Here is a photo of my friend and hunting buddy Jason and me. Jason is a family man and a man’s man; he is happily married and has a six-year-old daughter. Not long after we became hunting buddies some years ago, I told him I am gay. His response was, “and that will affect our hunting how?” Since then, our friendship and hunting partnership flourished. It was under Jason’s guidance I took up whitetail deer hunting. Hitherto, I was first and foremost a gamebird hunter. Upon taking up deer hunting with Jason as my mentor, I took four deer to date, starting in the 2012 season with a nice doe, a nine-point buck in 2016, a spike horn buck in 2017, and an eight-point buck in 2020. As a result, I have a presence online as a gay hunter. I publish a blog, Geoffrey’s Hunting Diary, subtitled “memoirs of a gay huntsman.” In addition, I have a YouTube channel called The Gay Huntsman. Those who view my videos and read my blog posts find the emphasis on hunting and not that I am gay. Yes, Jason gets it; my sexual orientation is irrelevant–it has no bearing on our shared passion for hunting and our friendship.

Why then, some people ask, is there a need to disclose that I am gay in sharing my hunting adventures online? What it always comes back to is my experience growing up gay. I am sixty years old; from middle school on in the early 1970s, I was called “fairy, faggot, pansy, queer,” among other things. As I grew into manhood, I accepted that as a gay man, the onus was on me to prove to society that I am not a pervert. The stereotype of the homosexual whose life revolved around the bathhouse, the leather bar, and an ongoing stream of tricks did not make accepting my homosexuality easier. The gay rights movement succeeded in throwing off the stigma of being a gay man focusing on our civil rights. Like many, if not most, gay men, all I wanted was to take my place in society–to have equality in law and opportunity, to be judged for who I am, not what I am. I did not want any favours or special treatment.

Against the successes of the gay rights movement are the prancing queens, crossdressers, fetishists, queer activists, and others who compose the Woke countercultural constituency succeeded in forcing me back into the closet. I survived a brush with cancel culture with my job and reputation intact but at the price of having to keep my silence. The experience left me demoralized. The gay rights movement, a facet of men’s rights advocacy, came so far only to be hijacked by the Woke racial and gender identitarians who tolerate no dissent. I am labelled a “transphobe, an anti-queer bigot, and a conservative,” among other things, for the expression of skepticism and criticism of their ideology on social media. Frankly, they are worse than any of the Abrahamic religious institutions in their persecution of gay men who only want to live openly and participate fully in society.

I need to be careful what I share on social media. It is not lost on me that I could be targeted by the Woke online lynch mob as a gun owner and hunter. Regardless of the risk, I will go on sharing my experiences as a gay hunter online. In doing so, I hope I can show that being gay is no big deal; that gay or not, you can enjoy pastimes like hunting. It is who you are, not what you are, that matters. It is men like my friend Jason who understand that. I move freely in hunting and sport shooting circles as an openly gay man; with a few exceptions, no one cares. The irony is not lost that it is the Woke left who tried to cancel me for being a gay man. My friendship with Jason is a blessing. We lead by example, showing that people of different backgrounds can be friends. Sharing our hunting adventures sets a standard of ethical conduct and sportsmanship for others to follow.

Posted by Geoffrey