Children of the 60s and beyond...

Photography Club, in the dark room! (No Pun Intended :eusa_doh

 

I was in high school during the late 1980s. I was pretty socially disconnected/isolated, so this might not be valid. That said, I don't recall hearing of even ONE openly LGBT student. As a guess, I'd guess all LGBT kids just hid in their closets, possibly quivering in fear that someone might open the door and see them.

One thing that made that era so special was AIDS. It was deadly, and treatment was pretty limited. And, worst of all, it was perceived to be a gay man disease. I have to think any boy who came out would have immediately sparked fear that he automatically must have AIDS just because he was gay.

I'm not sure I was in the closet with myself. I don't think I ever seriously thought I was gay until later; however, I should have at least recognized that some of my interest in other boys was not normal--it was not admiring better bodies, or wanting a friend, or...

In many ways, high school was merely a 4 year prison term to be served out.

I'm pretty sure the only possible support resources then would have been counselors. What they'd have done, though, is anyone's guess.

---------- Post added 10th Dec 2014 at 04:27 AM ----------

I was pretty much only a student. I showed up, went to class, and then usually went home.

No sports, partly lack of interest, partly worries about the possibility of showers. No clubs or other activities--again, no interest in what the school had. Part of me also felt like I'd already put in 6.5 hours, and why linger any longer?

Towards the end of my time there, I did stay regularly to use a computer in the computer lab; however, I was usually totally alone.

It's funny, but wrestling was one of the few activities that even remotely interested me during my last year of PE. Was there something that for a brief moment grabbed my interest about it as a sport? Or was it the boy that I got assigned to wrestle with, who had a decent looking body, and was the boy I got along the best with in class?

Another sport the gay boy might like: swimming. Practices and meets filled with other boys wearing nothing but a skimpy Speedo. But we didn't have a team, so that was not even an option.

 

I was totally in the dark about being gay for years, and was actually bullied far more for being fat and smart than I ever was for any suspicious mannerisms, and much worse in junior high than in high school. I still cringe when people tell me I'm smart, because I was so totally conditioned to consider it a derogatory comment. (How sick is that?)

In high school, I was on the A-V club, spent 3 years as the lab assistant to the chemistry/physics teacher (great fun, setting up experiments and making sure they worked), and I pretty much single-handedly wrote the yearbook for a couple years. But I discovered the theater in sophomore year and was in all the musicals, and finally managed to squeeze chorus into my schedule my senior year, which was where I finally blossomed and basically morphed from geek to Gleek. The chorus teacher was just out of college and only 4 years my senior, and hung out with a group of us upperclassmen in the choir. He had a very obvious crush on one of the guys (as did I), which I realize now was borderline inappropriate, and he actually got into trouble a few years later in another city for a consensual relationship with another (legal age) high school senior. My (barely closeted lesbian) girlfriend knew he was gay and had a few stories about him (the crush, however, was straight).

There were a few kids in the theater crowd that were whispered about as being gay, one who was quite obvious (and sadly, he died of AIDS early in the epidemic, although AIDS wasn't even a blip in the late 1970's when I was in high school). My Catholic school also absorbed a few guys who had been in the local seminary high school, which had closed for supposedly financial reasons (although the chorus teacher was also a grad of that school and said everyone referred to it as the "faggot factory", so finances may have been only part of the story). One of the kids had had several sexual interludes in the woods with either an older kid or an instructor which may or not have been consensual.

I fit in better with the theater/music crowd than I had anywhere else, but I was still fat and awkward, and the gay chorus teacher and the rest of them kept me somewhat at arm's length. I was gradually realizing that my attraction to guys was a bigger deal that it was for other guys my age, but the few gay guys I had met were so distinctive (read stereotypical) and so condescending to me that I felt very unwelcome among them. By the time I actually started realizing I was probably gay, I also was quite sure I'd be completely shunned by other gay guys, and coming out and risking losing my family seemed like an awfully big risk to take, with no likely reward.

There were a few other guys who, looking back, may well have been gay, and I've done the occasional random googling and am fairly sure I'm right on the mark about most of them. Whether or not I'd surprise anyone who googled me, I don't know, but frankly, I doubt that anyone would even bother to look. All in all, senior year notwithstanding, I'm glad it's over.

 

Hiding in plain sight, even from myself. trying to survive school and not get beat up just for breathing. not kidding, i got jumped just because i was there.

 

The high school I graduated from had 4000 students. The Young Republicans Club had 210 members. The Young Democrats Club had six. Not surprisingly, no, there was no LGBTQ student union.

A few years ago, I went back to the school to record part of my "It Gets Better" video. My old locker is next to the LGBTQ Club meeting room.

