" The day I told students I was gay"

[LONDONER]

I hope this might be of help to some who are still closeted:

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-38958873?ns_m...ine_180217

[Camfer]

Great story, thanks for sharing. I sure would have loved to have known an out gay man when I was in middle school.

[LJay]

[MENTION=20941]Camfer[/MENTION], had I known such a person when I was in what is now known as middle school I would have been terrified to speak to him and even more terrified to have been seen doing so. My, how times have changed!

[Camfer]

[MENTION=20941]Camfer[/MENTION], had I known such a person when I was in what is now known as middle school I would have been terrified to speak to him and even more terrified to have been seen doing so. My, how times have changed!

Ah yes, me too! I would have been just as scared as you would have been, although we are not exactly contemporaries.

I was in 8th grade, aka middle school, aged 14 and growing up in California as the Briggs initiative was on the ballot. Not sure how my parents voted on that one, lol. It was a ballot proposition to ban openly gay people and anyone gay or straight who spoke publicly in favor of tolerance for gay people from being teachers or administrators in public schools in California. Interestingly, the initiative was largely opposed by both republicans and democrats alike. Even Ronald Reagan publicly opposed it. This was just before the republican party devised its strategy of pandering to the christian right.

The strategy to defeat this initiative was for as many people as possible to come out to friends and family, Gay men went door to door and asked people to vote against it. This was 1978. It was resoundingly defeated.

I watched the whole thing play out through my 14 year old eyes, with my braces and acne, polo shirts, levi's 501s, and adidas tennis shoes. It would still be another 6 years before I had the courage to be out, and even then as I was out, I knew plenty of gay men and women who were astounded I'd be out in college in rural New England in the early 1980s.

Oh yes times have changed, in some ways better, and some ways worse.

[Rhyolite]

There was one friend who told me he was gay when I was a college. I really wish I had told him I was too, but you can't go back in time.