i am gay essay

Understanding sexual orientation and homosexuality

Sexual orientation refers to an enduring pattern of emotional, romantic, and/or sexual attractions to men, women, or both sexes

Since 1975, APA has called on psychologists to take the lead in removing the stigma of mental illness that has long been associated with lesbian, gay, and bisexual orientations. The discipline of psychology is concerned with the well-being of people and groups and therefore with threats to that well-being. The prejudice and discrimination that people who identify as lesbian, gay, or bisexual regularly experience have been shown to have negative psychological effects. This page provides accurate information for those who want to better understand sexual orientation and the impact of prejudice and discrimination on those who identify as lesbian, gay, or bisexual.

What is sexual orientation?

Sexual orientation refers to an enduring pattern of emotional, romantic, and/or sexual attractions to men, women, or both sexes. Sexual orientation also refers to a person’s sense of identity based on those attractions, related behaviors, and membership in a community of others who share those attractions. Research over several decades has demonstrated that sexual orientation ranges along a continuum, from exclusive attraction to the other sex to exclusive attraction to the same sex.

However, sexual orientation is usually discussed in terms of three categories:

• heterosexual (having emotional, romantic, or sexual attractions to members of the other sex)
• gay/lesbian (having emotional, romantic, or sexual attractions to members of one’s own sex)
• bisexual (having emotional, romantic, or sexual attractions to both men and women)

This range of behaviors and attractions has been described in various cultures and nations throughout the world. Many cultures use identity labels to describe people who express these attractions. In the United States the most frequent labels are lesbians (women attracted to women), gay men (men attracted to men), and bisexual people (men or women attracted to both sexes). However, some people may use different labels or none at all.

Sexual orientation is distinct from other components of sex and gender, including biological sex (the anatomical, physiological, and genetic characteristics associated with being male or female), gender identity (the psychological sense of being male or female),* and social gender role (the cultural norms that define feminine and masculine behavior).

Sexual orientation is commonly discussed as if it were solely a characteristic of an individual, like biological sex, gender identity, or age. This perspective is incomplete because sexual orientation is defined in terms of relationships with others. People express their sexual orientation through behaviors with others, including such simple actions as holding hands or kissing. Thus, sexual orientation is closely tied to the intimate personal relationships that meet deeply felt needs for love, attachment, and intimacy. In addition to sexual behaviors, these bonds include nonsexual physical affection between partners, shared goals and values, mutual support, and ongoing commitment.

Therefore, sexual orientation is not merely a personal characteristic within an individual. Rather, one’s sexual orientation defines the group of people in which one is likely to find the satisfying and fulfilling romantic relationships that are an essential component of personal identity for many people.

* This page focuses on sexual orientation. Answers to your questions about transgender individuals and gender identity addresses gender identity.

How do people know if they are lesbian, gay, or bisexual?

According to current scientific and professional understanding, the core attractions that form the basis for adult sexual orientation typically emerge between middle childhood and early adolescence. These patterns of emotional, romantic, and sexual attraction may arise without any prior sexual experience. People can be celibate and still know their sexual orientation—be it lesbian, gay, bisexual, or heterosexual.

Different lesbian, gay, and bisexual people have very different experiences regarding their sexual orientation. Some people know that they are lesbian, gay, or bisexual for a long time before they actually pursue relationships with other people. Some people engage in sexual activity (with same-sex and/or other-sex partners) before assigning a clear label to their sexual orientation. Prejudice and discrimination make it difficult for many people to come to terms with their sexual orientation identities, so claiming a lesbian, gay, or bisexual identity may be a slow process.

What causes a person to have a particular sexual orientation?

There is no consensus among scientists about the exact reasons that an individual develops a heterosexual, bisexual, gay, or lesbian orientation. Although much research has examined the possible genetic, hormonal, developmental, social, and cultural influences on sexual orientation, no findings have emerged that permit scientists to conclude that sexual orientation is determined by any particular factor or factors. Many think that nature and nurture both play complex roles; most people experience little or no sense of choice about their sexual orientation.

What role do prejudice and discrimination play in the lives of lesbian, gay, and bisexual people?

Lesbian, gay, and bisexual people in the United States encounter extensive prejudice, discrimination, and violence because of their sexual orientation. Intense prejudice against lesbians, gay men, and bisexual people was widespread throughout much of the 20 th century. Public opinion studies over the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s routinely showed that, among large segments of the public, lesbian, gay, and bisexual people were the target of strongly held negative attitudes. More recently, public opinion has increasingly opposed sexual orientation discrimination, but expressions of hostility toward lesbians and gay men remain common in contemporary American society. Prejudice against bisexual people appears to exist at comparable levels. In fact, bisexual individuals may face discrimination from some lesbian and gay people as well as from heterosexual people.

Sexual orientation discrimination takes many forms. Severe antigay prejudice is reflected in the high rate of harassment and violence directed toward lesbian, gay, and bisexual individuals in American society. Numerous surveys indicate that verbal harassment and abuse are nearly universal experiences among lesbian, gay, and bisexual people. Also, discrimination against lesbian, gay, and bisexual people in employment and housing appears to remain widespread.

The HIV/AIDS pandemic is another area in which prejudice and discrimination against lesbian, gay, and bisexual people have had negative effects. Early in the pandemic, the assumption that HIV/AIDS was a “gay disease” contributed to the delay in addressing the massive social upheaval that AIDS would generate. Gay and bisexual men have been disproportionately affected by this disease. The association of HIV/AIDS with gay and bisexual men and the inaccurate belief that some people held that all gay and bisexual men were infected served to further stigmatize lesbian, gay, and bisexual people.

What is the psychological impact of prejudice and discrimination?

Prejudice and discrimination have social and personal impact. On the social level, prejudice and discrimination against lesbian, gay, and bisexual people are reflected in the everyday stereotypes of members of these groups. These stereotypes persist even though they are not supported by evidence, and they are often used to excuse unequal treatment of lesbian, gay, and bisexual people. For example, limitations on job opportunities, parenting, and relationship recognition are often justified by stereotypic assumptions about lesbian, gay, and bisexual people.

On an individual level, such prejudice and discrimination may also have negative consequences, especially if lesbian, gay, and bisexual people attempt to conceal or deny their sexual orientation. Although many lesbians and gay men learn to cope with the social stigma against homosexuality, this pattern of prejudice can have serious negative effects on health and well-being. Individuals and groups may have the impact of stigma reduced or worsened by other characteristics, such as race, ethnicity, religion, or disability. Some lesbian, gay, and bisexual people may face less of a stigma. For others, race, sex, religion, disability, or other characteristics may exacerbate the negative impact of prejudice and discrimination.

The widespread prejudice, discrimination, and violence to which lesbians and gay men are often subjected are significant mental health concerns. Sexual prejudice, sexual orientation discrimination, and antigay violence are major sources of stress for lesbian, gay, and bisexual people. Although social support is crucial in coping with stress, antigay attitudes and discrimination may make it difficult for lesbian, gay, and bisexual people to find such support.

Is homosexuality a mental disorder?

No, lesbian, gay, and bisexual orientations are not disorders. Research has found no inherent association between any of these sexual orientations and psychopathology. Both heterosexual behavior and homosexual behavior are normal aspects of human sexuality. Both have been documented in many different cultures and historical eras. Despite the persistence of stereotypes that portray lesbian, gay, and bisexual people as disturbed, several decades of research and clinical experience have led all mainstream medical and mental health organizations in this country to conclude that these orientations represent normal forms of human experience. Lesbian, gay, and bisexual relationships are normal forms of human bonding. Therefore, these mainstream organizations long ago abandoned classifications of homosexuality as a mental disorder.

What about therapy intended to change sexual orientation from gay to straight?

All major national mental health organizations have officially expressed concerns about therapies promoted to modify sexual orientation. To date, there has been no scientifically adequate research to show that therapy aimed at changing sexual orientation (sometimes called reparative or conversion therapy) is safe or effective. Furthermore, it seems likely that the promotion of change therapies reinforces stereotypes and contributes to a negative climate for lesbian, gay, and bisexual persons. This appears to be especially likely for lesbian, gay, and bisexual individuals who grow up in more conservative religious settings.

Helpful responses of a therapist treating an individual who is troubled about her or his same sex attractions include helping that person actively cope with social prejudices against homosexuality, successfully resolve issues associated with and resulting from internal conflicts, and actively lead a happy and satisfying life. Mental health professional organizations call on their members to respect a person’s (patient’s) right to self-determination; be sensitive to the patient’s race, culture, ethnicity, age, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, socioeconomic status, language, and disability status when working with that patient; and eliminate biases based on these factors.

What is “coming out” and why is it important?

The phrase “coming out” is used to refer to several aspects of lesbian, gay, and bisexual persons’ experiences: self-awareness of same-sex attractions; the telling of one or a few people about these attractions; widespread disclosure of same-sex attractions; and identification with the lesbian, gay, and bisexual community. Many people hesitate to come out because of the risks of meeting prejudice and discrimination. Some choose to keep their identity a secret; some choose to come out in limited circumstances; some decide to come out in very public ways.

Coming out is often an important psychological step for lesbian, gay, and bisexual people. Research has shown that feeling positively about one’s sexual orientation and integrating it into one’s life fosters greater well-being and mental health. This integration often involves disclosing one’s identity to others; it may also entail participating in the gay community. Being able to discuss one’s sexual orientation with others also increases the availability of social support, which is crucial to mental health and psychological well-being. Like heterosexuals, lesbians, gay men, and bisexual people benefit from being able to share their lives with and receive support from family, friends, and acquaintances. Thus, it is not surprising that lesbians and gay men who feel they must conceal their sexual orientation report more frequent mental health concerns than do lesbians and gay men who are more open; they may even have more physical health problems.

What about sexual orientation and coming out during adolescence?

Adolescence is a period when people separate from their parents and families and begin to develop autonomy. Adolescence can be a period of experimentation, and many youths may question their sexual feelings. Becoming aware of sexual feelings is a normal developmental task of adolescence. Sometimes adolescents have same-sex feelings or experiences that cause confusion about their sexual orientation. This confusion appears to decline over time, with different outcomes for different individuals.

Some adolescents desire and engage in same-sex behavior but do not identify as lesbian, gay, or bisexual, sometimes because of the stigma associated with a nonheterosexual orientation. Some adolescents experience continuing feelings of same-sex attraction but do not engage in any sexual activity or may engage in heterosexual behavior for varying lengths of time. Because of the stigma associated with same-sex attractions, many youths experience same-sex attraction for many years before becoming sexually active with partners of the same sex or disclosing their attractions to others.

For some young people, this process of exploring same-sex attractions leads to a lesbian, gay, or bisexual identity. For some, acknowledging this identity can bring an end to confusion. When these young people receive the support of parents and others, they are often able to live satisfying and healthy lives and move through the usual process of adolescent development. The younger a person is when they acknowledge a nonheterosexual identity, the fewer internal and external resources they are likely to have. Therefore, youths who come out early are particularly in need of support from parents and others.

Young people who identify as lesbian, gay, or bisexual may be more likely to face certain problems, including being bullied and having negative experiences in school. These experiences are associated with negative outcomes, such as suicidal thoughts and high risk activities, such as unprotected sex and alcohol and drug use. On the other hand, many lesbian, gay, and bisexual youths appear to experience no greater level of health or mental health risks. Where problems occur, they are closely associated with experiences of bias and discrimination in their environments. Support from important people in the teen’s life can provide a very helpful counterpart to bias and discrimination.

Support in the family, at school, and in the broader society helps to reduce risk and encourage healthy development. Youth need caring and support, appropriately high expectations, and the encouragement to participate actively with peers. Lesbian, gay, and bisexual youth who do well despite stress—like all adolescents who do well despite stress—tend to be those who are socially competent, who have good problem-solving skills, who have a sense of autonomy and purpose, and who look forward to the future.

In a related vein, some young people are presumed to be lesbian, gay, or bisexual because they don’t abide by traditional gender roles (i.e., the cultural beliefs about what is appropriate “masculine” and “feminine” appearance and behavior). Whether these youths identify as heterosexual or as lesbian, gay, or bisexual, they encounter prejudice and discrimination based on the presumption that they are lesbian, gay, or bisexual. The best support for these young people is school and social climates that do not tolerate discriminatory language and behavior.

At what age should lesbian, gay, or bisexual youths come out?

There is no simple or absolute answer to this question. The risks and benefits of coming out are different for youths in different circumstances. Some young people live in families where support for their sexual orientation is clear and stable; these youths may encounter less risk in coming out, even at a young age. Young people who live in less supportive families may face more risks in coming out. All young people who come out may experience bias, discrimination, or even violence in their schools, social groups, work places, and faith communities. Supportive families, friends, and schools are important buffers against the negative impacts of these experiences.

What is the nature of same-sex relationships?

Research indicates that many lesbians and gay men want and have committed relationships. For example, survey data indicate that between 40% and 60% of gay men and between 45% and 80% of lesbians are currently involved in a romantic relationship. Further, data from the 2000 U.S. Census indicate that of the 5.5 million couples who were living together but not married, about 1 in 9 (594,391) had partners of the same sex. Although the census data are almost certainly an underestimate of the actual number of cohabiting same-sex couples, they indicate that there are 301,026 male same-sex households and 293,365 female same-sex households in the United States.

Stereotypes about lesbian, gay, and bisexual people have persisted, even though studies have found them to be misleading. For instance, one stereotype is that the relationships of lesbians and gay men are dysfunctional and unhappy. However, studies have found same-sex and heterosexual couples to be equivalent to each other on measures of relationship satisfaction and commitment.

A second stereotype is that the relationships of lesbians, gay men, and bisexual people are unstable. However, despite social hostility toward same-sex relationships, research shows that many lesbians and gay men form durable relationships. For example, survey data indicate that between 18% and 28% of gay couples and between 8% and 21% of lesbian couples have lived together 10 or more years. It is also reasonable to suggest that the stability of same-sex couples might be enhanced if partners from same-sex couples enjoyed the same levels of support and recognition for their relationships as heterosexual couples do (i.e., legal rights and responsibilities associated with marriage).

A third common misconception is that the goals and values of lesbian and gay couples are different from those of heterosexual couples. In fact, research has found that the factors that influence relationship satisfaction, commitment, and stability are remarkably similar for both same-sex cohabiting couples and heterosexual married couples.

Far less research is available on the relationship experiences of people who identify as bisexual. If these individuals are in a same-sex relationship, they are likely to face the same prejudice and discrimination that members of lesbian and gay couples face. If they are in a heterosexual relationship, their experiences may be quite similar to those of people who identify as heterosexual unless they choose to come out as bisexual; in that case, they will likely face some of the same prejudice and discrimination that lesbian and gay individuals encounter.

