Word: closet
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...years of their lives. A conservative estimate of those who are exclusively homosexual today is 5 million. The more political of the new homosexuals like to consider themselves a minority group like the blacks and claim that they number 20 million, most of them, of course, still "in the closet...
Militant gays also pose dilemmas for other homosexuals because they urge them to "come out of the closet" in order to strengthen the movement. "Other minorities have everything to gain by demanding their rights," says one anonymous oil company executive. "We have everything to lose." Sometimes the most ardent anti-gays are actually closet homosexuals. They early learn the tricks of controlling facial reactions, feigning interest in the opposite sex, learning to laugh at "fag" jokes to keep their cover...
...Many closet homosexuals watched with mixed emotions while young gays for the first time fought back during a violent police raid on a Manhattan gay bar in 1969. "I hoped they wouldn't get hurt, but I thought, if this succeeds I'll have to make choices. I didn't want my own covers pulled," admitted Producer-Activist David Rothenberg, 42. It was not till 1973, after he had joined the board of the National Gay Task Force, that Rothenberg pro claimed himself a homosexual on national television...
Some teen-agers now simply announce that they are homosexuals while they are still in high school and wonder why the older generation is still in the closet. In Hollywood, a few homosexuals who are too young to drive are even dropped off at gay dances by their parents...
...finally answers yes, but many others are less certain. "To publicize the fact that you are gay," says a lesbian lawyer in Chicago who has defended gays in civil rights cases, "is something that very few people can handle. All of these younger gays are coming out of the closet, and I'm ready to go back...