About Us

Before we can ask others to share their personal stories, we thought we should share our own.

Steve Age 47 Graphic Designer

I always knew that I was different from my brothers. By the time I was 8 it was clear to me that I preferred boys to girls – not in the typical 8-year-old
“girls are yucky” way. In fact, I liked girls a lot but for me, girls were friends. I still find it easier to relate to women.

I didn’t have a clue what sex was at that age, but I knew enough to know that my preference was weird and I should probably keep it to myself.

My idol at that time was my sister Gail. She had cool friends and cool clothes - I was so envious of her go-go boots. I wished I could be like her. Not that I wanted to be a girl, I just wanted to be able to tell someone what I felt and to be accepted. More importantly, I wanted the freedom to wear those boots. But I was a boy so the closest I could ever come was a pair of cowboy boots (a poor substitute if you ask me).

I used to follow Gail and her best friend Betsy around. I wasn’t athletic or even interested in sports so I felt more comfortable with them than the neighborhood boys, which is funny since they weren’t really very nice to me.

In fact, there was one time when they told me we were all going to play cowboys and Indians. I’d seen lots of cowboy movies so I never questioned the part where they (the Indians - they had longer hair than me) were going to tie me (the cowboy - after all, I owned the boots) to the stake (the lamppost in the neighbor’s back yard). I was just thrilled that they were including me. So I let them tie me up with jump ropes and leave me. It took about a half an hour before I realized they weren’t coming back. I was hurt for a while but it’s hard to hold a grudge against your idol.

It was around this same time that I had my first crush. There was a television show in the late sixties called “Here Come the Brides”. Gail and I both loved it for one reason – Bobby Sherman. Bobby was every schoolgirl’s dream and I too was totally taken with him. He was a triple threat (talented, charming and cute) and just like my sister, I wished he could be my boyfriend.

Back then people didn’t use the word “gay” (I don’t even recall hearing the word “homosexual”). The only word people had for boys like me was “queer” which by definition means: strange or odd from a conventional viewpoint; unusually different; of a questionable nature or character; suspicious; shady; not feeling physically right or well; mentally unbalanced or deranged. And the few times I’d overheard the word being used in reference to a person, it was done in a secretive whisper. Is it any wonder that I didn’t let anyone know that’s what I was?

One of the biggest challenges for gay kids is that people assume they’re straight until they find the courage and the words to tell them otherwise. After 46 years of hiding myself I was finally able to do that. It wasn’t easy, but at least when I was ready there was a better word than queer.