Can lesbians and gay men be good parents?

Many lesbians and gay men are parents; others wish to be parents. In the 2000 U.S. Census, 33% of female same-sex couple households and 22% of male same-sex couple households reported at least one child under the age of 18 living in the home. Although comparable data are not available, many single lesbians and gay men are also parents, and many same-sex couples are part-time parents to children whose primary residence is elsewhere.

As the social visibility and legal status of lesbian and gay parents have increased, some people have raised concerns about the well-being of children in these families. Most of these questions are based on negative stereotypes about lesbians and gay men. The majority of research on this topic asks whether children raised by lesbian and gay parents are at a disadvantage when compared to children raised by heterosexual parents. These are the most common questions and answers:

• Do children of lesbian and gay parents have more problems with sexual identity than do children of heterosexual parents? For instance, do these children develop problems in gender identity and/or in gender role behavior? The answer from research is clear: sexual and gender identities (including gender identity, gender-role behavior, and sexual orientation) develop in much the same way among children of lesbian mothers as they do among children of heterosexual parents. Few studies are available regarding children of gay fathers.
• Do children raised by lesbian or gay parents have problems in personal development in areas other than sexual identity? For example, are the children of lesbian or gay parents more vulnerable to mental breakdown, do they have more behavior problems, or are they less psychologically healthy than other children? Again, studies of personality, self-concept, and behavior problems show few differences between children of lesbian mothers and children of heterosexual parents. Few studies are available regarding children of gay fathers.
• Are children of lesbian and gay parents likely to have problems with social relationships? For example, will they be teased or otherwise mistreated by their peers? Once more, evidence indicates that children of lesbian and gay parents have normal social relationships with their peers and adults. The picture that emerges from this research shows that children of gay and lesbian parents enjoy a social life that is typical of their age group in terms of involvement with peers, parents, family members, and friends.
• Are these children more likely to be sexually abused by a parent or by a parent's friends or acquaintances? There is no scientific support for fears about children of lesbian or gay parents being sexually abused by their parents or their parents’ gay, lesbian, or bisexual friends or acquaintances.

In summary, social science has shown that the concerns often raised about children of lesbian and gay parents, concerns that are generally grounded in prejudice against and stereotypes about gay people, are unfounded. Overall, the research indicates that the children of lesbian and gay parents do not differ markedly from the children of heterosexual parents in their development, adjustment, or overall well-being.

What can people do to diminish prejudice and discrimination against lesbian, gay, and bisexual people?

Lesbian, gay, and bisexual people who want to help reduce prejudice and discrimination can be open about their sexual orientation, even as they take necessary precautions to be as safe as possible. They can examine their own belief systems for the presence of antigay stereotypes. They can make use of the lesbian, gay, and bisexual community, as well as supportive heterosexual people, for support.

Heterosexual people who wish to help reduce prejudice and discrimination can examine their own response to antigay stereotypes and prejudice. They can make a point of coming to know lesbian, gay, and bisexual people, and they can work with lesbian, gay, and bisexual individuals and communities to combat prejudice and discrimination. Heterosexual individuals are often in a good position to ask other heterosexual people to consider the prejudicial or discriminatory nature of their beliefs and actions. Heterosexual allies can encourage nondiscrimination policies that include sexual orientation. They can work to make coming out safe. When lesbians, gay men, and bisexual people feel free to make public their sexual orientation, heterosexuals are given an opportunity to have personal contact with openly gay people and to perceive them as individuals.

Studies of prejudice, including prejudice against gay people, consistently show that prejudice declines when members of the majority group interact with members of a minority group. In keeping with this general pattern, one of the most powerful influences on heterosexuals’ acceptance of gay people is having personal contact with an openly gay person. Antigay attitudes are far less common among members of the population who have a close friend or family member who is lesbian or gay, especially if the gay person has directly come out to the heterosexual person.

Where can I find more information about homosexuality?

American Psychological Association Office on Sexual Orientation and Gender Diversity 750 First Street, NE Washington, D.C. 20002 Website Email

Mental Health America (formerly the National Mental Health Association) 2000 N. Beauregard Street, 6th Floor Alexandria, VA 22311 Main Switchboard: (703) 684-7722 Toll-free: (800) 969-6MHA (6642) TTY: (800) 433-5959 Fax: (703) 684-5968 Website

American Academy of Pediatrics Division of Child and Adolescent Health 141 Northwest Point Boulevard Elk Grove Village, IL 60007 Office: (847) 228-5005 Fax: (847) 228-5097 Website

Suggested bibliographic citation

American Psychological Association. (2008, October 29). Understanding sexual orientation and homosexuality . https://www.apa.org/topics/lgbtq/orientation

Other versions

Pamphlets in English and Spanish may be purchased in bundles of 25 for $4.00 plus shipping by calling (800) 374-2721 or by  email  (the others are only available electronically at this time).

This material may be reproduced and distributed in whole or in part without permission provided that the reproduced content includes the original bibliographic citation and the following statement is included: Copyright © 2008 American Psychological Association

Recommended Reading

Related resources

• APA LGBTQ Resources and Publications
• Understanding transgender people, gender identity and gender expression

Download a PDF version in the following languages:

• Arabic (PDF, 286KB)
• Chinese (Simplified) (PDF, 307KB)
• Chinese (Traditional) (PDF, 453KB)
• English (PDF, 132KB)
• Russian (PDF, 205KB)
• Spanish (PDF, 277KB)

You may also like

Sexual Orientation

What does it mean to be a gay man, coming out means valuing your "difference" more than others' approval..

Posted March 1, 2018

So many gay men grow up believing there is something “wrong” with us because we are different from other supposedly “normal” males. We expend considerable energy hiding our genuine selves from everyone around us—including those who care about us and, too often and most insidiously, from ourselves.

We project an image we believe will let us fit in with those whose approval we seek. It’s not surprising that a term like “straight-acting” shows up so often in gay men’s online personal ads. It presumably means the advertiser considers himself a “real” man—real, that is, according to a standard of masculinity he doesn’t attribute to other gay men.

American males of all sexual orientations are raised in a culture that insists the only way to be a man is to be “manly,” which typically requires denying our fear , loneliness , tenderness, and need for love, and projecting an attitude of invincibility. Harvard psychologist William Pollack calls it the “Boy Code,” the messages instilled in a million ways from our youngest age telling us that “real” boys must keep a stiff upper lip, not show their feelings, act tough, and be cool.

Pollack writes in his book Real Boys: Rescuing Our Sons from the Myths of Boyhood , that “perhaps the most traumatizing and dangerous injunction thrust on boys and men is the literal gender straitjacket that prohibits boys from expressing feelings or urges seen (mistakenly) as ‘feminine’—dependence, warmth, empathy.”

So many gay men learn we are different from other boys by having the fact pointed out and ridiculed by bullies during our young, most impressionable, years. Our young peers become pint-size enforcers of the Boy Code—using shame and even violence to enforce conformity to the absurd notion that every male is heterosexual and expresses his maleness only within a limited, permitted range of emotions and behaviors.

As every gay man knows who has been insulted or assaulted for his actual or perceived sexual orientation , there are steep penalties for violating the Boy Code as there are for anyone who is “different” from the presumed (typically white, heterosexual, middle-class) standard.

How does a gay kid survive the trauma he suffers for being different in a culture that still condemns his difference as something bad or “less-than” and wants to mold him into the same shape it tries to mold every boy?

Robert Pollack says the most important thing a family can do to support their gay son is to keep loving him, “to convey to him, as soon as he shares his feelings, that he is still loved through and through, that his sexual orientation will not in any way diminish how much he is admired and respected. These are the things a boy needs most to hear.”

What a man most needs to hear—from others, but most importantly from himself, in his own mind—is that he is okay just as he is. He needs to know that it’s okay not only to be gay if that's what he is, but to be a man who chooses what being a man means for himself .

Fortunately there is a long history of gay men who bucked the accepted definitions of masculinity and created lives that expressed their understanding of themselves and how they choose to express their identity as men who don’t necessarily fit traditional molds.

The late Harry Hay often called "the father of the modern gay movement," founded the Mattachine Society in Los Angeles in the fall of 1950 for gay men to gather and ponder the questions Hay had long been asking: Who are gay people? Where do gay people come from? Where have gays been throughout history?

Hay didn’t intend the Mattachines to be a political organization per se, but a group that would come together to enhance their self-understanding and explore the contributions gay people had made to the human race through the ages. The group was named after the secret male societies in France that in the Middle Ages dressed as jesters and used dance and comedy—a kind of camp humor —to mock the king and ridicule society’s false pretenses.

In a 1987 essay titled “A Separate People Whose Time Has Come,” Hay described homosexuals as “spirit people,” who, throughout the ages, had served society in their roles as “messengers and interceders, shamans of both genders, priestesses and priests, imagemakers and prophets, mimes and rhapsodes, poets and playwrights, healers and nurturers, teachers and preachers, tinkers and tinkerers, searchers and researchers.”

Hay believed that gay people had something special to teach nongay people about human life, and for that reason should be nurtured, rather than reviled, by society. He postulated that “gay people represent a genetic mutation of consciousness whose active fostering is now required for human survival.”

Hay believed that gay men are different from heterosexuals and that those differences go much deeper than mere sexual attraction to other men. He said gay men look at the world differently, are uniquely nonaggressive, noncompetitive, oriented toward sharing and inclined to develop what Hay called “subject-subject” love relationships of equals.

In a 1990 interview for the Washington Blade , Harry Hay told me our calling as gay men “is not only to accept our uniqueness, but to affirm it, make it joyous.”

For gay men, learning to accept our “different” sexual orientation as a positive aspect of ourselves is only part of our “coming out.” For all men, regardless of sexual orientation, the bigger challenge is to embrace the things about ourselves that make us unique—even when they don’t comport with the prevailing notions of what it means to be a man.

As Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), the American essayist, lecturer, philosopher, poet, champion of individualism and opponent of conformity, put it so well, “To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.”

John-Manuel Andriote is an award-winning author, journalist, speaker, and communication consultant.

• Find a Therapist
• Find a Treatment Center
• Find a Psychiatrist
• Find a Support Group
• Find Online Therapy
• United States
• Brooklyn, NY
• Chicago, IL
• Houston, TX
• Los Angeles, CA
• New York, NY
• Portland, OR
• San Diego, CA
• San Francisco, CA
• Seattle, WA
• Washington, DC
• Asperger's
• Bipolar Disorder
• Chronic Pain
• Eating Disorders
• Passive Aggression
• Personality
• Goal Setting
• Positive Psychology
• Stopping Smoking
• Low Sexual Desire
• Relationships
• Child Development
• Self Tests NEW
• Therapy Center
• Diagnosis Dictionary
• Types of Therapy

Sticking up for yourself is no easy task. But there are concrete skills you can use to hone your assertiveness and advocate for yourself.

• Emotional Intelligence
• Gaslighting
• Affective Forecasting
• Neuroscience

• Skip to main content
• Keyboard shortcuts for audio player

Dad, You're Gay? I Am, Too

Christopher Harrity

As part of LGBT Pride month, Tell Me More is exploring the sometimes difficult process of informing others about one's sexual orientation. Guests and friends of the program who are either lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender are sharing their stories of coming out to those closest to them: family, friends, and even co-workers.

The author, right, stands with his father, Bob Harrity. Todd Mangiafico/Courtesy of Christopher Harrity hide caption

On New Year's Eve of 1966, my dad and his boyfriend (who we all pretended to ourselves was not his boyfriend) came to dinner with me, my mom, my stepdad, my older brother and my younger brother. My dad and his lover Tanner were pretty drunk. Mom wasn't pleased, but we were used to his antics, and secretly I loved the drama.

After a sloppy and awkward dinner, my brothers and stepdad sensibly retreated to the upper floor, and my mom and Tanner went off into another part of the house.

My dad was very nervous and soon he was shaking.

"I have something to tell you, but I am afraid," he said, and then started to cry. We hugged each other and he kind of slipped off his chair, and we ended up sitting under the dining room table.

He told me that he was in some sort of legal trouble — that the police had been to his house for a crazy party or something, and he was afraid it was going to be in the newspapers. He wanted to tell me first.

He wanted me to know he was gay before I read it in the papers. He really lost control at this point.

"I didn't want it to be like this," he said. "I wanted this to be a happy thing."

Related NPR Stories

Indian journalist comes out to her mother, hey dad — i'm here, i'm queer, deal with it, to some, coming out isn't just a one-time thing.

Now I was crying, too. And, scared, I knew I had to tell him about me.

How anyone could have not known was kind of amazing. I had an extremely early sexual initiation by older boys. I was very fond of my mother's wigs and makeup. And I had re-choreographed every dance number from my parents' Broadway soundtracks in the living room.

But my identity — my self-proclamation — was still a secret.

I was also kind of a clueless kid. I asked my dad whether Mom knew about him. He rolled his eyes and laughed, "What do you think?" We both laughed, snotty and tearful, and we hugged.

Dad got quiet again and asked me, "Are you going to be OK? What do you think about this?"

I took a deep breath and then said, "I think I'm gay too." This set us into a whole new round of hugging and crying.

"Oh, god. Oh, I knew, but I didn't know if you knew you were yet. I'm too drunk to do this now," Dad said. "This weekend, we'll get together. I want to know so much more about you. I love you."

I could not sleep that night, the first night of 1967. I was completely blown away at finally opening this door. I had been living a secret double life for most of my 12 years. But the sense of loneliness I had for so many years went away.

I tried to keep the double life thing going through high school, but growing up in Alameda, so close to San Francisco in the late '60s, had a freeing influence. By my senior year in high school, I was out.

Christopher Harrity is a web producer for Advocate.com, a leading LGBT news and entertainment publication.

The Middle with Jeremy Hobson

Listen live.

With a name inspired by the First Amendment, 1A explores important issues such as policy, politics, technology, and what connects us across the fissures that divide the country. The program also delves into pop culture, sports, and humor. 1A's goal is to act as a national mirror-taking time to help America look at itself and to ask what it wants to be.

Being queer, I never thought I’d find God; then he found me

I grew up thinking that i wasn't allowed to love or praise god precisely because i am gay. yet, god kept appearing in my life..

• Josh Kruger

The author, right, stands with a mentor, Father Gordon Reid, at Easter. (Image courtesy of Josh Kruger)

WHYY is your source for fact-based, in-depth journalism and information. As a nonprofit organization, we rely on financial support from readers like you. Please give today.

