Dear Gianna

Q: “I’m 22 and I’ve been in a relationship with a girl for a year. I can’t tell my mum because I know she wouldn’t approve. My girlfriend and I love each other deeply. We talk about our future together, we want to travel, hold hands, do all the things people in love do. But I can’t even invite her to a family dinner. I’m so sad. One day, will I have to leave for the sake of my family? Am I wrong? Am I dirty? Am I unnatural, like my family always says when they watch TV?”

A: I’m so happy for you. And yes, I’ve read your letter and felt all the pain behind your words, but I’ve chosen to begin with a bright note: you are in love, and it’s mutual. You’ve found a soulmate. Do you know how rare that is? Please, in moments of sadness, focus on how extraordinarily lucky that is.

That said, I can’t help but feel deeply saddened by your words. The fact that your happiness might be compromised for such trivial reasons is, in my opinion, a tragedy.

Let me start by answering your questions: no, no, no, and finally—no.

Let’s look at why.

Unfortunately, I can’t tell you why you love a woman. An article by Marta Erba in Focus explains that, although scientists have spent about a century trying to understand whether homosexuality is innate or acquired, they still haven’t reached a definitive answer. What we do know for certain, however, is that specialists have now entirely rejected the idea that there’s anything pathological about homosexuality. Sadly, it was only in 1990 that the World Health Organisation finally removed it from the international classification of diseases. Better late than never.

But as early as 1935, Freud wrote in a letter to the mother of a gay son:

“Dear Madam,

I gather from your letter that your son is homosexual. […] Homosexuality is nothing to be ashamed of, no vice, no degradation; it cannot be classified as an illness; we consider it to be a variation of the sexual function, caused by a certain arrest of sexual development. Many highly respected individuals of ancient and modern times were homosexuals, several of the greatest men among them. (Plato, Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, etc.)”

Let’s now turn to Nicla Vassallo’s “Same-Sex Marriage is Against Nature. False!” as a helpful starting point.

You ask: “Am I against nature?”

This idea—that homosexuality is “against nature”—comes from religious influence over civil society. St Paul, in his Letter to the Romans, writes: “God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. In the same way, the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another.”

But as Vassallo points out: how can we say homosexuality is against nature when it’s widely practised by non-human animals—the very beings who live in the most natural state, free from societal and ethical conditioning? And I would add: if human beings have engaged in same-sex relationships throughout history—regardless of culture, historical era, or customs—or, as Marx might say, regardless of superstructure, then how can it possibly be unnatural?

I’ll stop here with the idea of “against nature.” That such a nonsensical and baseless prejudice still exists is reason enough not to waste another line on it.

You ask if you’re dirty or wrong. I’m here to tell you: you are luminous. Radiant. As pure as every soul who has known real love—love in the Platonic sense, the force that lifts us to the divine. The “dirtiness” you’re being accused of is nothing more than society’s fear of the human body, which leads people to project disgust—bad smells, slime, hypersexuality—onto minorities. Martha Nussbaum, in Hiding from Humanity: Disgust, Shame, and the Law, explains this beautifully.

When it comes to women, the discrimination often stems from refusing to conform to the patriarchal family structure. According to Nussbaum, societies tend to select certain groups of individuals to label as “abnormal” and shame them. Why do we do this? Because we’re afraid of our own fragility, of the messiness of our own bodies. We fool ourselves into thinking we can control everything. And when that illusion breaks down, we project our shame onto others. That shame quickly turns into aggression against anyone we see as “different.”

But what is “different,” really? According to Nicla Vassallo, we are all different and unique. What matters is how we live our uniqueness with others—recognising that society, any collective at all, is made up of many different selves, not of sameness.

So, don’t do anything “against nature”—especially not against your nature. Be yourself. Even if hiding might feel like the easier path, even if it might earn your parents’ approval, living in denial of your authenticity would bring immense suffering over time.

If you conform and blend in, you’ll lose your genuine self. You’ll become what Heidegger called das Man—“the They.” That is, the shallow version of a person who moves through life guided by what “one does,” not what they truly are. According to Heidegger, this leads to a lesser, unexamined way of being—where you end up living someone else’s choices.

And how do we return to authentic living, according to him? Through anguish. Anguish forces us to ask questions, to investigate, to reconnect with our true selves.

So I’m actually glad to hear you’re questioning and feeling discomfort—it means you’re on the right path.

I truly hope this situation will one day resolve, and that at your family’s Christmas dinner, your girlfriend will be there by your side.

Recommended Book: The Velvet Rage: Overcoming the Pain of Growing Up Gay in a Straight Man’s World by Alan Downs