The Closet is a place where, perhaps with a few irrepressible exceptions, every gay man or woman begin their lives. To be a young gay person is a rather peculiar situation, as it’s a trait that is core to your being yet requires, on the whole, the necessity for you to actively proclaim it rather than it just explicitly ‘being’; as is the case with say, gender or skin colour.
It’s a sad state of affairs that even in the 21st century there is still so much hostility towards gay people across the world, whether it be the so-called corrective rape in South Africa or the executions in Iran, many places view gay people as a virus to be eradicated. Indeed Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has outright denied the very existence of gay people in his homeland:
There's a point in there somewhere... 