Brought to you by Speak Easy

Thoughtful essays, commentaries, and opinions on current events, ideas, and life in the Philadelphia region.

You may also like

A Methodist pastor was defrocked for telling her Philly congregation of her same-sex relationship. She’s now been reinstated

Beth Stroud was defrocked in 2004, but less than three weeks after the United Methodist Church repealed its anti-LGBTQ bans, she has been reinstated as pastor.

3 months ago

Central Bucks residents speak up about transphobia and antisemitism in the community

Residents waited hours to speak in support of diversity, equity, and inclusion, responding to transphobic and antisemitic remarks at a Nov. 9 board meeting.

3 years ago

Philly Catholics process pope’s call for legal protections of same-sex unions

Some of the Philly area’s 4 million Catholics say it’s “long overdue,” and a reflection of the church’s teaching on the “dignity of the human person.”

4 years ago

About Josh Kruger

Want a digest of WHYY’s programs, events & stories? Sign up for our weekly newsletter.

Together we can reach 100% of WHYY’s fiscal year goal

Access to the de Young may be impacted 8/6–8/14 due to the Outside Lands music festival. Allow extra time to arrive.

Search FAMSF

Mobile navigation, anthony friedkin: the gay essay.

By Anthony Friedkin, Julian Cox, Nayland Blake, and Eileen Myles

Anthony Friedkin, Gene Harlow, Drag Queen Ball, Long Beach , 1971 from the series The Gay Essay . Gelatin silver print. Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, anonymous gift, 2011.58.2

In making his photographic series The Gay Essay (1969–1973), Anthony Friedkin approached his subjects with an open and inquiring mind to achieve a portrait of a community and its habitués that is fearless and devoid of judgment. The Gay Essay carefully charts several aspects of the gay world at the time: street life, protest, gay leaders, lesbian activists, transsexuals and drag queens, hustlers and vice cops, and more. Whether made in city streets, motels, bars, or dance halls, Friedkin’s photographs demonstrate an understanding and respect for the private lives of the people he has portrayed. From flamboyant street parades to late-night rendezvous, the photographs forthrightly show the beginnings of the Gay Liberation movement in California and offer insights into the lives of performers, activists, hustlers, and hopeful youths in quiet defiance of prevailing social norms. Four decades after its making, The Gay Essay functions as both a valuable time capsule and a record fit for the ages.

Anthony Friedkin’s photographs are included in the permanent collections of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco; the International Center of Photography, New York; the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; and the George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film, Rochester, New York. He received a National Endowment for the Arts grant in 1977. He has taught photography at the University of California, Los Angeles, and the California Institute of the Arts and has lectured at the J. Paul Getty Museum and other educational institutions. His work has appeared in Rolling Stone, Newsweek, French Zoom , the Los Angeles Times , Malibu magazine, and numerous books, including Los Angeles: Portrait of a City , Taschen’s comprehensive 2009 volume on the city, and the Huntington Library’s This Side of Paradise: Body and Landscape in Los Angeles Photographs (2008). His monograph, Timekeeper , was self-published in 2003.

Julian Cox is the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco’s founding curator of photography and chief administrative curator. His prior curatorial appointments include positions at the National Museum of Photography, Film and Television (now the National Media Museum), Bradford, England; the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles; and the High Museum of Art, Atlanta. He coauthored, with Colin Ford, the critically acclaimed publication Julia Margaret Cameron: The Complete Photographs (2003), the first catalogue raisonné of Cameron’s work. Other notable publications include Road to Freedom: Photographs of the Civil Rights Movement, 1956–1968 (2008); The Portrait Unbound: Photographs by Robert Weingarten (2010); Real to Real: Photographs from the Traina Collection (2012); and The Errand of the Eye: Photographs by Rose Mandel (2013).

Nayland Blake is an artist, writer, and educator. His writings have appeared in Interview , Artforum , Out , and Outlook . He is the author of numerous catalogue essays and was the cocurator and coeditor, with Lawrence Rinder, of the groundbreaking exhibition and catalogue In a Different Light: Visual Culture, Sexual Identity, Queer Practice (1995). He is the chair of the ICP-Bard Program in Advanced Photographic Studies at the International Center of Photography, New York.

Eileen Myles is a New York–based poet and writer. Her recent books include Snowflake/different streets, Inferno, and The Importance of Being Iceland (2009), which received a Creative Capital | Warhol Foundation Writers Grant. Her writing has appeared in Art in America , Artforum , Parkett , Harper’s , AnOther Magazine , The Believer , and The Nation . She received the Shelley Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America in 2010 and was a Guggenheim fellow in 2012.

Latest publications

American beauty: the osher collection of american art, lee mingwei: rituals of care, fashioning san francisco: a century of style.

What to Read If You Haven't Yet Read Roxane Gay

This summer has been the summer of Roxane Gay, and the world is the better for it. Her first novel, An Untamed State , was published by Grove Atlantic in May, and her essay collection Bad Feminist has just been released by Harper Perennial (it happens to be our August Book of the Month, by the way), and they are both exceeding every ridiculously high expectation set for them.

But what may seem like overnight success is actually the product of decades of writing. As Gay told The Great Discontent, she started to publish her work "very carefully" in literary journals in the late '90s. For those who've followed her through Twitter and Tumblr — digital treasure troves where she'll share lyrical spare thoughts, eviscerate racist Best Buy employees, or just narrate a Barefoot Contessa episode — the publication of both of her books is cause for massive celebration.

But don't listen to me — listen to absolutely everyone talking about her, aka the entire Internet. And if all the chatter makes you want to dive into Gay's work, here are some fantastic essays and stories by the writer you can read now, for free, to convince you why you should be a Roxane Gay fangirl, too.

Decomp Magazine: "Motherfuckers"

A brief and quietly devastating story about a kid named Gérard who moves to America from Haiti. Gérard receives a nickname from his fellow classmates, and it takes a little while to sink in, but once it does, you’ll understand — and maybe even instinctively feel — the humiliation that Americans can inflict on immigrants. Gay, who has Haitian parents and grew up in Nebraska “raised as a Haitian-American,” imbues the short scenes with a potent mix of secondhand and firsthand embarrassment.

Key sentence: “'Je te deteste,' he says. The teacher claps excitedly. She doesn’t speak French.”

BuzzFeed: "Not Here to Make Friends"

The title is a commonly trumpeted battle cry for female reality competitors, whether they’re fighting for a bachelor or a modeling contract, but Gay uses it to frame her wish for more unlikeable female characters in literature. Published six months after author Claire Messud scoffed at an interview question about the likability of her latest novel’s female protagonist — " For heaven’s sake, what kind of question is that? " Messud had bitten back — "Not Here to Make Friends” puts forth the claim that when male literary characters are dark, disturbing, moody, volatile, just plain cranky or otherwise psychopathic, they are still validated as “ultimately compelling.”

Not so for female characters, who, from Nellie Olson to Countess Olenska, are often judged as if they are competing for Miss Congeniality rather than existing as complex, human characters. Essential reading for anyone who wonders why Walter White gets all the love and Skyler White gets the Internet’s ire.

Key sentence: "I want characters to do the things I am afraid to do for fear of making myself more unlikable than I may already be."

xoJane: "My Body is Wildly Undisciplined and I Deny Myself Nearly Everything I Desire"

In the aftermath of this year’s Biggest Loser finale, in which a contestant lost what many considered to be an unhealthy amount of weight, Gay considered her own relationship to her body. The Biggest Loser “is a show about unruly bodies that must be disciplined by any means necessary,” she writes, “and through that discipline, the obese might become more acceptable members of society.” She ticks off a list of ways she tries to make her “wildly undisciplined” body more acceptable — by wearing dark clothes, by not eating junk food in public, and by denying herself over and over again.

The problem of body image in America is real, and Gay is not afraid to reveal the parts of herself that don’t fit into the typical female weight loss narrative of deprivation → thinness → happiness. And this is a radical move; a move that I wish more women writers would make; a move I believe will let other women first feel OK with feeling insecure, and then feel like they no longer need to be insecure at all.

Key sentence: “I said, 'People like me don’t get to eat food like that in public,' and it was one of the truest things I’ve ever said.”

New York Magazine: "The 10 Best Books About Modern Virgins"

Ask a normal person for a list of book recommendations, and you’ll (probably) get one, but ask Gay for a list of book recommendations and she’ll give you a genre-hopping digest of literature that registers pretty much across the board on the high-low culture matrix. Doesn’t even matter if you didn’t want to read a bunch of stories about virgins — now you’ve got options from J.G. Ballard to Jeffrey Eugenides, and you probably want to read them all. This list is proof that nothing is mundane in the hands of Roxane Gay.

Key sentence: “You know virginity is a big deal when a vampire breaks a bed frame as he breaks his new wife’s hymen.”

HTMLGIANT: "Do As Franzen Does. Do What You Like."

This could have been one in a thousand posts making fun of the tech-phobic Corrections author and his distaste for anything that has to do with the words “social” or “networking.” A ton of those pieces came out after he described using Twitter as “like writing a novel without the letter P,” and all of them said he was out of touch, a lame dude who just didn’t get it, yadda yadda yadda.

Click Here To Buy

What set Gay’s piece apart was that she critiqued Franzen for ignoring something important — writers who aren’t as successful as Franzen need Twitter to promote their books, communicate with their fellow authors, and build a literary network. Without the infrastructure (and money) of big publishing, writers can use Twitter (and Facebook, and G+, and other social networks that have yet to be invented) to get their names and words out there. Gay’s best advice about social media is to chill the F out. “Do something where you are willing to show that you give a damn, however you interpret giving a damn,” Gay writes. If only Jonathan Franzen went on the Internet enough to even read that himself.

Key sentence : “It’s like Franzen is saying, 'I cannot swim in my car and therefore my car is not useful.'”

The Hairpin: "Adventures with UPS Man"

Those who follow Gay on Twitter will know that she has an ongoing flirtation with her UPS Man (whom she has since moved away from — oh, the humanity!). And why wouldn’t any of us fall in love with a cute dude who shows up every week to deliver us, um, packages? Here, she compiles all of her not-so-innocent thoughts about UPS Man. You will never think of the UPS slogan the same way again.

Key sentence: “Lord y’all. The UPS Man(hot) is training a another UPS Man(hotter), and they just came to bring me something.”

The Rumpus: "Girls Girls Girls"

“The desire for authentic representations of girlhood is like searching for water in a desert.” Gay bemoans the lack of real, representative examples of young adult women we have on television and in the movies, referencing the new-at-the-time first season of Girls . Girlhood is “too vast” and “too individual” to be summed up by a single show; Girls just bears an unfair amount of weight in the argument that it doesn’t represent a woman’s early 20s for everyone. According to Gay, the problem is not that Girls is a show made by and about privileged white people — the problem is that there are not enough other shows creating stories that less privileged and less white women can relate to.

Click Here To Watch

Key sentence: “Every girl or once-was-girl has a show that would be best for her.”

Kill Author: "Important Things to Know About Career Girls"

Gay’s feminism is clearly legible in her nonfiction, but her fiction bears it, too, though sometimes in subtler ways. The now-defunct journal Kill Author published Gay’s story in its second issue, and it reads like either a cryptic third-person diary, an aspirational instructional manual, or notes from a spy, depending on who you think is talking.

Key sentence: “She takes dictation and makes note not of what he says, but rather what she thinks.”

Spork Press: "Do You Have a Place for Me"

This is a story about two female friends spending a weekend together, and it’s told in a tangled cascade of ecstatic, almost run-on sentences. I don’t want to say anything more about it because it is best experienced unspoiled .

Key sentences: “We will be bright lights and spectacle. I will think these are those better days.”

Frigg Magazine: "Law & Order: The Complete Series"

Gay spins her love for Law & Order — ”the exquisite dramas of (in)justice” — into a fragmented, haunting series of vignettes. The classic tropes and moods of L&O are translated into juicily bitter poetry. Assault in alleyways, cadavers laid out in a morgue, Very Special Episodes: it’s like the “dun dun” sound effect, in fiction form.

Key sentence: “His tears stain his cheeks and seep between their mouths.”

The Rumpus: "We Are Many. We Are Everywhere."

Not a piece of fiction and not nonfiction exactly, but still one of the more important collections of words to exist on the Internet: a list of writers of color, plain and simple. This list exists as a defiant reminder to whitewashed literary journals, wild inequality in book reviews , and publishing companies that describe the imbalance as a historical problem — not to mention narrow-minded or lazy readers.

And even though this list should probably be bookmarked on everyone’s browser of choice, it also reminds me of the bigger desire — that writers of color, female writers, queer writers, writers who exist outside of the literary status quo, can achieve success, find a wider readership, purchase whatever the hell they want to at Best Buy, kick ass, take names, then do it all again. Roxane Gay is the gold standard, and she’s taking us along for the ride. We should all be such bad feminists.

Images: rgay /Twitter; Trae Patton/NBC; HBO; NBC

To revisit this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories .

• The Big Story
• Newsletters
• Steven Levy's Plaintext Column
• WIRED Classics from the Archive
• WIRED Insider
• WIRED Consulting

Tim Cook Tells the World 'I'm Proud to Be Gay'

Apple CEO Tim Cook has taken a major step toward breaking what many call "the glass closet," openly admitting in a new personal essay that he's "proud to be gay."

In the essay published Thursday by Businessweek , Cook acknowledges that while he's open about his sexuality with friends and colleagues and has never denied it publicly, he hasn't acknowledged it publicly until now. "So let me be clear: I’m proud to be gay, and I consider being gay among the greatest gifts God has given me," Cook writes.

This public acknowledgement makes Cook the first openly gay CEO on the Fortune 500 list. He says that until now, he's preferred to let Apple's products and services speak for themselves and maintain a modicum of privacy. And yet, he's come to realize that as one of the most powerful businessmen in the world, he can also be an important role model to other people who are struggling with their sexuality.

"I don’t consider myself an activist, but I realize how much I’ve benefited from the sacrifice of others," he writes. "So if hearing that the CEO of Apple is gay can help someone struggling to come to terms with who he or she is, or bring comfort to anyone who feels alone, or inspire people to insist on their equality, then it’s worth the trade-off with my own privacy."

Cook has been widely reported to be gay for some time now. Earlier this year, Out magazine named Cook one of the most powerful gay men in America . This summer, Cook marched in San Francisco's gay pride parade . And just this week, he called on Alabama leaders to protect the rights of lesbian, gay, transgender, and bisexual people in his home state.

