Word: gayness
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...that fall, during my freshman year, that I first realized that I would eventually "come out"--openly acknowledge my homosexuality--and live as a gay man, not as an ostensible straight one. I knew it would take time before I was strong enough--it took me two more years...
...heard references to that letter. Freshmen at the Union no longer told "fag" jokes, they told Joe jokes. I became aware of just how much more respectable--how much more of a man--was a guy who would put himself on the line for the sake of other gay people than were the chickenshits who ridiculed him from the safety of their little groups of gutless friends...
...cannot really say why I wanted to come out. There was no Big Reason. I can only say that I did not want to live a lifetime without love--nor, of course, without sex--and the only way to avoid that deprivation was to tell other gay men I was gay. But I could not stand the idea of living a double life--being gay among gay people, appearing straight among straights. That kind of double life seemed worse to me than what I was already doing--passing as straight to both gays and straights. So I knew that when...
...problem was, I was not only afraid of straight bigots, but also of gay people, though for different reasons. I knew that gay people, unlike straights, would not judge me, ridicule me, fear me, and hate me. But I was afraid of appearing confused, less than totally together. I was afraid of seeming weak and troubled. And I was deathly afraid of seeming unsophisticated and inexperienced...
...decided, more or less subconsciously, that I would come out by going to a meeting of HRGSA. But I had preconceptions about the group that very closely matched what most straights think about it. I pictured a small, tightly-knit group of worldly, experienced gay men who had conquered all the difficulties of being gay in a straight world...