Sawyer

Sawyer, age 5
Boise, Idaho (1998)

I remember in kindergarten I'd bring my "Star Wars" toys to school and trade them with the girls for their Barbies. This is not to say that I didn't love "Star Wars." In fact, I loved it so much that I received duplicates of almost every toy available for birthday/Christmas gifts. And that made it possible for me to have a Mermaid Barbie with color-changing hair AND a Star Wars Disk Shooter!

When I'd spend a night at my grandma's house, she'd always let me safety pin a towel around my waist. Or wear one of my grandpa's t-shirts with a belt, as I liked the way it felt to spin in circles and have the fabric billow out.

My grandma was, in fact, the first person to inform me that gay people even existed.

One time, we were looking through a People Magazine and she told me the women in a photo were Rosie O'Donnell and her girlfriend.

I asked, 'Girlfriend? Like they're in love?' and grandma said "Yes" with a smile. That short conversation gave me the courage to get through high school and come out to my family soon after I graduated.

Honesty is the best policy, I say.
Today, I don’t hide myself anymore and people love me for it.

I still love to wear XL t-shirts around my apartment, because it reminds me of the ball gowns and red-carpet looks I used to work at my grandma’s house.
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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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Wendell

Wendell & Rick, age 3 and 5

Brownsville, Texas (1955)

Here's my brother Rick dressed as Davy Crockett's wife Polly and I'm dressed as his husband Davy. He carefully draped cloth over his head to make lovely hair and wore a bath robe for her beautiful dress. He placed a piece of white cloth on my head (which is supposed to be a coonskin hat) so I could be his husband.

I decided Davy needed a nice dress also, so I tied a belt around a brightly colored pillow and placed it in front of me as a skirt. Then we added Ricky's prized "Tiny Tears" doll as our darling child to complete the picture.

When Daddy saw us, he was not interested in taking a picture, so Ricky sent me to do it. I was the baby and still Daddy's favorite, so talked him in to it. I waited until my mother had had a few cocktails and then went in to convince her to get Daddy to take these pictures. 

He was willing to take my picture but did not want to take Ricky's.

"But you have to," I told him. "He is my wife. Davy loves Polly very much."
Daddy thought this was very funny and took these pictures.

Later we saw a faux coon skin at the store and I was asked if I wanted to try it on. I did, but when I felt the tail I freaked out and started crying. When they asked what was wrong, I said: "He killed that cat!"

In 5th grade I broke with Davy Crockett for good when I wrote a school report about the U.S. government's policy of exterminating buffalo to destroy Native American culture. I also discovered that Davy was an alcoholic murderer and racist who killed a black man and got away with it, claiming he was too drunk to know what he was doing. I titled it "DAVY CROCKETT WAS A MURDERER!"

My teacher was a bit nervous about this. 

She gave me a good grade but made me change the title.

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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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Austin

Austin, age 4
Novato, California (1978)

“Mom, what is gay?” That’s what left my lips one day when I returned home from kindergarten. After having been called it over and over, I kinda wanted to know what it meant. Mom did what she’s done my entire life - she told me the truth. No judgment. No shame. Just truth.

Even though I had no idea what sexual orientation was, 

I knew this much: I wasn’t going to be something people saw as different, even if I was. 

And I spent the next 20 years living up to my misguided commitment.

Through all of the bullying, teasing, hurt, and loneliness,  I fooled myself into believing if I didn’t acknowledge being gay, it wasn’t real. 

I remember looking at Ricky Schroeder on "Silver Spoons" and thinking:

"I think I ‘like’ him. But only gay boys ‘like’ other boys, so I’ll just not like him."

And I never watched "Silver Spoons" again. It was all too real. 

The only one I was fooling was myself. As was evidenced when I began my coming out at age 25. That process was both wonderful and frustrating. I didn’t have one negative reaction to my coming out, which was such a relief.

What I found frustrating was this: when you finally make the agonizing decision to come out, you want a certain kind of “TA-DAH!” moment. Well, no one was surprised. It was more like a “Well, duh!” moment. Over. And over. And over. 

It was better than the alternative, but it took me some time to get comfortable in this “new” skin, the skin everyone was aware of but me. I had to get to know myself all over again. 

I’m still in the middle of that process. During the past 15 years, I’ve been the most destroyed and most overjoyed I’ve ever been. I consider my high-highs and low-lows evidence that I’m living a full life. I’ve loved. I’ve lost. I’ve grown. I’ve learned. 

