In the spring of 1982, I began having increasingly violent dreams. I’m not sure why. Maybe because wrestling season had just ended, and my wrestling obsession could no longer suppress my need to be myself as a young gay man. Maybe because the finish line of graduation and getting out on my own was so close, yet seemed so hellishly far away. Or maybe just that I simply could no longer contain the immense effort it took to live a life of duality while attending a small, private all-male preparatory school.
Although I’d figured out that I was gay at a young age, I knew instinctively that it was something that I could never share with anyone. This was made poignantly clear during my teen years as I listened to comments from mainstream media, and even my family, about the evils of homosexuality. Gay men arrested and publicly humiliated, losing their families and livelihoods, with many committing suicide. I heard all sorts of justifications for gay bashings, and read news stories about kids being beaten up by their families and thrown out on the street for being gay.
So it was loud and clear that being gay was a secret I needed to hide at all costs until I could “get out”: graduate, leave Cleveland. Going through the motions was becoming harder and harder each day. Increasingly, all I could think about was how much better life was going to be when I could move to a bigger, more accepting city, and live my life openly. I felt desperate. I needed to get out of there or I was going to explode.
At my wit’s end, I walked into the school counselor’s office and asked if I could talk to her about something private. She said “Of course”, and closed the door. What followed for the next hour was the dam bursting… on everything. I told her I was gay. I told her about my violent dreams. I told her about my desperation and need to leave school and Cleveland. I told her everything.
She listened, quietly and without judgment, letting the torrent of words and emotions flow freely. If I remember correctly, when the torrent finally subsided she asked a few questions. The most important question was this. “How can I help you?”
So began my journey to wellness as an LGBTQ teenager. We met in her office occasionally over the next several weeks as she checked on any recurrence of violent dreams or anything else that might be disturbing me.
Much of my despair came from isolation, and not knowing anyone else who was gay that I could trust or talk to. There were a couple of guys at my school, but talking to them didn’t feel like a safe option in such a closed and closeted environment. I felt untethered and lonely. My wanting to ‘escape’ from Cleveland was really my need to go somewhere – anywhere – I could meet people like myself, live the life I dreamed, meet a man I could love, and be happy.
Much of the time, she listened empathetically and offered assurances that things would get better. One day, however, she went a step further. She’d done some research and found a phone number for Dignity, an LGBTQ Catholic group that had a chapter in Cleveland. She offered me the phone number as a starting point to hopefully finding the community I so desperately needed.
I will always be eternally grateful and indebted to her for what she did.
I called the number and within a very short time was at my first Dignity meeting. I’ve never been a religious person, though, and many of the group’s members were much older than me. I didn’t feel like this was where ‘I belonged’. But someone at the meeting gave me a number for the Cleveland Gay Youth Group. That was, in many ways, the beginning of my life.
The address I got for the youth group’s meeting place was on Prospect Ave in Cleveland; not the best of areas. With justifiable trepidation, I opened the door and entered the room. Inside, I met – and quickly became friends with – a very diverse mix of other gay teens from around the Greater Cleveland area. Kids who were mostly just like me. And I finally felt like I belonged.
After meetings, we would hang out and go to Lakewood, Shaker Square, or the Coventry area for food, coffee, or dessert. We’d meet up and go see the Rocky Horror Picture Show. We talked about life, love, school, and whether or not we would ever be able to settle down and get married. We’d even go out to the bars with our fake IDs, and dance until we had to go home and get ready for school the next day.
I finally had the peer group I’d needed for so long. I no longer felt so alone. I had gay friends, just like me. Two of the guys I met in the group have become lifelong friends. One of them is one of my best friends who is also responsible for introducing me to my current partner. The other hosted me for my first trip to San Francisco and played a big part in laying the groundwork for the reasons I fell in love with the city.
All these things, and so much more, would never have happened if Ohio had enacted a law like Florida’s ‘Don’t Say Gay’ law. It requires districts to notify parents of health care services offered in schools and give them the option to decline them. Districts are also required to notify parents if there is a change in a student’s mental, emotional or physical health monitoring.
Not only would my high school guidance counselor have not been able to give me the number for Dignity (under threat of criminal prosecution), it would have required her to notify my parents of our discussions. In layman’s terms, she would have been required to “out me” to my parents. My parents love me dearly, but 1982 was a very different time with respect to LGBTQ acceptance and rights. I don’t know how they would have reacted to that news. My guess is that it wouldn’t have been well. It would likely have led to me leaving home and not going to college.
From there, my life would have gone down a dramatically different path. Most likely, not a better one.
I get annoyed when people dismiss these types of issues as being merely political. Traumatically “outing” a closeted teenager is NOT the same as discussions on the pros and cons of fiscal conservativism. Despite what the bill’s proponents say, there’s nothing in it that inherently protects children. If anything, it harms children who already know that they are different and at risk. Furthermore, it doesn’t ‘support’ parents unless you mean support for the parents’ ability to reject their child’s true nature and needs.
My life would have been dramatically damaged if this type of law had existed in Ohio, and my heart aches for the Florida LGBTQ youth who are suffering this type of damage right now.
I pray that none take their own lives because of it.