Cook's decision to now speak publicly about his sexuality---difficult as he says it was---is a strong signal to other gay business leaders that they have nothing to hide. In fact, Cook writes, being a gay man has given him many of the skills he needs to be an effective leader. "It’s been tough and uncomfortable at times, but it has given me the confidence to be myself, to follow my own path, and to rise above adversity and bigotry," Cook writes. "It’s also given me the skin of a rhinoceros, which comes in handy when you’re the CEO of Apple."

At the same time, Cook urges other members of the business community not to define gay leaders by their sexuality. "Part of social progress is understanding that a person is not defined only by one’s sexuality, race, or gender," he writes. "I’m an engineer, an uncle, a nature lover, a fitness nut, a son of the South, a sports fanatic, and many other things."

Cook concludes his missive with a nod to great civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy, whose photographs sit in his office. "I don’t pretend that writing this puts me in their league," he writes. "All it does is allow me to look at those pictures and know that I’m doing my part, however small, to help others. We pave the sunlit path toward justice together, brick by brick. This is my brick."

People Say Queer People Are Born That Way.

It’s More Complicated.

• Share full article

When Lady Gaga released “Born This Way,” the 2011 song on an album of the same name, it was an instant hit and an instant L.G.B.T.Q. anthem. The song debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Top 100, and Elton John called it “the new gay anthem.”

It was the dictum of a generation, three words operating with bumper sticker efficiency, conveying that queerness was natural and immutable, and that it was not a result of abuse, grooming or impairment. Queer people were not broken, and therefore in no need of fixing. Queerness was neither a choice nor a curse. It was not a “lifestyle” but a state of being.

The idea that sexuality was innate, captured in the phrase, was a rhetorical work horse that began to lead the conversation around L.G.B.T.Q. issues. Although the idea of homosexual bio-essentialism has a history that long predates this modern iteration, “born this way” this time was a phrase that matched the moment and captured the zeitgeist. As with most things in politics, it was about timing.

Later that year, during remarks delivered at the Human Rights Campaign annual dinner, President Barack Obama joked to the gay rights group that “I also took a trip out to California last week, where I held some productive, bilateral talks with your leader: Lady Gaga.”

Don’t Tell My Friends, But… New York Times Opinion columnists burst bubbles, overturn conventional wisdom and question the assumptions — both big and small — of the people they usually agree with. New York Times Opinion columnists burst bubbles, overturn conventional wisdom and question the assumptions — both big and small — of the people they usually agree with.

The Market Doesn’t Always Get It Right

Bret Stephens

A Little Hypocrisy Is Healthy

Lydia Polgreen

A.I. Is Actually Our Friend

David Brooks

Cats Are Better Than Dogs

Pamela Paul

It’s Better to Be Good Than Right

David French

Don’t Hate On the D.M.V.

Tressie McMillan Cottom

Natural Childbirth Isn’t Best

Michelle Goldberg

We’re Less Divided Than You Think

Zeynep Tufekci

Obama was referring to meeting Gaga at a fundraiser at which she raised the issue of bullying after one of her fans, 14-year-old Jamey Rodemeyer, endured homophobic bullying before dying by suicide.

Before the fundraiser, Obama had repealed “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” in the military, allowing queer service members to serve openly, and soon after the fundraiser, Obama would become the first president to declare his support for same-sex marriage.

In the years after the song was released, the percentage of Americans saying in polling that “being gay or lesbian is something a person is born with” began to consistently outweigh those who responded that being queer was “due to factors such as upbringing and environment.”

“Born this way,” as a slogan, was a tremendous cultural and political success. The problem is that it isn’t supported by science. The emerging scientific consensus is that sexual orientation isn’t purely genetic. A person’s genetic makeup and exposure to prenatal hormones may provide a propensity to queerness, but they aren’t determinative. Other factors most likely also play a role.

“Born this way” may, unfortunately, have been an oversimplification. It’s probably closer to the truth to say that people are “formed this way.” As the complexity of human sexuality has become clearer, scientists and writers have attempted to add necessary nuance to the subject. But the slogan remains entrenched in the culture.

Just last year, Rolling Stone crowned “Born This Way” the most inspirational L.G.B.T.Q. song of all time, calling it a “battle cry” that “is as relevant as ever.”

But the time may have come to retire the phrase. It is not only unsupportable by science but also does not capture the full reality of queer experience and is unjust to some members of the queer community itself.

As Lisa Diamond, a professor of developmental psychology, health psychology and gender studies at the University of Utah, explained in her 2018 TED talk, the argument is “unjust because it implies that L.G.B.T. individuals who fit a certain cultural stereotype, the ones who have been exclusively gay for as long as they can possibly remember, are somehow more deserving of acceptance and equality than someone who came out at age 60 or whose attractions have been more fluid or who is bisexual rather than exclusively gay.”

I fully understand how frightening relinquishing this phrase may be.

“Born this way,” as both a scientific concept and a political ideology, was easy to understand, accept and digest. A more nuanced explanation of attraction, one with a bit of mystery, opens the door to ambiguity and uncertainty that the opponents of gay rights will no doubt seek to exploit.

Relinquishing such a powerful tool might feel like giving up too much. But incoming Stony Brook University professor Joanna Wuest, author of “Born This Way: Science, Citizenship, and Inequality in the American LGBTQ+ Movement,” believes that retiring the idea may potentially not be much of a loss at all, because the science is so strong that things like conversion therapy “are extremely detrimental to mental health and even the lives of queer people.”

As she explained to me, “we don’t need a strong biological theory of identity to understand that when you punch someone, they say it hurts.”

Now the argument has to be more sophisticated: We may choose how we identify and how we express — or suppress — our attractions, but our attractions themselves are not a choice.

We must insist that people’s right to exist, and our responsibility to affirm and protect them, doesn’t hinge on the mechanisms by which they came to exist. The “end” exists, regardless of the “means.”

Charles M. Blow is an Opinion columnist for The New York Times, writing about national politics, public opinion and social justice, with a focus on racial equality and L.G.B.T.Q. rights. @ CharlesMBlow • Facebook

Illustration by Rozalina Burkova. Produced by Shannon Lin, Jessia Ma and Shoshana Schultz.

While Writing for 'Orange Is the New Black,' I Realized I Am Gay

I was underdressed the day we shot Larry's pivotal phone call with Piper for the first season of Orange is the New Black . It was 9 degrees on Fifth Avenue, and I wore New Balances and a pair of wool socks — but I sucked it up because this was the climax of their season-long arc: A scene where both characters are finally forced to be honest after months of lying to each other. It was a scene I'd written with words shamelessly borrowed from my own life, and as I watched Jason Biggs repeat "I don't know if you can," after Piper begs him to let her fix her mistakes, the world around me swirled in a dizzying blur of life imitating art. Or vice versa — it's hard to say sometimes. By the end of the day I mostly was trying not to cry, and I also couldn't feel my feet.

In any story worth telling, there's conflict. And so, while it certainly would have been disorienting to begin to question my sexuality after three decades of knowing myself, it was particularly blinding because I'd gotten married only a few months before. It was the sort of wedding that makes you believe in absolute partnership and the strength that can come from facing obstacles, like the life-threatening illness that my new husband had battled for the majority of our relationship. But he was healthy again, so we danced under strings of Christmas lights and drank fancy cocktails that were served in mason jars, all while being surrounded by the friends and family who had held us up over the previous six years.

Which is why it's now a punch in the gut every time I have to say, "I'm getting divorced because I'm gay." It's a sentence I've said approximately 5,223 times in the last six months. For those of you keeping track, I'm definitely not exaggerating and I'm not prone to hyperbole, ever.

Often, after I make the declaration in as casual a voice as I can manage, the next question is, "Did you know?" It's a question that I dread because I always hear the implied "How could you not know?"

The thing is, even when you find yourself in a minority, there's always a majority. If I was really gay, I would have known when I was younger. There was a prescribed narrative, and everything about my own story challenged the accepted one.

Five months after my wedding, I flew to New York to start production on my first episode of Orange , and from that moment on my life fell into a parallel rhythm with Piper's story in a way that went from interesting to terrifying in a matter of months.

"You're so gay!" people exclaimed gleefully and often in the writers’ room those first few months. It was my first professional writing job, and I quickly discovered that the writers' room was a remarkably intimate place: We shared details of fights with our significant others or childhood family secrets that might be cloaked in shame otherwise, and at the end of the day, all of it could be distilled into material that made the show richer.

As we started to shape our characters and debate fictional Piper's "true" sexuality that first season, we engaged in long discussions about sex, gender and our own experiences. I eagerly shared details of innocent, "above-the-waist" flirtations with girls when I'd been younger. I'd even excitedly blurted out, "I would totally sleep with her," about an actress who had auditioned for Alex (now played brilliantly by Laura Prepon, who shares the role with a pair of glasses). I went to therapy that night and casually mentioned that perhaps I was higher on the Kinsey Scale than I previously thought.

The sound stage for Orange , where we proudly employ what has to be at least 64% of lesbians in the New York City metro area, is not a place where you can shy away from women or sexuality. And if you're trying to, Lea Delaria (Big Boo) will nip it in the bud by inviting you to sit on her lap.

Accordingly, I was nervous about the first love scene I'd written for Alex and Piper. I'd loved writing it, loved watching a tenderness emerge in their relationship where passion always seemed to be the ruling principle, but by that time, I was so deep in my own self-doubt that I constantly felt like a fraud. I was sure it was bleeding into my writing. How could it not? I was married to a man, but I wasn't straight.

"I heart you."

"I heart you? Is that like 'I love you' for pussies?"

As I watched Taylor Schilling and Laura film the scene, one of our producers (as it happened, a gay woman) tapped me on the shoulder. She pointed at the screen and gave me a thumb's up. It was a small gesture, but my first step toward feeling accepted and quietly accepting myself. In Piper and Alex, I'd found a mouthpiece for my own desires and a glimmer of what my future could look like.

Outside of small victories on the show, I continued to spiral downward. I felt like my life was being rewritten without my permission. I'd checked all my boxes! I was happily married and loved my job!

Things were finally great, for fuck's sake.

I realized I was gay in fall 2012, one of my first days on the set. It wasn't so much one thing, but the sum of many small details: how uncomfortable I felt around groups of lesbians or how I considered myself (shrug) a "not very sexual person." When considered alone, these seemed like little quirks that made me me. Wanting to read a book instead of have sex is a perfectly reasonable preference to have, right?

But on set, these small moments came into sharp relief, and I found myself answering to an endless stream of cast members who peppered me with questions like a gaggle of kindergartners curious about their new teacher. "Are you dating anyone?" "You're married?" "To a man?" "But you used to kiss girls?" "Do you miss it?"

I was finally forced to consider a question that had never, ever occurred to me before: Holy shit, am I gay?

Image Credits (all) Lauren Morelli

Despite being 31 years old, having lived in extremely liberal cities for 13 years of my life and considering myself an educated individual, over the last year I:

1. Googled "How do you know if you're a lesbian?" There had to be, like, a quiz or something, right?

It feels important to say these things in a public way, to record them where they are easily accessible because if I could think and feel them while working in the world's most supportive environment, surrounded by people in the LGBT community, where being a minority of any sort is joyfully celebrated, I can only venture to imagine the pain, confusion and fear that might have existed otherwise. 

I attended the GLAAD awards recently, where I had the privilege of witnessing Ellen Page present Laverne Cox with the Stephen F. Kolzak Award. GLAAD's president, Sarah Kate Ellis, also spoke that evening, and encouraged the room to live their lives openly and with love, in full view of any opposition that might exist.

After lugging around a basket full of shame and guilt for the last year, there was a lightness that came with realizing that I could choose to replace my negative framing with honesty and grace.

I am now out to my family, my friends and most of my co-workers on Orange (and now to you, dear reader). Now, when I am in the writers' room or on set, I no longer feel like I am stuck in the middle of two truths. I belong because my own narrative fits in alongside the fictional stories that we are telling on the show: stories of people finding themselves, of difficult paths and of redemption.  

I won't spoil anything for you, but I am tremendously proud of my own contributions to season 2 of Orange is the New Black . It was in the writers' room that I came into myself, surrounded by unconditional love and teasing when I needed it (like when I was so depressed that I wore a hoodie and a baseball cap for too many days in a row and someone asked me if I was trying to be an undercover cop).

I went through it all on set: I fell in love with a woman, and I watched my life play out on screen. And now, as we are gearing up for the release of season 2, it feels liberating and appropriate to live my life in front of you.

I am not perfect. I would rather be comfortable than brave. I also wouldn’t mind your approval because that always feels nice.

And yet. This is my story, which is messy and nuanced and a constantly moving target, but one I'm grateful for. I encourage you to embrace your own narrative, whatever that may be. It will be worth the effort. I promise.

An official website of the United States government

Here’s how you know

Official websites use .gov A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS A lock ( Lock A locked padlock ) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

https://www.nist.gov/blogs/taking-measure/reflections-growing-gay-and-solace-science

Taking Measure

Just a Standard Blog

Reflections on Growing Up Gay and the Solace of Science

Typical day in my lab. 

I was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in the mid-’70s into a blue-collar family. My father was a carpenter and my mother was a homemaker. My family was of modest means, but we always had enough food to eat and always had a roof over our heads.

On the occasional summer weekend, my parents would scrape enough money together for us to go on a road trip to a neighboring lake town, memories I cherish to this day. My early childhood years were mostly those of a typical happy-go-lucky boy. I was usually in good spirits and I had everything that I needed. Despite that, I didn’t really fit in with my “peer” group of pre-teen boys. I didn’t like sports, I didn’t particularly care for outdoor activities, and most of my friends were girls. The few male friends I did have as a child, I would learn later in life were also gay (more on that later).

Throughout my childhood, this lack of fitting in persisted. I just didn’t want to do what other boys wanted to do. And I didn’t have this peculiar attraction to girls that other boys had. I recognized that it is was only peculiar to me. I understood what the attraction was, and I looked for it within myself. I looked a lot, but couldn’t find it.

The only place I found peace and solace was in studying, so that is what I did and did it pretty intensely. I used those pursuits to distract myself from all the pain associated with not fitting into the pre-made social machinery around me. I didn’t have to go to the weekend school dance, because I was too busy studying for the chemistry exam on the following Monday. This paid other dividends with my peers at school. Since I worked so hard to fully understand the materials, it became easy for me to explain them to other students who needed help. I had found a way to be accepted by my peers; I could be the best nerd in the class!

