A Gay Man’s Anger Didn’t Start Today

Growing up in Gaza, I learned that anger can be memory, dignity and survival.

From Unsplash By Brad Fickeisen

Anger has been walking beside me for a long time. I can trace its shadow growing with me through different times of my life: a house in my childhood filled with violence, my father’s anger filling the walls, my teenage years watching my brother repeat that same language of force, and later, exactly a year ago, a man I trusted for ten years — someone I called a friend — who shouted, rejected me, and violated my dignity when we became something more than friends.

When that relationship collapsed, it left more than a broken friendship behind. It took a lot with it. It marked the beginning of a year in which intimacy disappeared from my life entirely.

I call it logistical drought.

Living in Gaza means pressure is never far away. Conflict, tension, humiliation — these are not rare interruptions; they are part of the atmosphere. Problems appear in daily life the way dust stays in the air: constantly, quietly, and of course, covering everything.

When you grow up breathing that atmosphere, anger learns how to stay close, right? Maybe.

My anger is not only about pain. Sometimes it is protective. As a gay man, I have learned that some people in some places believe softness means weakness. They assume that if you move through the world differently — if your dialect carries too much politeness instead of boldness — then you can be dismissed, reduced or humiliated without consequence.

I cannot point to a single day when anger became part of me. It did not arrive suddenly like a tidal wave. It gathered slowly, almost quietly, like the heat that stays in a room long after the fire is gone. Lately, though, I’ve noticed something changing. My patience has grown thinner. I still don’t start fights, but I no longer stay silent when someone crosses a line. Sometimes my reaction surprises people. A moment earlier, I might have been laughing or joking. Then something small — a word, a tone — touches a nerve, and suddenly I’m not that quiet anymore.

They see that moment and assume the anger belongs to it.

But most of the time, it doesn’t.

When anger rises, my body feels it before my mind understands what is happening. My temperature rises. My hands shake, and sometimes my legs feel weak, as if they cannot carry my weight. My voice might stumble before it becomes steady. It can feel like my body remembers things faster than my thoughts can explain them.

For a long time I thought my anger was simply a reaction to whatever was happening in front of me. Only recently have I started to understand that it belongs to something much larger. It carries memory. Years of memory. Moments when dignity was pushed aside and silence was expected in return.

From Unsplash By Emad El Byed

People often misunderstand this. They connect my anger to the single moment they just witnessed. They do not see the long road behind it — the child who learned early that violence could live inside a home, the teenager watching that violence repeat itself, the years of friendship that slowly turned into rejection and disrespect . Though I swear to God, to the Greek ones, to the Valhalla ones, to the real ones… I mean, to any god that might be listening:

I’m still the same cupcake they always knew.

I’m in my thirties now, and I’m still learning what to do with this anger. Some days it feels heavy, like something I carry because the world has given me no choice. Other days it feels almost like a guard standing at the door of my life, making sure certain kinds of harm cannot enter so easily anymore. Maybe anger is not simply a flaw in my character, as people lately started to assume when they see it flash across my face. Maybe it is something more complicated than that. Maybe it is a language my body learned after too many years of being told to stay quiet.

And lately I keep wondering, if anger grows out of memory and dignity, then maybe it is the language dignity learnt when silence stopped working.

But… like… Am I disclaiming from my self-control?!

Two and a half years living under NOTHING CONTROLLABLE would make anyone question themselves!!! Joking, of course.

One more thing: my brother used to always tell me, “Pick your fights.” I hope reminding people of his advice might land somewhere, maybe with someone else, maybe with me someday. Either way, I carry it with me, my dear brother.