LGBT Gay Pride Rainbow Flag Time For Equality!
LGBT Gay Pride Rainbow Flag Time For Equality! I am 66 years old this year (2018). People sometimes ask when did I know I was gay. Let me say that there was no doubt by time I was age 14. But, I knew that I was really attracted by guys much earlier than that. In 8th grade at age 13, I most definitely was finding myself attracted to the more muscular more masculine guys as I was way behind ... I looked more like age 10 than 13. Likewise when I was age 12 in 7th grade the other boys in gym class showers were way more mature than I was. I remember feeling attracted to the slightly older boy leader of my Boy Scout troop when I was age ten ... thinking about him when I was in bed. In 3rd grade I remember thinking a boy was cute sitting next to me ... amazingly, last year I found him on Facebook and discovered that he was also gay and he told me that I was one of his first crushes way back then which was 1960 ... 58 years ago! When we were age 8! He says he knew he was gay by age 7 a year earlier. He told me he was hurt that I do not recall that we kissed on the lips when we were age 8 in my bedroom. I do remember kissing another neighbor boy about my age 7 in my back yard and I was devastated that soon his family moved away to Sioux City Iowa (I think by 1960). In grade school I was terrible at all ball sports. I was humiliated in gym class. I hated baseball, softball, basketball, football, soccer, volleyball, bowling. I dreaded gym class from early grade school through junior year high school. In senior year the school district had no money for senior class gym to my great loved and in which I had a great crush on my teacher who I was to later find on fb also that he was also gay! (He claims he was not sure of that back then ... that he came to realize he was gay a little later after he was my teacher.) By high school I definitely knew I was gay. I had no true interest in girls at all. However I was from a conservative farm family ... my mom raised on a farm and my paternal grandparents were raised on farms, my paternal grandpa raised on the very farm across from my mom's family farm. And so living in conservative midwest Galesburg and Peoria in the 1950s 1960s everything was so awkwardly backward for gay kids then. I was ignorant and never knew of anyone being gay until I was in college at ISU. I did not have a clue that my 3rd grade school mate was gay (I do not remember him kissing me on the lips at age 8 either). I did not have a clue that my high school senior year biology teacher was gay either. I only knew I had a crush on him. I had crushes on other guys in high school also, but never found out whether any of them were gay. When my parents took me to ISU at my age 18 mom told dad to give me some fatherly advice while I was still in the car by my dorm and dad paused then blurted out "Just stay away from the Gxx-xxxxed homosexuals!" ... in my mind I said to myself "But, dad, I am one!". It took me over 2 years to get up the courage to walk from my dorm to the campus gay alliance meeting across campus. And still could not go into the room. I finally knowingly heard voices and laughter of gay men. And recognized one was a customer at the student cafeteria where I worked. I also recalled that when I first saw him look at me previously that it felt like a jolt of lightning passed through me. I approached him next morning at that cafeteria after I got off work. And we talked outside. Soon I found out I was working in one gay hang out ... and soon word spread I was gay and other gays approached me inviting me into their 'family'. I had two brief (few months each) bfs ... then, suddenly, I met at least 300 gay people all within a one month period (January 2003 ... my age 20). I had to keep a list to remember so many. I liken the experience to putting on glasses and finally seeing gay people all around me that I had been ignorant and blind to before. I began writing my congressman and senator to support gay rights by my age 18 but did not come out to family or friends til I was age 20 through age 22. I worked openly gay at fp 30 years. I did not find out my younger brother was gay until I was in my mid 20s. I attended a very early Chicago Gay Pride Parade at my age 20 ... 1973 ... which later I think I found out it was like the 4th ever Chicago Gay Pride Parade ... so very early in gay equality struggle. But remember I wrote my US congressman and senator to support gay rights at my age 18 ... which was 48 years ago (as I write this in 2018). By 1976, by my age 23 - 24 ... I had several of my signed letters for gay equality published in the local paper weekend forum and one read over the local TV 10 o'clock news! Occasionally I had more letters published in the weekend forum. But, I worked so many hours at my job I had almost zero social life. I had no real time for a decent relationship. No bf could depend upon me to meet up at any prearranged time. My work schedule prevented it. I hated holidays off work finding myself alone. By 1996 by my age 44, I began writing for gay equality in a local gay paper distributed all over Illinois (to at least 8 municipal general areas and to the college campuses and business (bookstores) of each of those areas. So, it is possible that my writings helped push for the day gay marriages finally became allowed in Illinois. A local court judge was to eventually tell me (in 1999) that my writings influenced his decision to come out. But the young gay community here have no idea that I had ever done anything for them. Card created by Mark Edward Westerfield
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