In high school, I was lucky enough to receive a scholarship to the University of Tulsa that covered most of my tuition costs and ultimately resulted in a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering. During my undergraduate days, I reunited with some of my elementary school friends and they introduced me to the local gay scene. There were a handful of gay bars that we would frequent, and for the first time in my life, I found a community where I was accepted and not judged. I was finally ready to come out to the world in general, and I didn’t care anymore who knew I was gay. (Before this time, I held this secret very tightly—only my closest friends knew and they were sworn to secrecy.)

After earning my degree, I was not ready to get a “real” job, since the only options that seemed available to me were entry-level corporate engineering jobs in the petrochemical industry. Sure the pay was good, but the work was not that interesting. So, I ended up applying to graduate programs across the country, ultimately deciding to attend Northwestern University. I earned a Ph.D. in the early 2000s, and that led to a National Research Council postdoctoral fellowship at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and ultimately a staff position, where I now have an amazing career and work life.

Throughout my grade-school, undergraduate and graduate education, I would hear the occasional off-color “gay” comment from peers and I had more or less grown to accept it as an unfortunate fact of life. Now, as I approach the 20th year of my career at NIST, I cannot imagine my sexuality being any part of how my peers evaluate me or my abilities; to them it is only as important as the color of the (very little) hair on my head or the color of the pigments in the irises of my eyes. That is to say, it is something that is a part of me, but it is not what defines my abilities.

It is a true asset to NIST that everybody is appreciated and acknowledged for the skills and integrity they bring to their work, while the other qualities that describe them as a person only serve to enhance their contribution to the community. We still have a long way to go in completely accepting everybody. But that little boy born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, 44 years ago, would never have imagined that our society would have progressed so much toward fully accepting the beautiful diversity that makes up our world.

About the author

Wyatt Vreeland

Wyatt Vreeland graduated  magna cum laude  from the University of Tulsa in May of 1997. In 1997 he began his doctoral studies at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. During his time at Northwestern, his research focused on developing new methodologies for high-resolution electrophoretic analysis of polymeric macromolecules in capillaries and microfluidic "lab-on-a-chip" devices. These techniques were primarily geared toward DNA analysis for genetic applications. He joined NIST in 2004. His recent research has focused on using the precise and reproducible laminar flow conditions available in microfluidic systems to facilitate the self-assembly of amphiphilic molecules into liposomes and other nanoparticles.

Thanks for sharing your story, Wyatt.

Beautifully written. So glad to call you my friend.

Thank you for helping make NIST (and the world) a better place and for sharing parts of your journey with us. They're lucky to have you.

Thank you, Wyatt!

Your story is an inspiration. I am so glad you have found a true home and inclusive community at NIST, where pursuit of excellence is our shared commitment.

Walt Copan NIST Director

This is a great story. Thank you for sharing it. It makes me think back of my high school days in the 1970s when people even suspected of being gay were treated unkindly. Now I wish I would have done more at the time in their defense. I've lost track of them but hope they have found the support you have including at NIST.

Thanks so much for sharing your story! I am very grateful to be your colleague and friend.

That was nice. Proud of you Wyatt!

Add new comment

• No HTML tags allowed.
• Web page addresses and email addresses turn into links automatically.
• Lines and paragraphs break automatically.

• Search Please fill out this field.
• Manage Your Subscription
• Give a Gift Subscription
• Newsletters
• Sweepstakes

• Celebrity Belief & Identity
• Celebrity LGBTQ+ Issues

My Coming Out Story

For Pride 2020,  PEOPLE 's Deputy West Coast Editor Jason Sheeler has collected powerful coming out stories from a range of extraordinary individuals within the LGBTQ community. The stories — some conducted as interviews and some told to Sheeler as first-person essays — feature celebrities and everyday Americans from a range of backgrounds and experiences. What do they have in common? Very human experiences and uncommon bravery, earned by coming out as LGBTQ. 

Caitlyn Jenner

Caitlyn Jenner woke up today in Malibu a happy woman. "The first thing I do every day is smile," she says, sitting down in her living room for a Zoom chat. "The turmoil is gone. I can be present. I have no more secrets."

Five years ago this month, Jenner, now 70, appeared on the cover of Vanity Fair and instantly became the most famous trans woman in the world. She had been a gold-medal hero idolized on Wheaties boxes, and part of a culture-shifting family and show Keeping Up with the Kardashians . But through it all, Jenner had felt alone. "When you're struggling with your identity, you have a tendency to isolate," she says.

It took her 65 years to stop hiding. She tried before, but each time stepped back into the shadows. Jenner married actress Chrystie Crownover in 1972 and tried to tell her about the gender dysphoria she'd had since her youth. "She was the first one I talked to," she says. "It wasn't a big deal." When their marriage fell apart, Jenner married songwriter Linda Thompson in 1981, with whom she had Brandon and Brody . "I talked to her too," she says. The sentence Jenner remembers using each time was: This is kind of an issue that I have. I've always struggled with my identity. " Every time I spoke to someone, I just felt so much better," she says. "The next day it would just be like, a million pounds are lifted off my shoulders." The day after that she would go back to struggling.

After divorcing Thompson in 1986, Jenner entered therapy. "I loved to go, because that was the only person I could talk to. I needed a professional. I wanted to know if I was crazy," she says. Eventually, after starting and stopping hormone therapy and electrolysis, she began to feel overwhelmed by the enormity of what it would take to transition. "I said to myself, 'I just can't do this. Move on.' "

She met Kris Kardashian , and the couple married in 1991. "I was honest with Kris about who I am. We talked about it. I just never thought I would ever transition," Jenner says. "I had gone through six years of hell in therapy and just thought, I'm going to deal with this thing. But I was open with her that I had identity issues." (Kardashian has disputed that she knew the extent of Jenner's gender struggle.) They spent the next 23 years together raising a family.

"Through all of those years, I did cross-dress when I could," she says, "To get a little relief." She would often do it on the road, dressing up in hotel rooms, using Saran wrap and Krazy Glue to alter her appearance. She'd go downstairs and walk around the lobby "feeling free, but scared to death of getting caught." She was seen and not heard. "I never, ever opened my mouth. I never talked to anybody because my voice would give it away."

In 2014 their marriage disintegrated. (As for their relationship today, Jenner says, "We've both moved on," adding that she has "never been on a date or had any romance or any of that kind of stuff" since.) Jenner once again started hormone therapy. Rumors were rampant, and paparazzi relentlessly pursued her. She needed to tell someone about her plans to transition. Her first call was to her pastor. "I was asking God, 'Why did you do this? What was your reason? Is [transitioning] something I am supposed to do?' " she recalls. The pastor said yes. Jenner realized, "I raised a great family, great kids. Now it was time to raise me."

She told her children one by one. "Honestly, if one of them had had a problem, I wouldn't have done it," she says.

"When my dad came out as transgender, our relationship grew," says Jenner's daughter, model Kendall Jenner , 24. "She could finally be honest with me. Because of my dad's bravery, I've learned to love what I love and not be ashamed of it." Her sister, Kylie , 22, a cosmetics mogul, agrees: "My dad has always been an inspiration to me, from winning the gold medal at the Olympics to getting her pilot's license. However, watching her live out her true self has been the most inspiring of them all."

But Jenner's plans to come out nearly came to a halt when she learned TMZ was set to publish photos of her leaving the doctor's office after a feminizing tracheal shave procedure. She pleaded, but they wouldn't back down. "That night I couldn't sleep; I knew the amount of people following me was only going to increase. I thought, 'I've got a gun in the other room. Everything goes quiet. I don't have to deal with any of this anymore.' "

But something her pastor had said stopped her: that she could be of use to other people suffering. "I started thinking, don't silence your voice. I realized all of this could have purpose." So Jenner decided she would be the one to tell her story: There was Vanity Fair , a sit-down with Diane Sawyer, a memoir and her own reality show, I Am Cait. She was finally heard. But the first time she felt seen was when she held her new driver's license in July 2015. "It was so emotional. There I was: Caitlyn Marie Jenner," she remembers. "But then I wondered, did Bruce deserve to be thrown away like this? He did a lot of good things. He raised 10 kids. But I wasn't turning around. Bruce did just about everything he could do. Now what does Caitlyn do?"

She began to embrace that idea. "I thought, what a great opportunity to change the world's thinking; 51 percent of trans people attempt suicide. The murder rate—we've been losing one trans woman of color every two weeks," she says. But as a lifelong Republican , she held political views that didn't match those of most in the LGBTQ community. She was uninvited to fundraisers she'd donated to. "They said I'm 'too controversial.' And that hurt," she says. "I think I had been wearing rose-colored glasses. I thought I could change the world. Now I know I can only try and change one person at a time."

Jeff Olde, who co-created Jenner's show I Am Cait and has defended her within the LGBTQ community, knows she's made mistakes. "But what I respect about her today is that she's willing to learn," he says. "And learning can be painful." Before transitioning, Jenner admits, "I'd never met another trans person," she says. And now she feels like she's made meaningful progress. "I've changed my thinking in a lot of ways." She now identifies as "economically conservative, socially progressive" and believes "we need equality for all, regardless of who's in the White House. I love my community. I truly want to help." To that end she has been quietly giving trans students college scholarships over the past three years and has realigned her foundation to focus on trans youth.

"This is my journey. Yes, it is different than that of other trans people. I get it," she says. "But the bottom line is this: When I wake up in the morning, I'm happy with myself."

A broken heart paved the way for CNN anchor Don Lemon 's first, and most personal, coming-out moment.

"My first boyfriend and I had broken up," remembers Lemon, 54. "We were living together in New York, where I had moved so I could live around other like-minded people." Lemon's mother, Katherine Clark , sensed her son's unhappiness from back home in Baton Rouge. "So I told her, 'Mom, I'm really sad about John and our relationship.' She asked me what kind of relationship we had, and I told her, 'He was my lover.' That's when I started crying."

Lemon says it was "one of those scenes": Clark told him that she had chosen to ignore rumors over the years and that she loved him unconditionally. "She was okay with it for a while," Lemon recalls. "But as I became stronger, she became weaker." Clark expressed a desire for grandchildren, and she worried for her son's safety, emotional health and career.

His being open, Lemon says, helped her: "She started to learn about my friends and my life, and she really started to accept it. She realized that all [her fears] weren't true, and she was building that up in her head."

Lemon didn't hide his sexuality ("Everyone kind of knew—friends, people at work. I was just kind of out"), but it would be 15 years before he went on the record to The New York Times and in a memoir, which also revealed he was sexually abused as a child.

"Today, I am going to survive and thrive as an openly full person who happens to be gay, who happens to be whatever it is, dark hair, brown eyes, African American. Whatever it is that I happen to be, I am going to own that fully," he says. " I've learned that only once you come out, once you see the world from that perspective, then you get to be, "What was I worried about?"

And he's engaged . "Now I have three dogs, I live with my fiancé [ real estate exec Tim Malone ]," he says. "We go on vacations, we rent motor homes and we go camping and we do things that I never thought that I would do. And now I'm just like…I'm just, you know… It feels normal. I'm buying a station wagon, okay?"

He also wants to make sure others have a voice: "In the wake of George Floyd's death , the gay community also needs to realize that we too need to deal with our own racism," Lemon says. "White gay males still operate from a considerable level of privilege just from being white and male in America. And privilege is a powerful seducer. It can lull you into ignoring the fact that black, gay men endure double [the] discrimination in America—black, trans people endure triple. And those stories are rarely elevated and heard." Lemon is using his platform to help change that.

When Los Angeles native Jake Atlas (born Kenny Marquez) reported to the World Wrestling Entertainment facilities in Orlando in January, he became the first openly gay man in the sport, which is so popular it's seen in 800 million households around the world. Fortunately, Atlas, 25, isn't easily daunted. "Wrestling is the only thing I've ever wanted to do," he says. As a cheerleader in high school, Atlas knew his tumbling skills translated into the lucha libre fighting style his Mexican-born mother first introduced him to. He was less confident in how his sexuality squared with his family's expectations.

"I came out when I was 15," he remembers. "I didn't tell a friend. I went straight to my mom. It was the first time that I uttered the word 'gay.' I didn't even say bisexual, because I knew I had been lying to myself. I was crying and I even said the words, 'I know this is wrong, but I'm gay.' " By that point his mother was crying too. "I know that more than anything, she was crying out of disappointment," he says. "And she brought religion into it. It was a difficult moment."

His desire to please his mother ultimately inspired him to accomplish "something big." He did, making his WWE debut this year. He lost his first match, but he knows his future is bright thanks to the support he has from two of very important women in his life, starting with Sonya Deville, the first openly lesbian wrestler in the league, whom he'd watched on TV for years. "Sonya was one of the first superstars that reached out to me," he says. "We have been able to get closer and understand each other. And like we're both here, you know? I have your back; you have mine." The other? His mother.

"We've now had countless conversations," he says. "I'm always educating her and I'm always trying to understand her as well. I think that's the important part about acceptance, understanding each other so that we can find that common ground. Then we can move forward together. And progress together."

Dominique Crenn

"I decided to tell my brother first, but it took me two years to come out to my parents. They're very Catholic. I've never denied my sexuality, but I never screamed from the top of the Eiffel Tower, 'I am gay!'

I've learned that stereotypes can be dangerous. When I came out, people would say things like, 'You're very attractive and feminine. We thought lesbians looked like truck drivers.' I'd say, 'You know everyone comes in different forms, right? And, by the way, who says truck drivers aren't beautiful?'

And you know what? It's beautiful to own who you are and walk into the world and to not be afraid of showing people who you are. It's beautiful to inspire people who perhaps have a life of hatred. And yes, they might hate people like us, but we can try to show them there is another way. I think everyone has beauty in themselves.

I met Maria [Bello] when she came to eat in my restaurant in San Francisco. We were very good friends before we became a couple. Being in love has made me even more comfortable with myself. I've never loved someone the way I love Maria. It's altered my perspective on coming out. We don't talk about being gay. We talk about being human . It was so natural to just hang out. And, and yeah, well, we are two women together. Guess what? Get used to it.

But don't make our love into something unique and special, because it's just normal. It's universal. That's what love should be."

Crenn, 55, is the owner of Atelier Crenn in San Francisco, which earned three Michelin stars, and the author of Rebel Chef .

Maria Bello

In 2013, the actress Maria Bello wrote an essay for the New York Times about her relationship with a woman, which was immediately branded a "coming out story." Then she wrote a second piece, explaining that the first was not, in fact, a coming story. "It wasn't like, 'Oh god! I'm attracted to a woman! Who can I tell?' It was really an 'I'm whatever' story," she laughs. "I don't have a coming out story." She seems to understand that she might have been ahead of her time, even only seven years ago. "The point of the story is that I have always been fluid," she says. "But people weren't using that word back then."

