The earliest memory I have of understanding that I liked boys was staring at the Meet The Beatles! album cover with my sister and knowing I too thought Paul McCartney was the cute one. My first boy crushes happened at summer camp, over some of the older boys or a camp counselor or two. Then a few neighborhood friends and some cute jocks at school and fellow actors in the community theater and … oh, well, I guess I had a lot of crushes.
My only distinct memory of being bullied is when a male friend of my sister’s wrote FAG on a piece of sheet music in my room. I remember my father taped a similarly colored piece of paper on top to cover up the hateful word. And I remember I felt worse for my father than I did for myself.
I was always out to everyone but my parents. I am embarrassed by how long I kept the additional “roommate decoy” bed in the living room for when my parents visited me. Much to my mother’s credit, when I told her of another friend who’d died of AIDS, she asked me if Scott and I were “more than roommates.” I’ve been with my partner, Scott, for thirty-three years now. Although we do not have children, we share a song-writing career that has given birth to many proud accomplishments. I have never had a day in my life when I didn’t feel it was a blessing being born gay.