Tom

Tom, age 8

Mercer Island, Washington (1974)

Here I am with my little sister at Disneyland, striking a quick drag queen pose.
A favorite pose of mine when I did drag later in life, but I'm surprised how early it started! This photo is especially funny, as my first celebrity crush at age 5 was Mickey Mouse, and I used to be intensely jealous of Minnie Mouse whenever I saw her. I'm glad to see that I got over my resentment.

My dad just sent me old Super 8 home movies on DVD, and there was a lotta gay in me from early on. One 10-minute clip is devoted to older family members trying to teach me to run - without swishing my arms at age 2. They were trying to erase the gay at age 2! Bless their little, caring, fearful hearts.

We moved to a neighborhood across the lake when I turned 5-years old, and I have vivid memories of being gay and wanting to marry some of my close boy friends, even at that age. The feelings start pretty early sometimes. I'm quite confident that I was born this way, and happily so.

But I wish I could have discussed this with my parents. Or with anybody! Whenever the topic of sex, love, and romance came up in my presence, there’d be a kind of painful, frozen silence. Everybody practiced 'Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell' with me. As a result, I was a little behind on the learning curve when it came to seeking healthy gay relationships, rather than acting out a slutty gay stereotype.

But, I'm learning - a lot. And feelin' more normal than ever. The gradual acceptance by society helps. Still, as most of you know, the long road to acceptance starts within.

My first celebrity crush with a human was actor Terry Thomas, which lasted for many years. I had a recurring erotic fantasy where I would crawl through the gap in his front teeth, and fall asleep curled up on his tongue. I so loved his lisp.

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

Terry Thomas
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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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Dina

Dina, age 5

Olympia, WA (1988)

What makes a person look gay? What makes a person look straight?

When I was a little girl, I was a study in contradictions: I loved dressing up and playing with Barbies and My Little Ponies, as much as I loved digging in the sandbox and helping my dad in the workshop. When my aunt got married, she chose me to be the flower girl.
My grandmother made me this beautiful pink dress. I freaking loved that dress, insisting on wearing it whenever there was a formal event.

When I grew older, it became apparent I was different than other girls, but I couldn’t figure out exactly why. Somehow it got channeled into me wanting to dress and act less feminine.

I rarely wore a skirt or dress during middle and high school, and I never wore makeup 0 except at my synchronized swim meets, where I had no choice.


But that wasn’t authentic to me, either. It took me years to realize that what made me different was my attraction to other girls. Once I came to terms with that part of my identity in college, I started re-embracing my feminine side.

I started wearing makeup occasionally and wearing skirts to class. In a way, that was more freeing than my experiments with masculinity in middle school.

Today, I am still a study in contradictions. I’ll wear a pretty sundress and ballet flats one day, jeans and a t-shirt the next. I like video games as much as I like fashion. I feel like this is my true self, a true self I was not able to fully express until I got rid of the baggage of being a queer adolescent.

I hope if any queer kids see this, they'll understand they can be queer in their own way, which doesn’t mean denying the more "mainstream" parts of themselves!

Jon

Jon, age 10

Washington, IA (1975)

I loved to read - I think there was a book just out of the frame - and I tended to also be kind of hyper. I don't know if you can see it in this small pic, but my fingers are digging a hole in the rug. How's that for a combination!

Looking at this pic now, as an adult, he looks like a sweet kid, who probably needs to take a bath and brush his hair - LOL! And who was also outgrowing his clothes. Honestly, I don't know when I felt different. At this age, I thought some OTHER people were kinda different, though.

I wasn't really aware of pop culture at the time, as we didn’t have a TV. However, I listened to our soundtracks to "The Music Man" and "The Sound of Music" over and over and over, until I had them completely memorized. 

To the kids today I'd like to say:
Isn't it great to be able to bathe and brush your hair and wear clothes that fit?!  Don't take it for granted!

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

Ike Eisenmann ("Escape To Witch Mountain")

With his pretty brown eyes and elfin features, I just knew he’d be the nicest boy.

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Brennen

Brennen, age 8

Seattle, WA (1996)

This was shot while shopping for new school clothes, at a visit to the park next door. My 4-year old sister decided it was too warm to wear any clothes at all (hey, we're Scandinavian). Grunge music was huge in Seattle, so my 12-year-old sister was dressed in a plaid button-up. If you saw pictures of her back then, you'd think she grew up to be a lesbian. But there is only one gay in this family.

"Posing as a statue"

I was a latchkey kid of the 90s, so I had little in the way of supervision most days. TV was a big part of me back then: "X Files," "I Love Lucy" reruns on Nick-at-Nite, "Singled Out" on MTV , and "Goddess Kring" on Seattle's public access channel. She's a local, late-night icon of sorts, infamous for her on-air acid trips, poetry, and naked, glittered body.

"Daria," "Beavis & Butthead," and "South Park" were other favorites. My family connected to the Internet in 1998, and I took to it like a duck to water. Let's just say that there were very few safeguards for children on AOL then - and leave it at that.