The rest of the world is still catching up. "I really don't care who anyone sleeps with," Bello says. "It's irrelevant to me. And yet, I understand why some people choose labels, because that's empowering to them. So, I support everybody labeling themselves the way they want to be labeled. And by the way, if somebody wants to label me a lesbian because I happen to be with a woman right now, I'm fine with that."

In Dominique Crenn, Bello has found a partner equally averse to labels. Two years ago, she DM'ed Crenn on Instagram. "Love was the last thing on my mind. I just wanted a reservation!" laughs Bello (who has a 19-year-old son, Jackson; his father is Dan McDermott). Crenn was in San Francisco, Bello in Los Angeles, but they became good friends. One day, over FaceTime, Bello told Crenn she wanted to be together. Crenn felt the same but had other news: She'd found a lump in her breast. "I waited five beats and said, 'Okay, let's do cancer,' " recalls Bello. "She's been a warrior. I loved her before, but now there's an even deeper level of respect."

Hannah Gadsby

"I left Tasmania to go to college, and by the time I arrived in Canberra, I was gay," remembers Australian comedian Hannah Gadsby. "It wasn't a big coming-out; people just always knew me as that. It was more sleight-of-hand."

In her Emmy-winning 2018 comedy special Nanette, Gadsby, 42, spoke honestly about her sexuality and surviving a sexual assault, and she later revealed she was diagnosed with autism at age 38. But back when she was 23, it was harder to come out to her conservative mother. The youngest of five, she rehearsed the conversation with her siblings. It did not go well. "Parents are raised in a world that says one thing," says Gadsby. "Then your child sort of demands that you accept another. They get one moment to be the best parent ever—it's always complicated." The experience was painful, but, she says, "we've worked through it. I have the perspective of more maturity of why that was hard for her."

She hopes that someday she's not recognized for her sexual orientation, or featured in roundups like these because of it. "For so long we [in the LGBTQ community] have been defined by our difference," Gadsby says. "Anyone with a marginalized identity knows this. Certainly, anyone with a disability knows this. Anyone who steps away from being a straight white man. But for the next generation this won't be the case. Now women can be on a public stage and not have to talk about what it's like being a woman."

She knows it takes time—generations even—for change to happen. "We're in such a hurry these days, I believe we forget that. Like I say with my mom: It takes time for people to change, it can take cultures even longer. It's frustrating, it's mysterious—like, Ellen DeGeneres is allowed to hang out with George Bush now." She laughs and says she's not sure how she feels about that personally: "But there's been progress. The thing there is that Ellen's now not just her sexuality."

Gadsby considers herself fortunate to have found comedy as a creative outlet to process her feelings of trauma and shame (her latest special, Douglas, is on Netflix now) but also acknowledges that telling one's story isn't enough. "Just telling your story is not enough. I think it needs to be understood and processed, become part of a conversation and not be a monologue," she says. "There's a lot emphasis on freedom of speech today. But, actually, we need to reinvigorate the art of listening."

The Trujillo Family

When he was 8 years old, Daniel Trujillo was inadvertently outed as transgender when a friend addressed him using a masculine pronoun instead of one corresponding to his gender at birth. Daniel's mother, Lizette, gently corrected the friend.

"He said, 'No, he's a he ,' " she recalls. "[Later] I asked Daniel, 'Is that how you see yourself?' " Daniel's answer was clear: "I know my body is wrong. In my insides and in my brain, I'm a boy."

Getting everyone to embrace Daniel's identity was more complicated. Lizette and her husband, Jose, had to inform extended family members (some would not be accepting) and decided to enroll Daniel in a more progressive school in their Tucson suburb—all while wondering why they hadn't been the first to see who Daniel really is.

They finally realized that on some level they had known all along. ""We had to open ourselves up and get to know our child," says Lizette. "We had seen gender-nonconforming behavior from the time Daniel was two," she says. "The way that he would draw himself, how he saw himself. He wanted to be Aladdin and Astro Boy." They initially saw Daniel as a tomboy, she adds: "He would dress up in his dad's clothing and puff out his chest and say, 'I'm a knight in shining armor.' "

Lizette and Jose are committed to allowing their son to decide his next steps (though chores, homework and eating his vegetables are nonnegotiable). "My son deserves to live in a world that is safe and free of discrimination," says Jose. Daniel says he's just a normal 12-year-old who hangs out with friends and plays soccer: "Being transgender is just a small part of me."

Noah Hepler

"I heard it 15 years ago, over and over, clearly through the voices of friends and other religious leaders. It was like in the scripture, where Jesus yells into the tomb and says, 'Lazarus, come out.' This was a raising from the dead moment for me for me too. I was trapped in a lie; a lie I constructed about myself, for myself, with all the things that I thought I was supposed to think. Eventually, I came out to my wife.

I was 31. I began to see how that the lie was hurting those around me, and myself. Because I wasn't true about who I am. I was constantly faking it. That wasn't fair for anyone around me, but especially my wife. There was a moment where that really hit home—a moment where we thought things were going to get better and then it became clear they weren't. Things became unsustainable. I finally said, 'I think I'm gay.'

There was no manual back then for how to come out to your wife. I did not handle it very well. That's something I regret. We haven't communicated since, but that might be how it needs to be.

My mom was a flight attendant. She often gave that speech at the beginning of the flight, about putting your mask on first and then helping others. She and I would often talk about the importance of why you put the mask on yourself first. That's self-care. I think that's something I knew in my head, but I hadn't really felt in my heart. I'm now letting that kind of grace to extend to my own life.

I had been playing by old norms about how I ought to be. But my congregation in Philadelphia has helped me, with their love and enthusiasm and by showing up every Sunday. One of the great things about the story of Lazarus is at the end. After Jesus calls Lazarus back to life, he turns to the crowd. Jesus invites them to participate. They all unbind Lazarus and let him go. And he is free."

Hepler, 46, is the pastor at the Evangelical Lutheran Church of the Atonement in Philadelphia. He was recently featured in an episode of Queer Eye.

Jeremy O. Harris

"The gift of being in the Glee generation—coming of age when diverse television shows like that were on the air—is that I've never felt beholden to other people's view of me. That's one of the reasons I never felt like I needed to have a big coming out. That's true for most of my friends too.

I grew up watching TV shows that were inclusive and exciting, but some of them also gave me confusing markers for what being gay or queer is. Watching Will & Grace as a 10-year-old, [seeing them] freaked out about kissing a girl or having any intimacy with a woman—that was what 'gay' was to me. But as a teenager I felt like the only people I wanted to spend any time with were women, and kissing a girl never felt like a great trespass on my personhood. So I was like, 'I'm not gay; I am just a metrosexual,' which was a popular term at that point.

I went to college in Chicago, where I was free from the social pressures of growing up, of being working-class, of being in a Christian environment, and I had the full freedom of a big city at my fingertips. By the end of freshman year, after a big party, I kissed my best friend, who was already out. In that moment I was like, 'That was weird!' But over the next week or so, I sort of just realized, 'I kind of like guys.' And that became a definitive: 'I like guys.' There was never any dramatic moment of me expressing to everyone in my life that I was gay. Just one day I realized there was a part of me that even I didn't know. I started to date guys, and everyone just accepted it. (They had assumed I would be one of the 'gay-by-May' freshmen anyway.) It certainly helped that I had such an accepting community around me. I didn't feel much shame about moving into that space of desire. It just made sense. So the only person I really had to 'come out' to was my mom. She asked me if I was gay, and I happily said yes."

Harris, 31, is an actor and playwright, whose works include Daddy , Slave Play and the forth-coming film Zola .

Jaime Harker

"In the '80s, there were no role models for me. There was no information, except for sort of the bad things you'd hear from the pulpit or in the media. Living north of San Diego, in a very conservative Mormon community, I didn't know anyone who was gay. I didn't see any images of people who were gay except for really negative ones. It was quite literally something I didn't have language for. I felt isolated, like there was no one like me in the world. That I was the only person who had ever felt that way. Today there are so many ways to envision what your life could be like, through technology. I had only one way to imagine what my future would be. And it was this huge tragedy. You were going die, either young or alone. Or both. There was no Gay-Straight Alliance in my school, for sure. The one thing that made a difference in my life were books.

Through books, I was offered other narratives. When I was 22, the movie Fried Green Tomatoes came out, and I read the novel. In the movie, it was always a question, like, "What's the relationship?" You could read it a number of ways. What's interesting about the book is it is very clear that they're in love. And it's not, it's not, like, coded. This lesbian couple lives in a small Southern town, and everybody accepts them as a couple. This whole book is so normalized that it's weird, because at never at any point are they made the feel that something was wrong with them or something was sick about them. They were simply accepted like every other married couple.

I read that as a student at Brigham Young University, and it was the first moment in my life that I thought, "Maybe it's going be okay. Maybe there's a way to be who I am and not be some cautionary tale, right? Maybe I don't have to be alone and unhappy and isolated and not have anything." Finally, two years later, I was able to come out to my parents. In 2016, I married my wife. I danced with my father at the wedding.

After I moved to Mississippi to teach at Ole Miss, I opened the bookstore in Water Valley. I am able to give other people the experience I had. Surprisingly, I hear my story a lot from people today. Our store is the only LGBTQ bookstore in the state. In this town, it's the only bookstore period.

Before we opened there was some concern in town. They prayed across the street every day as we were setting up the store. Then on social media we started seeing the rumors—that we would sell porn. No. Or "teach" kids how to be transgender. Well, it doesn't work that way. That there was a gang of lesbians invading Water Valley. To that one, okay, I've been looking for a lesbian gang my entire life. But slowly, day by day, more people have just gotten accustomed to us being here. They used to call us 'the gay bookstore,' and now they just call us 'the bookstore.' "

Harker, 51, is a professor at the University of Mississippi and owner of Violet Valley Bookstore .

Brandon Stansell

There aren't a lot of out gay country music artists. Brandon Stansell is not only out, his new single is about his difficult coming out — "Hurt People."

The first time Stansell came out publicly was at Taylor Swift 's birthday party 10 years ago. "I was dancing on Taylor Swift's Fearless tour," says Stansell, 33. He was also juggling his studies as a senior at the conservative Belmont College in Nashville. He wasn't out there, and he wasn't out to his conservative parents. But he had found a support system for the first time. "I had queer friends in my life," he says. "And I had a boyfriend."

He brought his boyfriend to Swift's birthday party, at the Las Vegas stop of the tour. "I gave her her birthday present, which was my favorite record of all time, Tracy Chapman's first. I gave it to Taylor on vinyl and said I hoped it would inspire her make more good music," he recalls. "Then I said, 'Oh, and by the way, this is my boyfriend.' And she says, 'Uh, I should have known you had a hot boyfriend!' "

It was a relief for Stansell—and an inspiration. "It was nerve wracking because she was my sole financial support," he says. "I think people had kind of guessed that I was queer but then it was suddenly okay. Because it came from the boss lady: 'This is okay.' "

His coming out experience to his parents, both conservative Christians, would not go as well. He visited them in North Carolina for his nephew's birthday. His mom picked him up at the airport. They went to a Mexican restaurant. "You could tell she just wanted to ask," he says. "And she did: 'Do you think you're gay?' And I said, 'Mom, I know I'm gay.' "

For a while it seemed like things would be okay. "It's gonna be fine, we're gonna figure it out," she told Stansell. He told his sister, which went okay, but he was too scared to tell his father. By the time Stansell returned to school, he had a voicemail from his father saying he was on his way to Nashville to see him. Waiting for his arrival was excruciating. And his father's reaction was the opposite of his mother's. "He told me, basically, that I'd be paying for that last semester of college on my own," Stansell says. "It was tough."

Stansell went on to finish the tour with Swift, pay for his last semester in college, graduate, and start working on his career as a solo artist. (He and the boyfriend broke up; Stansell, who now lives in L.A., is single today.) The episode with his family "was hard," he says, "but I realized that I can only play that victim role for so long. I had to actively decide if I was going to be crippled by the things that have happened, or if I'm gonna be better for them."

Stansell says his relationship with his family isn't good today. "It's not a closed door, it's more revolving," he says with a laugh. He hopes it will stop spinning.

So why write a song about such a personal family experience? "I can't change the minds of my particular family," he says. "But I don't think that it does anyone any good to paint a different picture of things that have happened. It doesn't help me and I don't think that it helps them either." Without honesty, he says, "there's no growth, there's no understanding, and there's no change. That's why I write the stuff that I do, that's why I sing and talk about this and other queer issues. That's why it's important for me to tell my story. Because it doesn't have to be replicated."

"I spent my childhood in Portland, Oregon, which is a highly progressive place, and I was fortunate that my parents shared those values, so I had the privilege of growing up in a supportive and nurturing family of origin. My mom, who worked as a therapist, has told me that when I was really young, she tried to normalize being gay, because she knew when I was two years old that I probably wasn't straight. She tells a story about being on a plane with me when I was about six years old, in the early '90s, on our way to visit a gay uncle. She was explaining to me very matter-of-factly: 'Some boys marry boys, and some girls marry girls.' The guy in front of us, she says, made a big show of turning his whole body around and giving her a menacing stare as if to say, 'When this plane lands, I am calling Child Protective Services.' But she stood her ground.

That story goes to show how both of my parents really worked hard to make sure that I was coming up in a culture—and within a family system—that would support whomever I would become. They wanted to make sure that I felt safe enough to be myself. I give them so much credit for that.

I started at a funky arts magnet school when I was 10, which was in 1999. Very quickly I met a girl who was 14, which at the time seemed like an ocean of distance in life experience. I remember her explaining to me that gender was a continuum. I was like, 'Sure, okay!' (Remember, I was 10.) When I told her I had developed feelings for another boy in my grade, she said, so plainly, 'That means you're gay. Or, at the very least, bi.' And, to some extent, that was that. Not long after, I wrote my parents a letter, telling them that I was gay or bi — that I didn't know yet, and we had a conversation about it. I don't want to say that it was no big deal, because of course it's been a hugely formative part of my identity. But the culture fostered by my parents, and that school, created a space for me to work through it pretty openly. So many people don't have that good fortune.

I've always been really aware of how blessed my coming out story was. It was my teenage years that were chaotic."

Lansky, 31, is the west coast editor of Time magazine and author of The Gilded Razor: A Memoir . His new novel, Broken People , is out now

Lee Daniels

"When I was 13, my mother found me with a guy. He was a teenager like me. She was so freaked out that she didn't know what to do. And even though she was aware that my father had physically abused me, she told him. That shocked me. As opposed to hitting me or really hardcore punishing me, he didn't touch me. He looked me in the eyes and said, 'If you embarrass me, I will kill you.'

