahead of us about this…

me and B often talk about G… as much as we wish things would have gone differently, we always end up being grateful because we are convinced that it’s her death that opened up many eyes in our respective families (too bad it didn’t seem to be enough for B’s dad… ) + it was her death that pushed B into accepting his sexuality and coming out… + it was her death that made me show my support to B when he came out which we all know now ended up in making me realize I am gay as well…

so does it run in the family? definitely but it just can’t explain it all… I can hear you ask me why… because with my history, it seems quite obvious… well there’s only one small dent in this theory… you see, B has a twin brother… an identical twin… and his twin brother is straight (that we know of anyway… just gimme a sec ) B’s brother (let’s call him T) is apparently straight… born different says that if one identical twin is gay, the other one has 52% of being gay as well

so I guess that explains how genetics plays a big part in sexual orientation, but not all…

I still question T’s sexuality… because his behavior is weird… but it could be attributed to two things :
a- either he’s gay and waaaay in denial or
b- he’s homophobic

yeah I know how ironic to have 2 identical twins, one gay and the other one homophobic… lol

but I am doubting his sexuality because of his behavior… ever since B came out, T freaked out (it has been going on for years now) because he is convinced people who know or knew both of ‘em will mistake him for the gay one of the two… and well that makes me think that he could be gay himself but too in denial to accept it so to see his twin brother not only accepting but acknowledging his homosexuality and embracing it angers him…

now that’s all theories really… and well so far I haven’t heard of anyone else in our family being gay [well two notable exceptions being outside our family circle: one of my dad's brother is married to a woman who has a sister who's gay (lost yet? lol) and still in that aunt's family there's one of her nephew who's gay as well] but if you look at the stats on how many people in the general population are gays (born different states that 3% of the population is born gay), it sure does add up to quite a lot for 1 family alone… *shrugs*