Outed the same year as the first “pride”.

In 1970, during my junior year in high school, I was wrestling with my sexuality. That Spring I gave into my urges and started frequenting a local city park well known by tri county homosexuals. It was there I met my first “boyfriend”, who later became my partner of 13 years.  My coming out process was not entirely by my choice but occurred when a mutual friend, out of apparent jealousy, outed both of us to our respected parents over coffee. I’ll never forget being yanked out of bed that night, thrown against the wall by my step dad and having the crap beat out of me. I’ll never forget the sound of my mother sobbing in the background.   I’ll never forget my little brother’s four word explanation to my little sister as to why dad beat me up- “because he likes boys”.

Later I discovered that many friends I made came out during the period of 1969-1974.  It was a pivotal era of breaking down your closet doors. Much of that whole coming out process was triggered that Summer in 1969 by articles I myself had run across. I believe one of the headlines was something like “Homos Rebel In New York Bar Raid”.  Something like that anyway. That in itself was pretty unique,  as up to that time mainstream media never really covered anything regarding “queers” or “homos”. But that was Stonewall and because of the number of homos involved was in the thousands it must have been newsworthy.

It did take some time for the full impact of that seminal event to be felt across the country. Soon after the “coming out family night” I and my first “boyfriend” had a stressful encounter with law enforcement (see the page on Police Brutality) Some months after that I attained drinking age and started frequenting Gay bars. Back then you could drive to Ohio and drink 3.2 beer at 18. By the time i was 19 I was maturing pretty quick and was drinking in Michigan illegally- but soon after the the legal age of Michigan went down to 18 as well.  But during all this drinking age confusion more than once I witnessed police spontaneously rousting a bar, checking ID’s and confronting trans individuals and drag queens – much like at the Stonewall Inn. Although i never witnessed a mass drag to a paddy wagon once in awhile they would just select a couple individuals and yes, physically drag them out of the bar.Keep in mind that it was on the books that homosexuality was illegal. In addition local codes in many areas also made it illegal to dress as a member of the opposite sex. “Sex conforming attire” was the law cops were more than happy to enforce. Beyond that I recall one evening a couple of us witnessed police driving through a Gay bar parking lot taking down license plate numbers. We informed the patrons inside with an announcement that “Judy is cruising” (Judy Justice  was one one of those slang terms we used back then). Many of us speculated on how that information would be used. However those were the days when the authorities were outing people with great glee which, in many cases, resulted in destroyed families as well as careers.  I even knew of a high school teacher who committed suicide when the board of education fired him after the local paper published his name from a police sting park raid. To be honest these ingrained memories and experiences have made me wary of totally trusting law enforcement to this day.

But now it’s over fifty years later. Police don’t raid bars and no one uses the term “homos” anymore. The term “queer ” means something different than it did back then. It’s no longer derogatory and more a label applied to the community overall (although it took many of us time to accept that). Over the decades acceptance of the Gay lifestyle has grown. Younger straight people began realizing the persecution of the gays through the decades and became more accepting. They began to realize associating with Gay people was quite OK and in fact could be fun.  Many have become “Gay allies” and have started frequenting the same Gay bars that just a few years before they wouldn’t even think about walking into.