I've always known I was different. My only friends were girls and adults, and I distinctly remember complaining that the Power Rangers were "too violent" when the other boys talked about it in class. My dad "encouraged" (read: forced) me to play softball, but I'd sit on the sidelines with my friend Megan, waiting for the donuts and apple juice after the game.

I never really equated my being different to anything more than a personal quirk, and I've always been awkward. The only difference between being aloof as a kid and aloof as an adult is confidence.

Hot pink was my favorite color, and I loved to draw pictures of chrysanthemums (I was the only 4-year-old who could pronounce chrysanthemum), fuchsias, and my cat Gingersnap. The other day, my mom apologized to me for never letting me buy the hot pink sandals I always wanted as a kid. I also remember furtively snatching the men's underwear ads from Sears and Target out of the recycling bins, but I never really added it all up with the conclusion that I was "gay".

Seattle is a good place to be gay. I was lucky to grow up there, and with the parents I have. When I came out to them at 16, I basically said, 'You probably already figured this out, but...I'm gay'. My parents were surprised (they actually hadn't figured it out), but it changed little about our relationship. In fact, the first thing they said was, 'This doesn't change anything, we still love you.'

For anyone growing up gay today, I'm happy to report that things are only getting better. Be true to yourself; if someone cannot accept you as who you are, they are not worth your time. But it is very rare you will ever meet people like that, I promise!

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

Danny Roberts (on MTV's "Real World: New Orleans")

Gael Garcia Bernal usurped his throne a year later, and I often wonder if seeing David Duchovny in a Speedo on 'The X Files' could have made me gay.

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Dimitri

Dimitri, age 4
Tacoma, WA (1971)

From the earliest I can remember, I thought boys made more sense than girls. At this age, I remember running onto the lap of my favorite babysitter. He was a teen-aged boy, and he and his sisters watched us all the time. And, I kissed him.

He said, 'Dimitri, boys don’t kiss other boys.'
And I thought, 'Well, that’s dumb.'

“Ready for my close up!”

I was more even aware of my difference and my attraction to boys by 10 years old, and had my first boyfriend at 13. I remember sneaking out of the window and going to his house late at night after everyone was asleep!

He was from Mexico and spoke very little English, but we managed just fine.  :)

I always loved pretty things. I wanted to be creative in school and work with art. I would re-decorate my bedroom almost weekly, moving things around and changing the colors of the room depending on my blankets.


As I became a teenager, I was very much into the punk & new wave scene of the 80’s. I loved Boy George and Cyndi Lauper and often shaved the side of my head into diamonds and dyed the rest black. I still miss being able to play with my appearance like that!

As I look back on this picture, I thank God every day that I was raised by my mother who supported me, normalized my differences for me, and prepared me for the world that is STILL not ready for me. I came out at 12, went through my youth and puberty as a gay teen, and grew to manhood surrounded by the large gay community in Seattle.

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

Sean Cassidy

He was my first love. I had a t-shirt with his face on it and wore it proudly through most of the 4th grade!
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Arthur

Arthur, age 4

Auburn, Washington (1972)

Not long after this pic was snapped, I remember looking at an article in Mad Magazine about possible future nudity in cartoons. It had completely non-graphic nudity featuring characters from Pogo and Beetle Bailey, but I remember when looking at it, for the first time I got a funny feeling "down there." Only later did I realize that all the characters depicted were male.

"Hippity-hopity, Easter's on it's way"

In 1st grade, I would chase down and kiss Kevin on the playground. He didn't really like it, and the other kids would tease him when he got kissed, but I didn't see anything wrong with it. These days this would be called "not respecting boundaries."

It must have been on the long bus ride home from kindergarten when one day the kids on the school bus started chanting, 'Arthur wears panty hose! Arthur wears panty hose!' The driver got on the PA and said, 'Hey, Arthur does NOT wear panty hose!' Gee, thanks a lot.

Later in grade school, the kids started to develop more accurate vocabularies, and started to call me "fag."  'Hey, I'm not a fag, whatever that is.' Other contributors to this blog wish they had a name for what they were when they were growing up. I had a name, and I didn't like it. The name seemed so arbitrary that when I was teased, I started calling back, 'Oh yeah, well you're a fag too.'  Then everyone started started ignoring me completely. So at least I never got physically beat up much through my junior high and high school years.

When I was about 10, my father and his brothers gave my grandmother a Playgirl magazine as a gag gift for her 60th birthday.

"What's 'Playgirl?'"
"It's Playboy, but with pictures of naked men."
*GASP* "I wanna see!"
"NO!"

In 6th grade I had a crush on another boy when we went on a field trip with 6th graders from another school. He had dark tousled hair, and I couldn't stop being around him. I didn't know what was going on, but I knew I had to stop behaving that way, and I kept it hidden for 30 more years.

Then the depression got so bad I figured being honest with myself was better than keeping my parents happy by keeping them uninformed. Looking back, I wonder how I could not have known sooner.

Arthur's first, famous-person same sex crush:
"Dirty Dan" from Sha-Na-Na

Must be the tousled hair
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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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