My true passion is photography, and I’ve been fortunate enough to have really beautiful subjects in front of my lens, both inanimate and human alike. I’m so proud of who I am, who I'm surrounded by, and the man I continue to become. 

As I look at this picture now, I see exactly what I want to see:
A carefree, flamboyant young boy just living in the moment. 

If I could go back and talk to my 4 year-old self, I’d say nothing more than:

“Just be yourself, kiddo. It’s going to be a fabulous ride.”

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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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Tatiana

Tatiana, age 12 
Moscow Region, Russia (2000)

I’ve always known I was different. My first flashes of strange feelings started to appear when I was 4 years old and continued to grow inside of me each year.

At school I realized I wasn't discussing boys like the other girls.

I tried to convince myself I liked men or boys (at least in movies and music bands), but it was all false.

Then I saw "her" for the first time when I was around age 8.

She was a teacher who came to take my classmate from school. And I was standing there, shocked and speechless for about 30 minutes.

Her beauty captured me.

Next year, she came in the classroom to say she would be our math teacher for the next 7 years!

I was terribly in love with her for that entire time, but I didn’t know there was something wrong feeling that way. She saw what was happening to me, but obviously she couldn’t do anything to help me get over it.

Many years have passed since then. Like the majority of people in our country, she hates me and thinks I’m a weird lesbian who was trying to seduce her.

But I wasn’t.
At that time, I didn’t even know it was actually possible to love another woman.

Today I’m 26, and I have a girlfriend and we have two children.
Hopefully, one day, we’ll have a chance to marry. I believe in it.
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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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Jack

Jack, age 2

Chicago, Illinois (1969)

This photo should be in the dictionary under foreshadowing. Looking at my baby picture now, I find it extremely funny. And think at some point, my mother most likely HATED that damn toy box. 

As a kid, I was all about watching TV. "Dallas" was my favorite, but my mom didn’t let me watch "Dynasty" because there was a gay character on it. 

In my teens, music (and especially Laura Branigan) was my obsession. I even managed to meet the woman three times in the mid-80's.

I’d have to say that my first man-crush was Michael Landon from his "Little House On The Prairie" days. But it was my obsession with Lindsay Wagner in "The Bionic Woman" during the 5th grade that started the years of bullying. 

We were inside for recess and I was pretending to be bionic. Of course, I couldn’t say that I was pretending to be Steve Austin - it had to be Jamie Summers. 
Thankfully, though, the teasing finally ended during my senior year of high school.

The truth is, I can’t remember NOT knowing that I was gay. But I fought it tooth and nail until the spring of 1986 (the end of my freshman year of college) when I gave in to my primal urges and kissed a boy on the lips (and some other things).

I had a long coming out process starting with my college friends, friends at home, my family (cousins, sisters, aunts), followed by sharing with my parents when I turned 30. And no, it wasn’t any kind of surprise.   

Today, I'm a happy, well-adjusted 46 year-old gay man living in Chicago. I'm the Director of Operations for a Healthcare IT company and have been happily partnered for the past 7 years.  

The funny thing is, everyone loves my partner – especially my parents. So sometimes life just works out, even after living through some hellish times as a kid.   

I imagine it’s easier to be gay these days, but for all of the kids who find it hard to accept and might not have the strength to come out, my message is:

Be strong, be yourself, and know that it does get better.

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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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Nancy

Nancy, age 5
Columbus, Ohio (1961)

I was definitely a tomboy when I was young. My favorite activities were building tree houses, playing in the woods, reading adventure stories, riding my bike and playing kick ball. I hated playing with dolls, especially Barbies!

As you can see in my photo, I loved wearing comfortable, functional pants with lots of big pockets - and I still do!

My first crush on a girl was in the 6th grade, but she wasn't particularly interested in me.

Soon after that I started having boyfriends, because I had no clue that having a girlfriend was even an option.

At that time, all you saw on the television were white, straight folks.

When I was 16, I visited my cousin at his college. For lack of anything better to do, we went to a panel discussion put on by the Gay Activist Alliance. There were two women and one guy on the panel. And that experience was like a big lightbulb that went on in my head.

I spent the next 7 years looking for other lesbians, while still dating guys.
As soon as I found my first girlfriend, I gave up dating guys immediately.

It took my family a couple of years to get used to the fact that I am a lesbian.
But that was over 30 years ago!

Since then, I gave birth to a beautiful daughter (using artificial insemination), have had a great career, and been involved with my wife for 16 years.
We eventually got married in Massachusetts.

So for all you young folks reading this, listen up:
It does get better and you can have it all!
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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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