Ways to Interact Positively

Adapted from material prepared in 1987 at Miami University, Oxford, Ohio.

Check into your own feelings and thoughts about homosexuality and about gay and bisexual people. Keeping those feelings hidden may create blind spots and affect the way you interact with gay people.
Do some reading. Don Clark's Loving Someone Gay would be a good start.

Provide a supportive environment for your friends and colleagues who are or think they may be homosexual.
Remember that others you live with or among, work with, or attend classes with may be gay. Think about monitoring your language accordingly.
Do not presume that gays are unhappy about their lives.
Remember that people do not choose to have gay feelings. They can, however, choose to act on those feelings or not.
Remember that "homosexual," "transvestite," and "transsexual" refer to different behaviors. The terms are not equivalent.
Remember that oppression by straight society creates much of the unhappiness gays experience.
Your primary objective should be to help a gay person become more truly herself or himself, NOT more like everyone else.
Do not inform on the gay person by telling others, specially family.
Do not immediately start talking about your girlfriend/ boyfriend to make it clear that you are straight. Chances are the gay person already knows.
Do not assume that the gay person does -or does not- find you attractive.