Any Gay Seniors Here?
Just curious. I knew I was gay since I was in high school, but I didn’t come out until 1977, my freshman year at the University of Arizona. I was lucky to have the support of the GSO (Gay Students Organization) and the multitude of friends I made at “the [gay] table” in Louie’s Lower Level on the basement level of the Student Union while threw open that closet door and made my entrance to gay life.
For the most part, I haven’t really suffered by coming out. My family was accepting (my dad admitted to me that summer that he too, was gay), although my mom (who was an interior designer) had some initial difficulty, not being able to reconcile my “butch” demeanor with the more effeminate gays she’d worked with all her life, but after she met my friends she finally came around completely. “I like your friends. I used to worry when you’d go out, but now I know who you’re hanging with and will be safe.”
I also haven’t (to the best of my knowledge anyway) suffered professionally by being out-and-proud. I’ve always felt that my employers and colleagues treated me fairly and with respect.
I moved from Tucson to San Francisco in 1986, right in the middle of the AIDS crisis. Somehow I managed to survive “the horrible 90s,” attending what seemed like weekly funerals, and coming out of it all HIV negative and without an arrest record.
Never forget that those of us who are here today are survivors. With today’s state of the world, and watching my the friends who survived along with me begin to pass from all the usual old age ailments, I sometimes wonder if those who we lost thirty years ago had the right idea by getting out early. But I wouldn’t trade the last 20 years since I returned to Arizona for anything; I wouldn’t have met my husband of the last 15 years otherwise!
Anyway, just throwing this out there and would love to hear your stories.
This has been somewhat edited for grammar and clarity from the original post.)
Surprisingly, the responses have been completely and overwhelmingly positive, with a lot of folks thanking me for sharing. In the cesspool that Reddit can often be, I’ve found that sub surprisingly free of the negativity and unflinching one-upmanship so common throughout many other subs. It is truly refreshing.
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