February 04, 2011

Claudia

Claudia, age 3
Ravenna, OH (1962)

That's me holding the stuffed animal and that's my brother sitting next to me. I'm wearing a flannel shirt and jeans, and - notice the short hair? All my life I remember wanting to wear boys clothing and shoes. I never liked girlie things.
I wanted toy guns, trucks and G.I. Joe, and I never played with Barbie.


I had a crush on my 1st grade teacher and crushes on many women growing up. I had no clue what the feeling was at that time. When I was in grade school, I had an imaginary girlfriend. I used to sit on the bus and wouldn't allow anyone to sit with me so my imaginary girlfriend could sit next to me.

The word lesbian didn't exist where I went to school. I did not come out until I was 22 and I fought it tooth and nail. I did not want to be "abnormal". One of my biggest crushes was my during senior year in high school. My best friend Robyn was the homecoming queen, and I used to walk her to classes and carry her books for her. You would have thought I had a clue then, but I didn't.

The best advice I can give young people today is be true to yourself and be who you are. I give the teens today a lot of credit for coming out so young, and realizing who they are.

2 comments:

Christy said...

It's amazing to me how much you and I have in common--even to the point that I came out when I was 22 and also grew up in a town where the word gay or lesbian was not even in existence. Thank you for sharing. :)

On the Crawl said...

I'm new to blogspot and I was wondering how I can find people's blogs besides under the "blogs of note" section of my dashboard? It's really hard for me to navigate this site. If anyone could help me get started, I'd really appreciate it. I love your blog, by the way. I think we have a lot in common.