The First Person I Came Out To, by Pat Gourley

Strangely I find myself vacillating a bit on this topic. I assume I would ordinarily not consider the first person I had sex with since that would be a situation that would seem obvious to both of us. However in my case it was with a man I sought out initially seeking an answer to the question was “I gay or not”. More accurately what I was asking at the time was am I a homosexual or not?

The person I sought out to help clarify whether I was really a big homo or not was most certainly not an openly gay man.  This was after all 1965 in suburban Chicago and he was on the faculty of a Catholic High school. It was a diocesan school staffed by Holy Cross nuns and though several of those nuns were progressive in the extreme there was no Gay-Straight alliance as an option for extracurricular activity.

Initial contact with this man would have been in late 1965 or more likely sometime in early 1966. Though I am not totally clear about this I do think I was genuinely seeking him out, as one of my high school counselors and a person 20 plus years my senior, to help me answer this perplexing question with no pre-existing assumptions about his sexual preference. Even at age 16 I was not seeking a cure but would have probably been very reassured to be told it was just a phase and that I was actually quite a masculine straight arrow.

There had certainly been lots of enjoyable nude swimming with male siblings and cousins to say nothing of the nearly obsessive urge to see my dad and the occasional uncle nude. These preoccupations proceeded by several years my seeking out my guidance counselor for help and advice.  So I may have been drawn to him subconsciously hoping he really was like me. And of course his Old Spice shaving lotion and hairy physique I assumed, an assumption later validated, and his being bald may have all helped to create a situation I would often in future years find irresistible.

Minus the Old Spice aftershave, which thankfully faded from the scene sometime in the 1970’s, I think the hairy and bald aspects are quite accurate physical descriptions of both of my long-term lovers, both named David, and they combined to occupy 30 years of my adult life. Why I remain today still hard-wired to pursue the mature and preferably quite hairy older male is interesting and a bit of mystery to me. So many of my queer male peers prefer at least in their dream worlds something younger, thinner and less hirsute.

Some months into that year of counseling sessions before fruition so to speak I decided this guy was really on my side and very sexually attractive. Long story short we did it eventually and it was as I recall the Friday before Palm Sunday after school in the biology lab. I absolutely did not fall into spasms of guilt post orgasm but rather was on cloud-nine for days and spent most waking hours relishing the thought of our next get together. I guess when one has ejaculated all over another man you have then come out to them certainly as someone with homosexual tendencies if not as full blown GAY.

The coming out process for many of us though is a recurrent theme that we are required to play out repeatedly since the attitude of society in general is that heterosexuality is always the unexamined assumption. I have for years though preferred to always give everyone I meet the benefit of the doubt and assume they are queer until proven otherwise.

© May 2016 

About the Author 

I was born in La Porte Indiana in 1949, raised on a farm and schooled by Holy Cross nuns. The bulk of my adult life, some 40 plus years, was spent in Denver, Colorado as a nurse, gardener and gay/AIDS activist. I have currently returned to Denver after an extended sabbatical in San Francisco, California.

The First Person I Came Out to, by Louis

A couple of years ago, I did a story on my unsuccessful transgender friend. He/She had his male organ removed in a premature sex change operation; he missed his organ so much that he committed suicide. This was in the 1960’s. His name was “Romain”; well his given name was Richard. I met him in the 7^th grade. Romain was the first person I was truly honest with. But it was more like he read me – what they call nowadays “gaydar”.

Romain had an IQ of 160, he was technically a genius. Geniuses see things, relationships that ordinary people cannot. He was a year younger than I, but he had developed a significant number of friends in West Greenwich Village, in poetry clubs and art studios, that sort of thing. Sometimes I would tag along to meet them. So even in the 7^th grade I had a sort of reasonably gay-positive social life.

For a while I even lived in an apartment on West 14 Street. In those days, gay men were so “unspeakable” in the early 1960’s that we sort of did not exist. It was a kind of repression I guess. But the positive side of not existing is that we had a certain kind of freedom. We could cruise in Washington Square Park, and no one would notice. Mostly if cops saw us, they would not put two and two together if two guys winked at each other. If two men held hands, which happened occasionally, the public would assume they were cousins from a Hispanic country.

In a word, at an early age, I learned about the dangers transsexuals face when it comes to the question of deciding yes or no to the surgery; I appreciated the nascent gay culture coming alive in Greenwich Village, New York.

© 27 Apr 2016 

About the Author 

I was born in 1944, I lived most of my life in New York City, Queens County. I still commute there. I worked for many years as a Caseworker for New York City Human Resources Administration, dealing with mentally impaired clients, then as a social work Supervisor dealing with homeless PWA's. I have an apartment in Wheat Ridge, CO. I retired in 2002. I have a few interesting stories to tell. My boyfriend Kevin lives in New York City. I graduated Queens College, CUNY, in 1967.