The Publication

All of the stories submitted to this project will be reviewed for content by our editorial review board and any deemed appropriate will then be added to this archive. The most compelling of these stories will also be consided for publication in a printed book.

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 finds 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.

I recall, now as an old man in my 70's, that when I was a young kid growing up in a small town in middle Tennessee, I never gave much thought to sex or romance. I do remember that I had "girl friends" in elementary school and got kidded by some of the other guys because a few of the girls would giggle around me and flirt sometimes. However, that "kidding" turned into "taunting" by the time I reached the 7th and 8th grades of Junior High School. I think by then the "problem" was not so much that I had girl friends and was well liked by the teachers but that I was not athletic. For instance, with kick ball games at recess, I was almost always the last picked for a team and called "sissy" in disgust when I would miss or kick the ball with less than a vengeance and get tagged out (getting "tagged out" meant being touched by the ball in any way). Tagging me out became a matter of a few of the bullies throwing the ball at me as hard as they could. Although getting hit above the waist was not allowed, my head was often the target. However, I usually managed to take it with a grin and never fought back.

One incident of bullying with a difference occurred one day when big old Raymond, a kid who had been held back a couple of years and stood head and shoulders above most of us guys in the 7th grade, came up behind me as we all were ambling toward the school entrance after a game. He simply lifted me up and rather gently deposited me into a big waste paper container sitting outside the gymnasium. I remember looking up at him with that big wide smile on his face and his Adam's apple moving up and down as he laughed his awesome, deep and manly sound. It was not at all scary and in some ways felt protective and loving to me. I scrambled out of the can and proceeded on into the building with the laughter of the other classmates sounding in the distance. Somehow their jeers no longer mattered. I had a strange feeling that Raymond cared about me and I liked him.

Later on that year, we listened to an announcement as it was read by the teacher informing us that there was to be a first ever, "Sex Education" class, held from 10:00 to 11:00 the following morning. The 7th and 8th grade boys were all to go to the auditorium and the girls were to be in the gymnasium. I will never forget that class. The two male coaches, borrowed for the occasion from the local High School, were standing up at the front and all the guys were seated in the first several rows. There was the usual "canned" talk about the anatomical differences between boys and girls and how respect for our bodies was important and respecting girls and their bodies was most assuredly a duty beholding to each of us. Of course the final words emphasized that sex was a sacred thing and an act that must be reserved for the time after a man and woman were married. At that point the session was open for "questions and answers."

There was the usual snickering and whispering by most of the boys and throat clearing by the equally nervous coaches. Someone ventured a question about menstruation and another about masturbation. Much laughter and rib poking all around with the latter question. Then some kid in the back asked, "Coach Martin, what is homosexuality?" The room was suddenly very quiet. The coach cleared his throat and paused for what seemed like an hour – probably more like 15 seconds – and replied, "Uh, it's when some guys have sexual feelings for each other instead of for girls and like having sex together." "Any more questions?" Silence. And with that sudden end of the Sex Ed class, all the guys got up and headed back to regular classes. As I stood and made my way out with the rest, I thought to myself, "Now I know what I am. I am a homosexual."