I first realized my attraction to boys in elementary school. Slowly, over my school years, I discovered that my feelings toward other boys were different from my piers. It was very confusing.
In those days (pre-AIDS, pre-Ellen, pre-Internet), it was very difficult to find any information about being gay or homosexual. And some of what was available was not very positive.
Slowly, through the years up to and including high school, I was able to dig up some media that referenced my feelings in a positive way. One was Psychology Today magazine, to which my mom subscribed. Another was a paperback novel from my parent’s bookshelf, “The Harrad Experiment.” And lastly, I’d like to call out the April 1979 Time magazine cover story “How Gay is Gay?”
So, by high school, I had a name for my feelings, but I was not ready to deal with my feelings publically. I was not ready to act on my feelings or come out. I stayed closeted.
I graduated from high school in 1975. The next year, I moved to Ann Arbor to attend the University of Michigan School of Engineering. I lived in South Quad, one of the largest dorms on campus. My dorm had a population that was larger than my entire high school!
