Getting Out in New York
By Jessica Arabski

Growing up in a conservative suburb of Pennsylvania, Zachary Hasychak was captain of his high school swim team, played tennis and had a girlfriend. It was only when he moved to New York City for college that he found a community where he could say, “I’m gay,” without ridicule.

New York City, home of the modern gay rights movement, has a long history of accepting alternative lifestyles. A recent poll for Empire State Pride Agenda, a non-profit organization addressing lesbian and gay political issues, found that 53 percent of surveyed New York state residents support same-sex marriage. Only 39 percent of people nationwide are as accepting, according to the Pew Research Center. Relocating to New York from less tolerant communities can inspire people to reveal previously closeted sexual identities.

Photo by Jessica Arabski

George Segal’s sculpture “Gay Liberation” has stood in Christopher Park since 1992. The park is opposite the original site of the historic Stonewall Inn, now called the Stonewall Bar.

See images of diversity and acceptance in New York City.

“So many of us come from the rural and suburban towns where it’s not O.K.,” said

Hasychak, 20, now a sophomore studying Russian at New York University. “New York allows for everything. You can do things here and people aren’t going to judge or criticize.”

Of the 5.5 million unmarried couples living together nationwide, about one in nine are same sex couples, according to the 2000 Census. More than 25,000 of these couples reside in New York City.

Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender culture is a visible presence in the city. Posters advertising same-sex dating services are displayed at bus stops and rainbow-colored flags symbolizing gay pride hang from the windows of bars, clubs, restaurants and other establishments.

In 1969, a series of police raids at the Stonewall Inn, a Greenwich Village gay bar now considered the birthplace of the modern gay rights movement, politicized the gay community and sparked the formation of numerous advocacy groups. Today the city continues to maintain extensive support networks. The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center on West 13th Street in Chelsea, for instance, is the second largest gay-friendly community center in the world and serves as a meeting place for more than 300 groups a week.

Whether or not people choose to become actively involved, the center plays an important role in the community by organizing and representing the city’s gay population, said Yiannis Psaroudis, who moved to New York City in 2001.

Psaroudis, 35, hails from San Clemente, Cal., a community he describes as conservative. When he came out at age 20, his parents did not respond well.

In New York City, however, Psaroudis has found an accepting community. He’s busy with two jobs, working both in marketing and at a grocery store, but still finds time to volunteer at the Ali Forney Center, a shelter for homeless gay young adults on West 22nd Street. The city is so tolerant, however, that he feels less politicized than he did when living in certain parts of California.

“Here and in San Francisco and Los Angeles, I didn’t feel so politically charged. In San Diego, it’s a little more straight and there’s something to rebel against,” Psaroudis said. “Who is there to protest against? There aren’t many hyper-conservative people in New York.”

“I don’t think the gays in New York really think that they own the town, but I think they feel pretty comfortable here for the most part,” he said.

For Hasychak, the openness of a city where same-sex couples can hold hands in public is a welcome change. He is from Greensburg, Penn., with a population of roughly 16,000, that he describes as “your typical small town America.”

“No one ever assumed [I was gay] back home,” said Hasychak. “I created a personality for myself that wasn’t real.”

He recalled two students in his high school that publicly revealed they were gay. “They had a horrible high school experience, so it stopped everyone else from coming out,” Hasychak said.

In sharp contrast, the New York City Department of Education opened the Harvey Milk High School in 2002. The school provides gay students facing discrimination with a safe learning environment.

Since coming to NYU, Hasychak has become a peer educator, acting as a resource for new students coping with issues of sexuality.

“New York is seen as a place where they can find freedom and acceptance and community and relationships,” said Todd Smith, manager of the school’s Office of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Student Services.

Hasychak embraces the new, more comfortable identity New York City has helped him find. Every once in a while he receives an instant message from someone surprised to learn that he is gay.

Hasychak always has the same response: “I was gay when you knew me, then, too.”

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