I’m often discouraged by the stereotypes that get … glamorized about us gay men.

Even when the stereotypes are mostly positive, they don’t do us justice. They don’t acknowledge our diversity and our humanity.

I’m a single man in my late fifties who lives alone deep in the countryside, writing fiction, taking nature photographs, and bird watching.

I’m no less gay because I haven’t used Grindr in years. I’m not even that unusual.

I’m thinking of a young friend of mine who just got his master’s degree in physics and is now working on a master’s in photography.

He’s no less gay because he rarely has time to dance the night away shirtless in an exciting club. (And is probably too shy to take his shirt off anyway.)

I’m thinking of a friend of mine in a nursing home, disabled after a frightening illness that almost took his life. He’s no less gay because his rich intellectual life is the focus of his new existence.

When Amy Coney Barrett spoke of “sexual preference” last week during Senate Judiciary Committee hearings, she did more than repeat antiquated and offensive vocabulary.

She unconsciously repeated what so many people believe. That gay men reduce to choices about sex.

As you so well point out, we do not.