Karen

Karen, age 5
Rockford, Illinois (1987)

I think I love this picture and this age because I trusted myself so much more then. I was ME, period.

"For the Honor of Greyskull!"

So much less societal conditioning and insecurity there to get in the way. I loved that costume and I was so proud to have my sword. I was joyful! I naturally resisted gender and sexuality stereotypes and idolized strong women like Jodie Foster and Sigourney Weaver.

In the years immediately after this I quickly started to pick up on my "difference", and I had crushes on my best friends (a girl and a boy) and started to feel self-conscious about not being "girly" enough.

I quickly learned to edit myself to try to fit in, and spent the rest of my school-age years secretly wondering what was "wrong" with me.


It took me until my early 20's to start to resurrect the honesty, joy, and self-confidence I had then. And I am so happy to have the picture as a reminder of that time before I let the outside world in to mess with my head! :)

Karen's first, famous-person same sex crush:

Winona Ryder (in "Beetlejuice")
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Click here - "Born This Way: Real Stories of Growing Up Gay" book
Click here - "My First Gay Crush Blog"

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