Hey! I am 27 y/o and about 4 months ago I came out to myself as a gay man after years of denial. I was raised in a very conservative family and forced to go to church as a kid (christian orthodox from East Europe). Stopped going at 14 yo and became less and less religious. But my parents would cut ties to me if they found out I am gay.
And from what I see most people from my religious country hate gay men and some wants to see us dead. And because of these stupid religious people I developped internalised homophobia and got a lot of shame and guilt as a result.
The church from my country openly calls being gay a tragedy/a death sin and that we are under the influence of the devil. Despite being a secular country, the church has influence on politics too, as no politician advocates for rights of gay people. Some people even wants to see us, LGBTQ people, dead as we try to corrupt the mind of people arounds us which is bullshit.