Heath

Heath, age 2

Winchester, TN (1975)

It wasn't until around 4th grade that I knew I was different from the other boys. I hated playing sports, and I was always the last to be picked. I didn’t get into BB guns, baseball cards, or playing Army.

"Where's my steno pad? I need to take down a memo!!!"

I always felt more at ease staying inside, watching "The Young & The Restless" on TV with my grandma, or helping her out in the kitchen.

I reveled in the glitzy, 80's prime-time soap operas, like "Dynasty."

I wanted to be Joan Collins as Alexis Carrington, with her long brown cigarettes.


I don't remember when I changed from being sensitive, tender-hearted, and shy to being called a sissy, a fruit, or a f*ggot. I think it started in 6th grade, when one boy called me a fruit, and the rest followed.

While I was never beaten up, I always felt like an outsider, and like less than a person. I knew I had crushes on other boys, but didn’t internally admit it until I was 18. It took several years of hard partying and denial to finally come out, which was rather anti-climactic. Responses to the news went something like this:

"So?"
"What took you so long?"
"Well, I always knew THAT!"
"Yeah, you already told me when you were drunk the other night."

When I came out, I discovered who my real friends were.
That's why it gets better.

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

Dan Aykroyd

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Brigham

Brigham, age 2

Salt Lake City, UT (1987)

I always loved to wear my mom's 3-inch heeled snow boots and accessories.
The feeling just made electricity run through my body like I'd never felt before.

I knew I was gay when I was 13, and I just knew I was different. And I always knew I liked men - it just felt right.
I never really had a celebrity crush, just attractions to muscular, ethnic guys

I didn’t have the greatest childhood, growing up in a polygamous group in Utah. Of all the bad things that went on in my situation, this picture always brings a smile and a laugh to my face.

Fully coming out to my family at 20 was really hard, and my already poor relationship with my parents got even more estranged. My extended family fell in the same situation as well.


Some things happen for a reason, maybe just to make you stronger.
Or they happen just to make you a better person.

All I can say, is that I'm happier than I have ever been in my life.

I currently reside in Los Angeles, and I'm trying to go to chef school.
So things are looking good. Things do get better, so don’t ever give up.

Clarissa

Clarissa, age 4

Bronx, New York (1973)

I loved being a tomboy!
I wanted to be tough and dirty, and would go to work with my dad the mechanic. I didn't always wear coveralls, though.

My mom found a way to get me to wear dresses by making them herself, patterning them after Lucy Van Pelt of the "Peanuts" cartoon.

I acknowledged Lucy's toughness, and felt tough in those dresses, too!


I watched "The Bionic Woman," "Wonder Woman" and "That Girl" on TV,
all for the lead characters. Marlo Thomas' voice gave me butterflies.

I didn't know I was different until junior high. I just didn't get the way the other girls were obsessed about boys - mostly because I was obsessed about girls.

Being raised Catholic, I tamped my feelings down and thought of them as wrong until I was 25, and soon found friends who helped me accept myself and come out. All this, despite having a gay older brother who was accepted and loved by my family. Somehow I thought it would be different for me, since I was a girl.

Over the years, I'd tried to be more conventionally female. But there was nothing more freeing than cutting all my hair off, and returning to my tomboy roots!

To gay kids today: Love and accept yourself.
Stick with those who accept you, and live your truth.

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

Marlo Thomas (in "That Girl")

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Michael

Michael, age 6

New Fairfield, CT (1970)

It may have been just my 1st grade class photo, but I already knew how to smile to cover up my crooked teeth.

Born blond, I really wasn't satisfied with the color. So by the 5th grade,
I already had a bottle of Sun-In on hand during summer vacation.

In 6th grade in suburban Connecticut, I was much blonder and already the butt of gay jokes.

Funny thing is, I didn't even know I was gay. I was always trying to push the girls to the ground during recess, in an effort to kiss them.


By the 7th grade I'd moved to a bigger town, and met my first boyfriend Rod.
He taught me how to kiss.

Mike

Mike, age 8

Houston, Texas (1991)

One of these boys is not like the other...

"And the Rainbow Badge Goes To...."

With my red hair, pale skin, and delicate features, there's some rage detected in my face. Juxtaposed against these smiling, eager-eyed, young Scouts, it was due to the fact that I didn't want sun damage to cause wrinkles for me later in life.

I obviously took the time to make sure that I had socks to match my kerchief. And my shirt was nice and starched, and I was also well aware that the fashion trend of acid-washed jeans was headed out the door.

While the other boys slouched and sat in poor posture, I sat demure. It's as if I were a Victorian lady, awaiting a parasol and lace gloves to cover my dainty hands. I took the time to be fabulous, while no one else had. For this, I was not having being a Boy Scout.

The irony that a young gay boy wouldn't find Boy Scout meetings to be a safe haven from the outside world seems funny to me now. Themed outfits, arts and crafts, and plenty of opportunities to work out with other guys? All of these STILL being my favorite things to do now.

I looked at The Boy Scouts of America website, and looked at reasons why you should enroll your kid into the Scouts. It states this:

"Scouting provides youth with a sense that they are important as individuals.
It is communicated to them that those in the Scouting family care about what happens to them, regardless of whether a game is won or lost"

For the young and old gays alike out there, that feel as if they have lost this game of life? My message is: Don't give up.

For those who are stuck in Scouts because their parents feel like they should be doing what the "other boys" do, I would ask that they stick it out. But always make sure you stay fabulous doing so.

It sounds cliche' saying that time heals all wounds, but it does.... Scouts honor.

Enzo

Enzo, age 2

Baltimore, Maryland (1967)

This photo was taken behind my grandmother's townhouse in East Baltimore. Obviously, I saw women pose this way for photos, and just assumed I was supposed to do the same thing.  I don't think I had a sense of femininity yet, clearly from what I'm doing with my mouth!

We were a big Sicilian family and my relatives lived across the street. When I was 3, we moved to rural Michigan and my life turned to hell.

But I always spent summers on that same block, and it was my world, my own Sesame Street.

An Uncle of mine died just before I was born, and he was all anyone spoke about.


He'd become a fairly famous songwriter, and I knew at 3 he was gay. Or rather, that he was like me, but I had no idea it had anything to do with sex. 

I was aware of gay men whenever I saw them, because they were nothing like my uncles. They didn't have women telling them what to do, and they were fun to be around. And they'd ALL been to Europe, or said they had. That was all I wanted out of life, and I wrote an essay in 2nd grade about how I wanted to be "queer" when I grew up.

Queer was the only word I knew for it, and had no idea it would be a problem. But when I read the essay in class, my mom was called into school. If anything,
I thought gays were superior. But I also knew stupid people made fun of them.

Looking at this photo now reminds me that as a child, men seemed peripheral and irrelevant. They were always somewhere else, doing something that didn't seem to matter much.

TV was the same: Men worked in suits and were boring and tried to hold back. The women were clearly smarter and more clever in every way.

Thus, I identified with women (and later gay men) as being the road to my independence. Even today I am still uncomfortable in all-homogenous groups, especially all-gay or all-white. 

Currently, I've been married almost 12 years. And I write & perform plays about my background. And today's kids seem to relate more than people my own age.
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Click here - "Born This Way: Real Stories of Growing Up Gay" book
Click here - "My First Gay Crush Blog"