I never knowingly met a gay person growing up in the 60s and 70s. Windsor wasn’t exactly a hotbed of urban progressive values (still isn’t, in fact), and in those days, the idea of someone actually being gay just wasn’t in the realm of possibility; it was something that happened elsewhere (Toronto, perhaps), something bewildering, something to be mocked and just a little afraid of.
Of course, there were rumours. Mr. Barton may have been seen heading into the Happy Tap one summer evening. Miss Reid rode a motorcycle, drove a cab part-time, and liked camping with her female friends. There were rumours…
The idea that I might be gay never occurred to me. Sure, I occasionally had a sense of being different, of not quite fitting in, of being just a little less than my peers, but I never thought for a minute that those feelings could be chalked up to the fact that I preferred boys over girls.
I remember the moment when things started to change. It was some time around second- or third-year university, and I had been enamoured with a young woman named Patty for a few months. Patty was cute, friendly, smart, worked in a pizza parlour, and attended barber school part time. Pizza, free haircuts, and a hot girl on my arm – my life was pretty much perfect. Except, it wasn’t.
“All men live a life of quiet desperation.” That was the statement to be discussed on the 1982 University of Waterloo first-year English comprehension exam that all of us had to pass before completing our degree. I recall thinking back on that question from time to time and telling myself that my quiet desperation was normal. Expected, even. After all, someone important had said so.
Patty had a brother named Paul that used to hang out with us from time to time in residence. One day, a perfect storm of boredom and testosterone prompted a few of us to turn our common room into a wrestling ring. We took turns challenging our friends to wrestling matches, slamming each other into the floor and walls and furniture, and having an all-around fun time, carpet burns and bruises notwithstanding.
I’m not sure who challenged whom, but Paul and I ended up tagging in for a bout. We were well matched – similar size and of roughly equal strength. I can’t recall who won, but when we sat back down on the sidelines to watch our friends, and as I pondered what had just happened, I became increasingly bewildered and a little shaken. How was it possible that wrestling with Paul had affected me so much? Why couldn’t I take my eyes off him now? Why did the memory of that intimate act of play-wrestling make me feel so… strange?
Patty and I drifted apart after that and I didn’t see much of Paul. I tried dating a few girls, but it was never the same. I finally had to admit to myself the truth that I had been avoiding all those years.
It took me a few more years of half-hearted denial, and a job offer in Winnipeg far away from my friends and family, before I decided to attempt to embrace my homosexuality. And it took me a very long time after that to do so without shame and fear. A very, very long time. I chalk it up to prejudices and stereotypes and fears that were fostered in my youth. Old stigmas, after all, die hard.
It’s better for kids now. Gays and lesbians are represented on TV and in movies and books. Uncles and aunts and family friends are out and proud and bring same-sex partners to weddings and funerals and all the family functions. It’s a far more accepting world than it was when I was growing up and we should celebrate that. For many, being gay now is, as it should be, no big deal.
In this post I’ve tried to illustrate, through my own coming-out story, how some of us elder gays and lesbians had a difficult time coming to grips with our sexuality and how it’s so much better for kids now.
In a future post, I’ll explore how the gay and lesbian equality movement has evolved, how it’s been captured by other interests, and how that evolution is creating some new problems and challenges for kids today. Stay tuned.