Welcome

Welcome to Being gay is okay (BGIOK): Information and advice for gay, lesbian, bisexual and unsure under twenty-fives.

BGIOK is all about common sense, no nonsense advice and information, cutting through the stereotypes and bigotry, and helping young people feel better about their sexuality and about the person they are beyond that.

BGIOK offers quality, informative articles without ads and junk, all of it completely free to access. All the content here is unique to the site; you won't find it anywhere else.

The website has been running since 2000 with the material changing over the years to reflect the issues and topics that are most important to you. That's why there's a dedicated section on religion, mental health, and the gay scene, to mention just a few. And if you can't find the answers you're looking for elsewhere, you can write to the problem page.

Check out the forum for a great place to chat, seek advice from fellow visitors, share coming out stories, or just to talk about what sort of day you've had. Perhaps you want somewhere safe to admit that you are gay for the first time, as many people have done on the site before.

I hope that BGIOK helps to answer some of the questions you have about your sexuality and also enable you to better manage the different ways other people can react to those who aren't heterosexual.

Being gay doesn't mean that you are a freak or a bad person or that you've done something wrong. Being gay doesn't mean that you are alone.

04/Sep/2010: BGIOK's new look

If you've visited the site before you'll notice that things look different. Here's what's changed, what hasn't and what I have in store for the future:

• I rebuilt the site from scratch. I wanted the site to reflect my current skill level in graphic design, webdesign and illustration. I felt the old illustrations were very basic and I was no longer happy with them. I also felt that the different elements that made up the site didn't fit together as well as they should, so I've gone for a more consistent feel.
• The old navigation had become a bit unwieldy: I had every page linked to from every page. This meant that navigation had become a long list of links that couldn't be seen completely without scrolling. BGIOK now has a navigation bar that splits the content into logical sections. When you visit a section, the content within it is displayed as a sub-menu on the left, so you can now get around more easily.
• All the original written content is still here, though some parts, like the religion pages, have been almost completely rewritten. I have re-read, tweaked, added and chopped in all sections, to make them easier to read and more helpful.
• You may have noticed that the graphics that were unique to each section have disappeared. The new and more detailed illustration style takes a lot longer to produce. Illustrations will slowly start to appear in the different sections as time goes by. You can download the old graphics, as well as wallpapers and MSN icons, from the downloads page.

I hope you like the new design. Let me know what you think.