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The first time I knew I was "different" was in fourth grade.
I was sitting next to my best friend, Keith Davis, on the bus going to elementary school. Having just found out that Keith had a crush on Rita Katsoros (a girl in our science class that I could not stand because she always sucked up to the teacher and turned her assignments in early), I was busy teasing him about his adolescent infatuation.
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"But you can't like him!" Keith declared with astounding adamancy.
"Why not?" I asked.
"Because he's a boy! And boys aren't allowed to like boys!"
"Oh," I replied, and sat in rebuffed silence for the rest of the ride to school.
As a nine-year-old I didn't know what the word "gay" meant. And while I had heard the word on the playground I had never associated any meaning with it. All I knew for certain was that I liked Jim Wierzbecki and wanted to be around him every chance I got. He made me happy.
By the time I got to junior high school (seventh grade), I had learned what the word "gay" meant to everyone I went to school with. It meant that you were a "fag". You were someone to be laughed at, joked about, beaten up, and taunted. It meant that you were sick, perverted, an abomination, and unlovable.
But thanks to Keith Davis' lesson on the school bus back in fourth grade, I had learned to keep my little secret to myself. As I grew up I made sure not to let anyone know who I "liked". I made very certain that no one would see who I was stealing furtive glances at during lunch period. Nobody was in the library the one time I looked up the word "homosexual" in the card catalog. And I definitely never shared the feelings and stirrings I felt in beginning swimming class!
In short, I learned to "pass" as a heterosexual. I learned to talk about girls, laugh at sexually suggestive jokes, and boast about things that never happened. I dated in high school. I went to all of the homecoming dances and proms. I even spent good money renting a powder blue, crushed velvet tuxedo that matched my Senior Prom date's dress (the mid 70s will not be remembered as a time of great fashion)! I only dated, however, girls who were already my friends. I enjoyed being with themÖbut I didn't want to sleep with them.
Most gay people learn to "pass". But a couple of my classmates were not so "lucky". They were the constant butt of jokes. Larry "the fag" Miller, for example, was constantly being knocked around in the hallways. And no one would ever come to his assistance. Because if you did you would have been labeled a fag, too. Even if you weren't.
But even for those of us who learned the lesson of "passing" there was a price to pay: self-loathing. And what does self-loathing lead to? According to the United States Department of Health and Human Services, it leads to teenage suicide. That Washington, D.C. agency estimates that nearly one third of all teenage suicides are gay teenagers. That is a huge statistic. The government thinks that roughly 7-10% of the population is gay, and yet 30% of all the kids killing themselves are gay.
When you are growing up gay, even though you learn to "pass", you still hear all of the jokes. You read about yourself on bathroom walls. You may hear a minister, priest or rabbi condemn "homosexuals". And you are afraid of losing the love of your parents if they should happen to find out that you are "different".
Just last week while I was at our main library, I saw something that made me cringe. Our library carries a wide variety of "alternative" publications outside its main entrance. These periodicals include weekly "liberal" magazines, racial minority journals, community information newsletters, and a couple of local gay papers. While I sat drinking a cup of coffee two mothers and their children started looking at the publications. One of the kids (probably in his early teens) picked up one of the gay publications and started looking at it. His mother joined him and began pointing with disgust at some of the stories, ridiculing the fact her child had picked up the publication, and then teasing him because he had. She ended up throwing the publication back down and marching them out of the building.I'm sure she taught her children an important lesson about gay people. Especially if one of her children is gay.