The words struck me like a bullet. He was a policeman. It was clear that he could do it. So, I didn't have sex—I didn't even think about sex—for years. Then, when I was 16, my father was killed in the line of duty in Philadelphia. And you know what, even then, I felt like his ghost was going to come for me.

After that, I thought I was straight, because from 13 to 20, I simply didn't think about it. And then in college I dated a girl. And we had sex. Then she said, 'Lee, you're gay.'

I asked, 'How do you know that?'

She said, 'Because you are.'

And then we became best friends.

When I was 21, I left college early. I moved out to California. And I fell in love. Hard in love. I decided to tell my mom. I said, 'I'm in love.' I was so in love. It was my first love. She said, 'Can I meet her?'

I said, 'It's a him, and he's my roommate.'

She asked, 'What do you want me to say?'

I just didn't say anything. And she said, "I can't say that I support this, but I support you. And I'm here for you."

So that was my coming out. But what's key here is that my dad told me he was going to punish me. My church told me that God was going to punish me. And literally four months after that, the AIDS epidemic hit and killed my partner and all of my friends. For the longest time, I carried this sick guilt. Because I thought the church was right, and I would be punished. But I didn't have HIV. I couldn't understand why I didn't have it. It inevitably led me to write.

It seems like the younger generation in the LGBTQ community has forgotten about HIV-AIDS. The kids today have forgotten the countless lives responsible for their liberty and their freedom right now.

Being black and gay is on my mind right now. And it's just too painful to talk about now, in the time we are in. But, as for my mother, today she's with me. She's in the streets with me. She's been with me through many of my partners, including my most recent one. She is a strong ally. She really has been an incredible grandmother to my kids. She is a changed woman.

And you know, today I am grateful that I'm gay. I'm very proud to be gay. Because I don't know that I would have the sensibility to tell Billie Holiday's story. Or to tell Precious or Monster's Ball or Empire . I would never have had that… twinkle . You've got to have that twinkle, honey! Without that twinkle you're just bulls---ing. It's fact."

Lee Daniels, 60, is an Oscar-nominated writer, director, and producer of films including Monster's Ball, The Butler , Precious , and the forthcoming The United States vs. Billie Holiday . He is also the creator of the television series Empire .

Designers: Scotto Kim and Hannah Song

Related Articles

Why Roxane Gay's "Bad Feminist" Is Still Relevant 10 Years Later

Few essay collections have left as big a cultural impact as Roxane Gay 's " Bad Feminist ." When the author's compilation of essays was published 10 years ago on August 5, it instantly changed the culture and solidified Gay's emergence as an urgent and trusted feminist voice.

Fourth-wave feminism, defined by the influence of pop culture, social media, and intersectionality, was becoming mainstream. Several weeks after the book's release, Beyoncé posed in front of an emblazoned "feminist" sign at the 2014 VMAs declaring herself one. "Bad Feminist" provided an entry point for those who identified with feminist beliefs, but thought their interests — like loving the color pink or owning their sexuality — were incompatible with movement.

For Rebecca Carroll , a writer, cultural critic, and editor-at-large of The Meteor, "Bad Feminist" served as "a sister-friend, or a partner in crime that had my back while I continued to figure out what I wanted to say in my writing, and how I wanted to say it." You could still listen to rap music and watch superhero movies and be a feminist, albeit a bad one.

That's where "Bad Feminist" succeeded, says Saeed Jones , award-winning poet and author of " How We Fight For Our Lives " and " Alive at the End of the World ." "Roxane's writing in 'Bad Feminist' emboldened me to bridge the gap between [my writing and] my love for pop culture," Jones says of his friend. Before "Bad Feminist," there was the implicit doctrine that serious writing "had to have a certain kind of tone and it had to be about a certain type of subject in order to be worthy. If it was about pop culture, then you can write a tweet about that. That's for social media."

As Ashley C. Ford , author of the memoir " Somebody's Daughter ," puts it, "Bad Feminist" helped her have conversations about feminism and gender equality at parties that didn't dampen the mood. "It gave me some good questions to ask so that it's more interesting than inducing defensiveness," she says.

In these last ten years, we've seen a great exaltation of women and of feminist theory, and we've also seen the backlash to that which has come fierce.

A decade later, the idea of bad feminism remains relevant. "When you think about that book in tandem with where we are politically in this country, it is so apparent that, in these last ten years, we've seen a great exaltation of women and of feminist theory, and we've also seen the backlash to that which has come fierce," Ford continues.

Though so much has changed since "Bad Feminist," — #MeToo, Donald Trump's presidency , and the fall of Roe vs. Wade — Gay herself is troubled by the enduring relevance of many of the essays therein. "It's really frustrating to see that not only do the essays in 'Bad Feminist' hold up, but we're still dealing with most of those things and some of them are worse, like reproductive freedom rights here in the United States," she tells PS.

"I think a lot of us have thought, 'Oh, I'm not good enough' or 'I'm not consistent enough' or 'I'm not militant enough to be a feminist,' and that's simply not true," Gay adds. "We're all human and we're all doing the best we can."

UK-based film critic and author Hanna Flint likens "Bad Feminist" to America Ferrera's character's famous "Barbie" monologue about how exhausting it is to be a woman.

"I don't think you get that speech in 'Barbie' without 'Bad Feminist,'" she says. Though criticized for its oversimplification of feminism, the famous "Barbie" monologue — in which Ferrera's Gloria powerfully speaks about the perils of womanhood in modern society — was revolutionary for those who had never seen their double-bind experience as a woman crystalized in the mainstream. In that way, "Bad Feminist" perhaps influenced some of the ideas in Greta Gerwig's "Barbie" a decade later.

Flint's own book, " Strong Female Character: What Movies Teach Us ," took inspiration from "Bad Feminist" in the "deeply personal, vulnerable and funny [way] Gay writes about her life, from assault to body image and relationships. Even playing Scrabble [in which Gay writes about competitive Scrabble playing] was so relatable and engaging to me, especially when using pop culture and art to understand herself and the world better."

Jones agrees, telling PS that Black representation on screen, in particular, has seen a tangible change since "Bad Feminist." For example, "Bad Feminist" preceded the "ethnic casting" trend on primetime TV, with shows such as "Black-ish," "Fresh Off the Boat," and "Jane the Virgin" debuting the year after. The same was true on the silver screen, with #OscarsSoWhite trending in 2015. While these changes were not a direct response to "Bad Feminist," as Jones says, they're "a testament to Roxane's own writing, as it is to her vision and sense of what was going on in the culture. She created conditions for some changes, and she has a brilliant instinct for acknowledging the changes that are already happening."

On August 6, "Bad Feminist" will be reissued for its 10th anniversary. Gay stands by the existing text as "an artifact of the thinker and writer I was at the time."

Still, having grown as a person and writer, she wishes she wrote more about accountability to curtail the co-opting of the term for nefarious reasons. "Some people took it as a carte blanche to call themselves a feminist and do whatever they want. That's not what I was going for at all." she says. "How do we have these flaws and these inconsistencies but also hold ourselves accountable and try to be better? I would like to believe I'm a better feminist [since then], but definitely still bad. A better bad feminist."

Scarlett Harris is a culture critic and the author of "A Diva Was a Female Version of a Wrestler: An Abbreviated Herstory of World Wrestling Entertainment." You can read her previously published work on her website and through her Substack, The Scarlett Woman.

The Way We Were – A Child’s Garden of Watergate

by Tom Carson

The GOP Crowned Trump Just in Time for Biden to Anoint Harris

by Ross Barkan

Agenda PAC Looks to Send Anti-Queer Elected Officials Packing in November

by Frank Pizzoli

Plasma Chasms Thinks Gandalf is Magic

by Brett Callwood

VOICE CHOICE

Capturing New York’s Mysterious – and Humorous – Plastic Street Strife

by R.C. Baker

Sharing ’80s Memories with the Icons Playing the Totally Tubular Fest

by Ron Hart

Artist/Musician Terry Allen’s Life Story, Adapted for the Page

by Shana Nys Dambrot

Theater archives

Jennifer Muller’s Handsome Performers Animate Easy-Watching Dance

by Tobi Tobias

ART ARCHIVES

Spring Art Preview: Kerry James Marshall’s Black Whole

Chirlane McCray Wonders Why Her 1979 “I Am A Lesbian” Essay Didn’t Get More Attention

• Megan Barnes

June 24, 2014

• Combined Shape

Charles Norfleet/Getty Images

In 1979, Chirlane McCray, only a few years out of college, came out of the closet. In “I Am a Lesbian,” an essay written for Essence magazine, she made the personal political by speaking against the invisibility of black lesbians.

Thirty-three years later, she would catapult to far greater visibility as the wife of newly elected New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio. Except for two blips in her husband’s campaign, however, this aspect of McCray’s life has resisted closer scrutiny. In a recent New York magazine profile , for example, author Lisa Miller describes McCray’s 1979 declaration as “a fierce insistence on being heard, damn the consequences.”

McCray herself tells the Voice via e-mail that she wonders “why the [ Essence ] piece wasn’t given more attention back then, when there were so few — if any — gay women of color speaking out.”

The essay surfaced as a potential campaign issue late in 2012, a month before de Blasio officially announced his candidacy. The New York Observer noted that de Blasio’s website made only a passing reference to McCray having belonged to a “black feminist” collective. The Observer also pointed out that a 2011 article co-bylined by the couple in support of marriage equality omitted any mention of McCray’s very public lesbian past, even though the article appeared in Go , a lesbian magazine widely distributed throughout the city.

The New York Post , at least, immediately took notice. Only days after the Observer story , a Post cartoon depicted the couple in bed , McCray on the phone telling someone, “I used to be a lesbian, but my husband, Bill de Blasio, won me over,” while her husband lay beside her clad in sexy lingerie.

The next flare-up came in a Maureen Dowd column in the New York Times , which quoted McCray criticizing Christine Quinn, the out gay City Council Speaker and de Blasio’s opponent in the Democratic primary, for not being “the kind of person I feel I can go up to and talk about issues like taking care of children at a young age,” adding, “I suspect that other women feel the same thing that I’m feeling.”

Quinn expressed her outrage, but before she could capitalize on the story, Dowd quickly backtracked, eventually admitting she’d misquoted McCray. Another prominent newspaper columnist, the Washington Post ‘s Richard Cohen, observed that the then–mayor-elect’s wife “used to be a lesbian.” The remark was barely noticed in the blowback over Cohen’s far more inflammatory remark that McCray’s mixed-race family would make some Americans “repress a gag reflex.”

Kimberley McLeod, editor of Elixher , a magazine that targets black queer women, laments that the outbursts were “a missed opportunity for a larger conversation that needs to happen around sexual fluidity, and around labels.”

Well-known lesbian provocateur Camille Paglia says she was “delighted with McCray’s arrival on the public scene, because she embodies an improvisational flexibility about sexual orientation that I think is sophisticated and mature.” Adds Paglia, “McCray’s lesbian past was ignored because it upsets the current ideological applecart. Everyone from the mainstream media to Lady Gaga is preaching the ‘born gay’ gospel, but nobody is born gay, and no scientific study claiming that has ever held up to later scrutiny.”

The way the media chose to frame McCray’s past bothers Camille Thomas, host of LezPlay Radio , a New York City-based Internet program for lesbians of color. “I won’t deny that there was some ‘Ouch!’ because of the way it was reported,” she says. “The idea that eventually you’re going to grow out of it, or this man is going to be yours if you just give a good man a chance and you’ll no longer be a lesbian, et cetera — anything that gives air to that, we’ll feel more deeply.”

A few women did feel a sense of betrayal, at least initially. “Some people felt that she was hiding it, or that she had sold out to become a straight woman,” says Wen Peguero, director of the local chapter of the Dollhouse, a black lesbian social network. “I think it’s great and it’s actually a good example of what New York is,” Peguero continues. “We can be whoever we are and hopefully not be judged by it.”

Wayne Besen, founder and head of Truth Wins Out , an organization fighting the “ex-gay” movement, believes “there’s a fear that McCray’s situation could be exploited by anti-gay activists, that anyone can go back if they find the right man or pray away the gay. That’s not her fault.”

In contrast to McCray, Besen cites Charlene Cothran. Once the publisher of Venus , a black LGBT magazine, Cothran now speaks to religion-based “ex-gay” groups and preaches in a Florida church.

“She had an emotional change, and I had a spiritual change,” Cothran tells the Voice . “I am a completely different person. The lesbian activism is dead. This person exists no more.”

What makes McCray different from self-professed “ex-gays” is that “she was straightforward, very clear on not trying to allow anyone else to define her, but honest with who she felt she was, first and foremost respecting her marriage and her support of our community,” notes Sharon J. Lettman-Hicks, executive director of the National Black Justice Coalition.

In 2013, McCray admitted to the Huffington Post that even she wasn’t sure where she might be in 10 years. Paglia sees such open-mindedness about sexual identity as a refreshing antidote to “outmoded ghettoized thinking about sexuality, which should be regarded as fluid and free.” McCray, adds Paglia, “is an excellent role model for an enlightened future.”

Perhaps surprisingly, Besen agrees that he could understand how someone like McCray could have relationships with both sexes. “I think that if Mrs. de Blasio divorced her husband, she could find herself going out with a woman again and wouldn’t think twice about it,” Besen says. “If, like many relationships, it didn’t work out, I don’t think she would have an issue if she fell in love with a man again.”

Stephanie Adams, a former Playboy Playmate whom the Voice named New York’s “Best Lesbian Sex Symbol” a year after she came out in 2003, is also a black woman who fell in love with a white man, got married, and is raising a family. “I can certainly respect her past, because it is what has made her who she is today,” Adams says. “Chirlane’s involvement in LGBT issues in the past only makes her a more well-rounded, open-minded, intelligent woman supporting her husband in office.”

McCray sees her personal narrative as not so much a question of defining herself as reflecting a lifelong commitment to progressive causes in general and LGBT issues in particular. “My activism in the past is not as important as what I want to do now and in the future,” she tells the Voice .

The radical feminist organizations that made up McCray’s circle during her post-college years were crucial in forming her outlook, says Alexis Pauline Gumbs, a black queer activist-academic who has studied McCray’s past. “Chirlane McCray being a person that speaks about childcare and people’s rights to be taken care of, health-wise — those are all issues that she and her contemporaries were addressing in that moment,” Gumbs says. “If you have a viewpoint that people are inherently valuable, it changes the way you think about running the city.”

