“A Stroke Turned Me Gay”

Remember? There’s a BBC show about that straight rugby player who, after having a stroke, turned into a gay hairdresser. I’m skeptical. It might be probable that a stroke could change sexual orientation, but isn’t it just as probable that this guy is mentally ill? And no, I’m not saying that homosexuality is a mental illness! I’m saying that this was someone with a lot of problems to begin with (why did someone as young as him have a stroke?), and who knows what made him decide to embrace homosexuality. Sometimes people just do weird things. Sometimes people just like attention.

15 thoughts on ““A Stroke Turned Me Gay””

  1. Nothing like having your own mortality shoved in your face, to make you re-evaluate your priorities. Helps you figure out what’s important and what makes you happy. I don’t think the stroke “made” him gay. I think he just realized, consciously or subconsciosly, to be himself.

  2. I didn’t realize I liked guys also until I was in my thirties. This guy is probably bisexual. As far as going from rugby to hairdressing, people do pick up and drop away from hobbies all the time. Putting gender roles on them seems silly.

    1. I do not want to offend you but could you please expand upon your comments? I’ve read comments like yours by other bisexual men and I must admit that I’m completely perplexed by your experiences.

      You only developed an attraction to other men in your thirties? I’m not talking about coming out or acknowledging something to yourself, you’re saying that you had no same-sex attraction until it manifested itself in your thirties, am I correct?

      1. That is correct: I did not have same sex attractions until I was in my thirties. No offence taken. I have had and continue to have relationships (not just bathroom breaks) with both genders. Bisexuals actually exist; at least, I’m pretty sure I exist. I don’t think it is a choice, but I do think what turns a person on can morph through time.

        1. And that’s why I don’t understand why people insist on lumping together B’s into LGBT. It is the immutability of gayness that makes us a protected class (like race and gender), gives us the grounds to demand civil rights like the right to marry.

        2. I have no doubt that bisexuality exists. Heck, most of the guys profiled on this porn site are bisexual. What I find astonishing is that bi people can develop an attraction to the same-gender well past the puberty phase. Again, not to offend, but did that ever seem strange to you? That well into your 30s you suddenly developed an attraction to men?

          1. I think facultative heterosexual might be a better descriptor, since he was a straight male who acquired his same-sex attraction late in life.

          2. I suppose it is strange since it seems to fall outside of the norm, but the more I meet and sleep with people, the more I see there is no norm. People are quite wide in their erotic tastes, which makes life so interesting. I’m not sure if I agree that immutability of homosexuality is a reason for gay marriage. The only reason that gays can’t marry is religion, an archaic belief system whose followers ignore the basic precepts (take care of the poor) and follow its harshest ideas (all of Leviticus). Gays should be allowed to marry because we are a secular democratic republic, but we a bit off topic now.

          3. @Digby

            This is more than about the right to marry. (We, gays, already have the right to marry granted to us in the Constitution.) Immutability is one of the tests of a protected class, so that gays cannot be targeted for discrimination/harassment. Prop 8 sought to discriminate against gays by allowing only “opposite-sex marriage” to be recognized as valid; that is why it was ruled unconstitutional. What’s the sense in protecting gays from discrimination if it is a transitory condition and subject to change? Indeed, this was brought up by the defendants in Perry vs. Schwarzenegger. Your argument about religion wouldn’t hold up court. Religion, after all, is also a protected class. They might well argue that allowing gay marriage discriminates against the Christian religion. I expect we’ll see such suits if these constitutional amendments are rejected/overturned.

          4. Then it comes down an argument over semantics, which is what law is anyway. You say that immutability is a test of a protected class and religion is a protected class. But religion is mutable–either in it’s beliefs (edicts, councils, or schisms)or in a person’s own religious belief (a person is free to change religion or to give it up altogether). Pregnancy is also a transitory condition, yet we have laws that protect pregnant women; why shouldn’t that protection be given to people who have mutable desires? There is no obvious truth. Gay marriage rubs people’s sense of morals. What those morals are is up to the individual, but to think that law can cleave through the semantics to the truth is not workable. People use laws to maintain their power and impose their beliefs on others. The science is clear that people don’t choose their desires, but that doesn’t mean desires don’t change.

          5. @Digby

            I said immutability is *one* of the proofs of a protected class, not the only one. Age is mutable, but it, too, is a protected class. To discriminate against a pregnant woman is to discriminate against her gender (or here an aspect of her gender); gender is an immutable protected class (we’ll leave out transgendered status for the time being). Religion is heritable to a certain extent and often choice doesn’t enter into it. But if that’s not justification enough for you, blame the founding fathers and that whole “freedom of religion” thing.

  3. I agree with Loki. When this story was first reported last year, there were numerous neurosurgeons and doctors who commented on this and basically they all said there is no medical evidence to support what this guy is saying. People tend to re-evaulate their lives after a near death experience and I am going to assume that is what’s happened here.

    Now this is what i don’t understand. Why couldn’t he still play rugby after he “turned gay”? Why did he have to become such a tedious, outdated stereotype of a gay man?

    Also, how much money do you think he has earned from all the magazine articles and TV spots he has done in the past year?

  4. I think it’s more likely that after the stroke he realized life was too short to be living a lie.

    Ugh. I can just see those reparative therapy hacks attempting to induce strokes in gay men to achieve the reverse (not that forced emesis and electroconvulsive therapy are far removed from that).

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