I would say it was a negative experience being gay in high school (2007-2011). While I didn't experience homophobic abuse everyday, there were some incidents that majorly impacted how I interacted with my classmates, how safe I felt in that building, and how I felt about the trustworthiness of the adults in my life. The biggest one was that, on a class trip in 2009, I was sexually assaulted out of the closet. Several of my classmates in the specialized program I was in dared a girl to give me a lap dance and the violation I felt caused me to come out in the heat of the moment. They then tried to play it off like they didn't know I was gay (trauma bonding; gaslighting), but one of them told me the next day that they had known since we were in the 8th grade. Shortly after the assault, I went through another traumatic experience at the hands of two more classmates and one of the girls involved in the dare thought my coming out was a good opportunity to talk about how she was the victim after sexually assaulting my crush (a closeted gay man) because he yelled at her.

I feel like I missed out on more because of having an overbearing, boundary crossing mother. I think if I were straight, I would be like my one friend's ex-boyfriend (his mother was the one who talked her into dating him despite him having no interest in her, they ended up having a several years long relationship he couldn't break up from because mommy dearest was a psycho). I think in high school I would have had more real friends if I were straight (instead of being pushed and groomed into fulfilling the GBF sexpert role and being treated like shit every time I deviated from that by being my own person).

There are definitely things I've experienced because of my sexual orientation that I would not have experienced if I were a straight man (or would have experienced differently if I were a bisexual man). It's made me hyperaware of female predators (hence one of the reasons why I rally against trans-identified women in gay men's spaces), made me selective about who I'm friends with, and made me into a much more guarded person overall.

I feel that it's important for gay kids to have other gay friends, not just other gay kids in their life who are romantic prospects. A big part of why I founded the GSA in my high school was so that we could have a comfortable place to discuss experiences we had among our peers or at home because of our non-heterosexual sexual orientations that we may not have felt comfortable disclosing in front of our straight peers, however the first person to join was the girl who sexually assaulted my crush so out the door went that possibility. I think it's important to have someone similar enough to you that you can cross-reference your experiences with, even among other friends, so you know you aren't going crazy when you reflect on your interpersonal interactions. I don't think it's healthy for a gay teenager/young adult to be in a friend group that is made up exclusively of straight women because (in my experience) they will shatter your self-esteem and act like you are the bad friend for not living up to whatever Will & Grace fantasy they had in mind.