Oprah asks what it's like to be "Gay around the World"

Yesterday's Oprah Winfrey Show was quite amazing to watch, as it featured the kind of coming out experiences we don't hear about very often. The show started with Prince Manvendra Singh Gohil of India, who came out after a nervous breakdown prompted by a miserable, closeted marriage. The Prince's coming out was a huge scandal in India, with his mother buying an ad in the paper announcing that she had disowned her son and wouldn't allow for anyone to refer to him as her child.

His mother was the first thing that Oprah asked him about and the Prince answered that he wasn't surprised by her reaction: "I don't blame her, I blame her ignorance." It wasn't so difficult to accept her reaction, he explained, since they were always distant (he was raised by governesses). When they did speak to each other, he explained, they never referred to each other by familiar names. Instead he referred to her as "Her highness" while she called him "The Prince".

The Prince also explained how he struggled with his sexuality, eventually getting married in the hopes that his homosexuality was a phase he'd get past. Unlike many other gay men in India, he wasn't coerced into getting married, but went into his wedding willingly. Oprah questioned him quite a bit about his wife and how she felt in the marriage, getting him to admit that he made her miserable by ignoring her and showing no interest in her physically.

Next she talked with Staceyann Chin, a New York-based poet, playwright and performer originally from Jamaica. Stacyann fled Jamaica after she was sexually assaulted by a gang of boys in a public restroom for being a lesbian. She explained:

"The culture is so actively homophobic ... I grew up listening to these songs -- songs like 'Boom bye-bye in the back of the head' ... the sound of shooting a gay man in the back of the head."

Hearing Stacyann talk about her attack was one of the episode's most chilling moments. Stacyann talked about being frozen by fear: "I thought I was going to fight but I was petrified." She said she still blames herself for the attack, wondering if she did something to bring it upon herself and feeling frustrated that she didn't fight her attackers harder. She had always thought of herself as someone with a big voice, someone who'd fight to defend herself until she found herself unable to act when facing hostility.

Before introducing Stacyann, Oprah told the audience that there were over 100 violent incidents against LGBT people in Jamaica in a period of just six months, and hearing Stacyann talk about being the subject of one such attack brought the reality crashing down.

Here's a clip from the interview:

Stacyann also talked longingly about Jamaica, sometimes sounding homesick for the country where she was born. It's still home to her, even if it's not a place where she can feel safe. It was clear that the conflict between wanting a place that feels like home and wanting to feel safe was clearly a painful situation for Stacyann.

Oprah also talked to John Amaechi, the NBA player who came out recently. Oprah quickly brought up the anti-gay statement made by Tim Hardaway and the fact that Hardaway apologized for what he said. Amechi expressed a need to see more contriteness from Hardaway:

"I think people with these big booming voices... they need to understand that their words have an impact on the world."

Youths from around the world (the majority coming from North America) told Amaechi that they were feeling less safe after Hardaway's statements, that bullies had been emboldened by what he said. Amaechi seemed unconvinced that Hardaway was fully aware of this effect. Still, Amaechi was open to forgiving Hardaway: "Redemption is an important concept and he deserves that."

When asked about his decision to come out publicly, Amaechi talked about attending a gay pride event in Manchester. Seeing Sir Ian McKellen had an affect on him: "I saw the way people reacted ... he uplifted people's spirits ... if I could have a small part of that it'd be marvelous." Amaechi's coming out turned out to be even more important than he expected, however. While he prepared himself for a backlash, he was surprised at how many people were willing to learn something about gay people through him. One woman he encountered in New York even told him, "Before you, I didn't realize Black people could be gay."

In the final segment, Oprah talked with Rachel Dowd of The Advocate. She identified Sweden as the country with the most progressive attitude towards LGBT people -- homosexuality has been decriminalized there since 1944, Dowd noted, while the United States took until 2003. Dowd had an optimistic attitude for the future of LGBT people: "We're making progress in pockets," she said, "It's not uniform and it's not happening all at once but the more people who are brace and come out, they balance the homophobia."

Dowd cited Ellen DeGeneres hosting the Oscars as a sign of progress and Oprah agreed, telling the audience of how her participation in "The Puppy Episode" (where DeGeneres' character came out) inspired some of the worst hate mail she had seen in her entire career. Against that anecdote, it does seem like quite a distance traveled in a short time.

The episode was also peppered with stories of the difficulties gay people face throughout the world. That included the United States, where she reminded the audience that a majority of states allow employers to fire someone for no other reason than being gay. Considering the audience that Oprah reaches, this was a landmark moment for gay visibility. This was a show that gave a glimpse of the experiences of gay and lesbian people in a way that was very easy to empathize with and emphasized that when the topic is hate crimes, discrimination or any kind of inequality, there are human faces paying the price of other people's ignorance.