De Blasio has made no secret that McCray will have an active voice at City Hall. When he appointed her to chair the Mayor’s Fund to Advance New York City, he called her his “No. 1 adviser.”

“I was a pioneer then, but now I have a wonderful platform to help the LBGT and other marginalized communities,” McCray tells the Voice . “That means speaking out against bullying. It means giving runaway youth a safe place to turn. It means a lot of things, including broadening access to housing for LBGT seniors. This is important to me — and it’s important to Bill, too.”

Peguero, though, has noticed that at least a few people are taking a wait-and-see attitude. “Some people feel she should be more vocal about topics that concern the LGBT community,” Peguero says. “I think she hasn’t had the chance yet.”

In her 1979 Essence essay , McCray clearly laid out her personal manifesto: “I wanted my voice to reassure those who feel as isolated and alone as I once did, those who desperately seek answers to all the whys when none exist, those who are embroiled in a struggle to be themselves in a society that frowns on differences.”

McCray’s effect on change in the city remains to be seen. But there’s no questioning the fact that she passionately views her husband’s progressive agenda through the prism of her own past.

©2023 VILLAGE VOICE, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.    |      SITE MAP

Watch CBS News

Second gentleman Doug Emhoff admits affair during first marriage

By Nancy Cordes , Faris Tanyos

Updated on: August 3, 2024 / 10:02 PM EDT / CBS News

Second gentleman Doug Emhoff acknowledged Saturday to having an extramarital affair during his first marriage following a report about the relationship that appeared in DailyMail.com. The relationship with a teacher at his children's school occurred several years before he met and married Vice President Kamala Harris, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee .

Emhoff's admission comes after the Daily Mail reported the teacher became pregnant in 2009, but did not have the baby. CBS News is not naming the woman involved in the relationship.

Two sources — both of whom were close to the woman at the time of her relationship with Emhoff — told CBS News that the woman's pregnancy ended in a miscarriage. 

Those two sources, along with a third source familiar with the relationship — all of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity — said that while Emhoff was legally married at the time to his first wife, Kerstin Emhoff, the two were separated when the affair happened. All three said that, contrary to the Daily Mail report, the woman did not work as a nanny for the Emhoff children. She taught at their school, though she was not teaching either child at the time of the relationship with Emhoff, the sources said.

"During my first marriage, Kerstin and I went through some tough times on account of my actions," Emhoff said in a statement provided to CBS News on Saturday. "I took responsibility, and in the years since, we worked through things as a family and have come out stronger on the other side."

Emhoff, who worked as an entertainment lawyer prior to becoming second gentleman, shares two adult children, Ella and Cole, with his former wife. 

In her own statement released Saturday, Kerstin said that "Doug and I decided to end our marriage for a variety of reasons, many years ago. He is a great father to our kids, continues to be a great friend to me and I am really proud of the warm and supportive blended family Doug, Kamala, and I have built together."

Court records show that Kerstin Emhoff filed for divorce in 2009. It appears to have been finalized in late 2010. 

A spokesperson for the Harris campaign declined comment. 

A source familiar with the situation told CBS News that Harris knew about the affair prior to their marriage, and it was also known to those in the Biden campaign who conducted the VP vetting process in 2020.

Harris and Emhoff met in 2013 and married in 2014. They do not have children together. Emhoff's adult children call Harris "Mamala," and their close relationship has been widely documented. Harris even presided over Cole's wedding last year.

Arden Farhi contributed to this report.

• Kamala Harris
• Douglas Emhoff
• 2024 Elections

Nancy Cordes is CBS News' chief White House correspondent based in Washington, D.C. Cordes has won numerous awards for her reporting, including multiple Emmys, Edward R. Murrow awards, and an Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award.

More from CBS News

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez praises Walz's "many different assets"

For Tim Walz and his family, IVF is personal

Biden "not confident" Trump will accept 2024 election results

DNC virtual roll call vote ends with Harris receiving 99% of delegate votes

• Newsletter Sign Up

Roxane Gay's got a gun: black feminism and gun ownership

The power to take a life, professor and social commentator Roxane Gay writes, receives greater constitutional and culture value than a women's right to the pursuit of happiness.

Gay is the author of the New York Times best-selling books Bad Feminist and Hunger . Her latest work includes the essay Stand Your Ground: A Black Feminists Reckoning with America's Gun Problem .

From the firearms invention in more than 500 hundred years ago, to the writing of the 2nd Amendment in 1787, to America's current epidemic of gun violence, Gay follows the social forces that shaped our current reality. The piece is personal, describing Gay's thoughts about owning a gun, and what gun ownership means to Black feminism.

Louis Jacobson, PolitiFact Louis Jacobson, PolitiFact

Amy Sherman, PolitiFact Amy Sherman, PolitiFact

Leave your feedback

• Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/fact-checking-tim-walzs-past-statements

Looking back at Tim Walz’s record and past statements

This fact check originally appeared on PolitiFact .

Vice President Kamala Harris has tapped Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate, capping a historically compressed vice presidential search.

Walz rocketed up the list of finalists on the strength of his folksy relatability, gubernatorial experience and congressional record representing a conservative-leaning district.

READ MORE: Harris selects Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as running mate

“I am proud to announce that I’ve asked @Tim_Walz to be my running mate,” Harris posted on X Aug. 6. “As a governor, a coach, a teacher, and a veteran, he’s delivered for working families like his. It’s great to have him on the team. Now let’s get to work.”

Walz rose to the rank of command sergeant major over 24 years in the U.S. Army National Guard and worked as a teacher and football coach. He was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives by ousting a Republican incumbent in a heavily rural district in 2006. Walz was elected governor in 2018 and was reelected in 2022.

“He’s a smart choice if they deploy him in two specific ways,” said Blois Olson, a political analyst for WCCO radio in Minneapolis-St. Paul. “Send him to rural areas to counter the polarization and the idea that only Republicans can win there. And have him keep the deep left base satisfied, which could be an issue with a very moody voting bloc.”

Olson said Walz’s rural experience and regular-guy vibes might be able to shave 2 to 4 percentage points off GOP electoral performance in rural Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — three states considered crucial to a Democratic victory in November.

WATCH LIVE: Harris holds first rally with Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz after choosing him as running mate

“The most recent Survey USA poll taken last month for KSTP-TV had Walz’ job approval at a healthy 56 percent,” said Steve Schier, a political scientist at Carleton College in Minnesota. “That said, Minnesota is quite a polarized state, and Republicans in the state despise him. He initially campaigned as a moderate in 2018 but has governed as a progressive.”

Walz was one of several potential vice presidential options floated since President Joe Biden announced he’d cede the nomination and endorsed Harris. Other frequently cited names were Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.

Now that he is Harris’ running mate, we are on the lookout for claims by and about Walz to fact-check — just as we are for Harris and former President Donald Trump and his vice presidential pick, Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio. Readers can email us suggestions to [email protected].

READ MORE: Fact-checking JD Vance’s past statements and relationship with Trump

Republicans have already begun to question Walz’s handling of the rioting following the murder of George Floyd while in Minneapolis police custody. Walz clashed with Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey over how to handle the unrest, but he sent the Minnesota National Guard to aid local law enforcement.

Who is Tim Walz?

Walz grew up in Nebraska but moved with his wife, Gwen, to Minnesota in 1996 to teach high school geography and coach football; his teams won two state championships.

He was 42 when he ran for Congress, a decision sparked by a 2004 incident at an appearance by President George W. Bush. “Walz took two students to the event, where Bush campaign staffers demanded to know whether he supported the president and barred the students from entering after discovering one had a sticker for Democratic candidate John Kerry,” according to the Almanac of American Politics. “Walz suggested it might be bad PR for the Bush campaign to bar an Army veteran, and he and the students were allowed in. Walz said the experience sparked his interest in politics, first as a volunteer for the Kerry campaign and then as a congressional candidate.”

Walz’s ideological profile is nuanced. The other highest-profile finalist for Harris’ running mate, Shapiro, was pegged as somewhat more moderate and bipartisan than Walz. An Emerson College poll released in July found Shapiro with 49 percent approval overall in his state, including a strong 46 percent approval from independents and 22 percent from Republicans.

When he was elected to Congress, Walz represented a district that had sent Republicans to Washington for 102 of the previous 114 years, according to the Almanac of American Politics. Representing that constituency, Walz was able to win the National Rifle Association’s endorsement and he voted for the Keystone XL pipeline — two positions that have become highly unusual in today’s Democratic Party.

During his first gubernatorial term, Walz worked with legislative Republicans, which produced some bipartisan achievements, including $275 million for roads and bridges, additional funds for opioid treatment and prevention, and a middle-income tax cut.

In 2022, Walz won a second term by a 52 percent to 45 percent margin. Democrats also flipped the state Senate, providing him with unified Democratic control in the Legislature. This enabled Walz to enact a progressive wish list of policies, including classifying abortion as a “fundamental right,” a requirement that utilities produce carbon-free energy by 2040, paid family leave and legalizing recreational marijuana. He also signed an executive order safeguarding access to gender-affirming health care for transgender residents.

After Harris’ announcement, the Trump campaign attacked Walz’s legislative record in a campaign email: “Kamala Harris just doubled-down on her radical vision for America by tapping another left-wing extremist as her VP nominee.”

Olson noted that Walz “only has one veto in six years. He doesn’t say ‘no’ to the left, after being a moderate. That’s a reason he’s now beloved by the left.”

Democrats have controlled the Minnesota state Legislature’s lower chamber during Walz’ entire tenure. However, Republicans controlled the state Senate for his first four years in office.

Walz’s meteoric three-week rise on the national scene stemmed after calling Trump, Vance and other Republicans in their circle “weird.”

In a July 23 interview on MSNBC, Walz predicted that Harris would win older, white voters because she was talking about substance, including schools, jobs and environmental policy.

“These are weird people on the other side,” Walz said. “They want to take books away. They want to be in your exam room. That’s what it comes down to. And don’t, you know, get sugarcoating this. These are weird ideas.”

Days later on MSNBC , Walz reiterated the point: “You know there’s something wrong with people when they talk about freedom. Freedom to be in your bedroom. Freedom to be in your exam room. Freedom to tell your kids what they can read. That stuff is weird. They come across weird. They seem obsessed with this.”

Other Democrats, including the Harris campaign, amplified the “weird” message, quickly making Walz a star in online Democratic circles.

Walz also attracted notice for being a self-styled fix-it guy who has helped pull a car out of a ditch and given advice about how to save money on car repairs . He staged a bill signing for free breakfast and lunch for students surrounded by cheering children .

Schier said he expects Walz to be a compatible ticket-mate who won’t upstage the presidential nominee. “Walz will be a loyal companion to Harris,” Schier said.

One thing Walz does not bring to the table is a critical state for the Democratic ticket. In 2024, election analysts universally rate Minnesota as leaning or likely Democratic. By contrast, Shapiro’s state of Pennsylvania is not only one of a handful of battleground states but also the one with the biggest haul of electoral votes, at 19. Another finalist, Kelly, represents another battleground state with nine electoral votes, Arizona.

Fact-checking Walz

We have not put Walz on our Truth-O-Meter. However, days after Floyd’s murder, we wrote a story about how a false claim about out-of-state protestors was spread by Minnesota officials, including Walz, and then national politicians, including Trump.

At a May 2020 news conference, Walz said he understood that the catalyst for the protests was “Minnesotans’ inability to deal with inequalities, inequities and quite honestly the racism that has persisted.” But there was an issue with “everybody from everywhere else.”

“We’re going to start releasing who some of these people are, and they’ll be able to start tracing that history of where they’re at, and what they’re doing on the ‘dark web’ and how they’re organizing,” Walz said. “I think our best estimate right now that I heard is about 20 percent that are Minnesotans and about 80 percent are outside.”

The statistic soon fell apart.

Within hours, local TV station KARE reported that Minneapolis-based police tallies of those arrested for rioting, unlawful assembly, and burglary-related crimes from May 29 to May 30 showed that 86 percent of those arrested listed Minnesota as their address. Twelve out of 18 people arrested in St. Paul were from Minnesota.

Confronted with these numbers, the officials walked back their comments that evening or did not repeat them. In a news conference, Walz did not repeat his earlier 80 percent assertion. KARE-TV wrote that Walz said the estimate was based in part on law enforcement intelligence information and that the state would monitor developments.

Support Provided By: Learn more

Educate your inbox

Subscribe to Here’s the Deal, our politics newsletter for analysis you won’t find anywhere else.

Thank you. Please check your inbox to confirm.

Flip through today’s papers

AMNY Newsletter

Tackle the city, with our help..

Manage your settings.

Lower East Side shooting: Man wounded in gunfire outside bodega, cops say

According to police sources, the gun violence erupted at around 8:48 a.m. on Aug. 8 outside of the Brothers Mini Market at East 3rd Street and Avenue D, in the 9th Precinct ‘s confines.

“He goes, ‘They are taking too long, drive me.’ So, I put him in my car but when I got to the corner, I see some cops and an ambulance,” the witness said. “They started working on him.”

Anyone with information regarding this shooting can call Crime Stoppers at 800-577-TIPS (for Spanish, dial 888-57-PISTA). You can also submit tips online at crimestoppers.nypdonline.org , or on X (formerly Twitter) @NYPDTips . All calls and messages are kept confidential.

About the Author

Dean Moses is the Breaking News Editor at amNewYork Metro and resident photographer. He covers NYPD, crime, homelessness, and anything breaking news.

Things to do in NYC

Post an Event

Sports Watch Parties at Backyard at Hudson Yards: Wyndham Golf Championship Backyard at Hudson Yards, Public Square & Gardens

Destination Vacation at The William Vale The William Vale

MoMA PS1 Warm Up 2024: A Summer Music Festival Series MoMa PS1

Taiwan: A World of Orchids Queens Botanical Garden

“Underwater Wilderness” Art Exhibition Tina Kim Gallery

Do Portugal Circus Staten Island Mall

View All Events…

Jobs in New York

Add your job.

• SE NECESITA TAPICERO
• York College President
• Variazioni Sales position

View all jobs…

Latest news.

Entertainment

Related Articles

More from around NYC

Red-Crowned Crane, One of the World’s Largest and Most Threatened Species, Debuts at Bronx Zoo

Senator Addabbo concludes summer Narcan training in South Ozone Park with over 60 attendees

Op-ed | Brooklyn must say ‘Yes to Housing’

Brooklyn Community Pride Center closes former headquarters in Bed-Stuy