Welcome to Unfiltered Clarity
Why I'm Here — And Why I Won't Sugar-Coat Any of It
I'm Gino. 🏳️🌈
Gay therapist who writes about the patterns I see after 10+ year talking to men like us. The ones we live but can’t name.
My job? Put words to what you’ve felt but never said out loud. My promise? Explain why certain wounds feel impossible, not pretend I have the cure.
You're Here Because...
Performative Pride posts make your skin crawl, but you still crave genuine connection
You're brilliant at self-analysis yet baffled why the same patterns keep winning
You want someone to name what’s happening, not sell you another healing method
If that's you, pull up a chair.
The Messy Truth About Me
I grew up misfitting every script handed to me. Professional chameleon by survival: good grades, easy smiles, zero evidence of discomfort. It worked, until it didn’t.
Cue the greatest-hits reel of queer survival: alcohol fog, depression, burnout, toxic relationships that felt like home because chaos was home. Therapy taught me healing is a crime-scene spiral, not a neat timeline.
Today, I’m 46, a licensed therapist, and spend my days in online sessions with gay clients across the globe. Off-session I’m married to my best friend for nearly two decades, forever coaxing raw feelings into sentences that land clean and true.
Born to Portuguese immigrants, raised under the African sun, seasoned across Asia, Europe, the Gulf, now back on Portuguese soil - still allergic to reality tv, still wearing black t-shirts. 🇵🇹
Why This Newsletter Exists
Because gay men aren’t broken - we’re over-adapted.
Because “It Gets Better” left out the fine print. Because performing wellness is just another closet. And because someone needs to say, without flinching: “Here’s why your nervous system still screams in a room full of straight allies.”
What Lands in Your Inbox
Free Essays (weekly): About 1,400 words exploring the psychology underneath your sharpest aches: family-dinner performance art, code-switching fatigue, post-coming-out blues. The outcome: exhaling at recognition, knowing you’re not uniquely damaged.
Paid Deep Dives (€5/month): Support keeps this space independent. You fund deeper explorations of why healing feels harder than it should, drawn from patterns I witness daily. No fixes, no how-to’s. Just the underneath stuff that doesn’t go viral but does go deep.
No step-by-step guides. No pastel-colored affirmations.
Just the same blunt compassion I offer my clients, delivered straight to your inbox.
Ready?
If a line here punches you in the gut (in a good way), you’re exactly where you need to be. We get braver together.