One of my fellow students was gay and out, although I don't recall him saying so. He was just "one of those theater students" who was pretty flamboyant, and everybody knew. He got a bit of grief about it, but he seemed pretty good at sort of deflecting it or laughing it off. It's not like everybody loved him, but he sort of existed in his own sphere. I did, too, come to think of it. I had friends even though I wasn't a jock or good-looking. We tended to have various (occasionally overlapping) worlds.

I knew what "gay" was, and although we would occasionally joke about it, we didn't seem to really find it something worth ostracizing. It was just...not really around us. I didn't have any real clue that I might be gay until I got to college, though. Not sure if that was my brain protecting me, or just me being utterly clueless. I usually assume the latter.

Lex

 

I was at secondary school in the UK between 1978 and 1983. There were close to 1000 boys at my school (and precisely zero girls) and not one boy was anywhere close to being openly gay, myself included.

In the hateful vernacular of the school, AIDS was translated as Anally Injected Death Sentence. That about says it all.

The only advice I found about homosexuality was “its just a phase”, which thankfully I knew, even when I was fourteen, was nonsense.

In the school’s ethos, the only legitimate masculinity was defined by enthusiastic participation in team sports. Every boy – gay or straight – who didn’t sign up to that ethos was effectively marginalised.

This was the norm, not the exception.

 

Yeah, I don't remember all but maybe a few gayish kids and teachers in high school, but it never bothered me. I wasn't really socially connected, mostly a loner. I had two good friends who made sure I got included in things. Growing up in Connecticut I never really associated being gay with anything all that bad.

Same in college, I don't recall it was a big issue at our liberal Christian university.

 

Highschool was probably the first time I actually heard/learned about homosexuality and LGBT stuff in general.
Mostly through 'macho' jokes and bullying by insecure peers.
Don't think anyone from my year ever came out during highschool.
Hell the only gay people at highschool I can remember are one lesbian French teacher, one gay History teacher and one gay Biology teacher.
LGBT issues were generally ignored or used to bully people whether they actually were LGBT or not.

 

Hi,

Where was I in high school...

I was having sex daily with best friend. We ere together all through high school. I knew of no other gays, just hot guys I wished were my friends. I was closeted, never harassed.

Later... years later when time ate their closets... there were plenty of gays in high school. Damn 20/20 hindsight. Real cute ones too.

 

Fabulous question. Thank you for posting it.

I was the quiet, smart girl who didn't date and had only a very few close friends and very few casual acquaintances. Senior year of high school you suddenly saw me get all empowered and socially integrated, and maybe wondered what had happened (but probably didn't notice, because you were so used to not thinking about me). When I got moody after the Christmas holiday that year, you certainly didn't guess it was because my first girlfriend (3 years older than I was) had, after initially seducing me, told me she wanted to date guys.

I was also watching no fewer than 4 guys (all guys, interestingly) commit suicide...I wondered about each...their backgrounds were so different. One a decent average student; one a tough with a dickhead for a dad; one a loner like myself whom I'd been friends with in 5th grade and then fell completely out of touch with; one a very popular, very cute guy who had big sensitive eyes. Today I can connect various dots and make a case for each one having been LGBT, and I'll bet I'd be right about the majority. At the time, it was just perplexing and sad.

Oh the 80's.

 

I spent most of high school simply going to classes and home again for the most part. I really, really didn't notice what was going on around me. I think kids were dealing drugs right next to me in one class but that only occurred to me later when I thought about it not because of what I actually saw. Yeah, so quite clueless.
There was one boy who I think was assumed to be gay. He was active in the drama club and when I hung around there for a while, found him to be entertaining and fun. He didn't appear to be harassed but I later learned that be died shortly after graduating and I had a feeling it was suicide for some reason.
After a couple of years, I joined the tennis team. Rarely got to play when competing but spent a lot of time watching the girls' single player on our team. I thought it was because she was a good player but now I realize she totally fascinated me.
I also spent quite a lot if time watching the girl's track team practice. I seemed to be the only one doing that.
I can't say what if there was any LGBT presence at my school aside from that one boy. It never occurred to me that there might be gay girls there as well.

 

that LGBT term hasn't been around all that long, but I wish we had terms like that in our vocabulary when I was in high school. Any words to express "gay" were all pretty derogatory terms. The lack of the right vocabulary made it hard not only to talk about it, but to even conceptualize what I was feeling and going through. i can look back now with an understanding of what being gay is now, and see that I was gay then. But I had no way to understand it then. And though I made a pass at a friend, and he made one at me, neither pass connected because we just didn't get it. we discussed the incidents years later and the lights went on. sure wish I had known that we were both gay back then. we definitely would have done something in high school had we known. as it was, I was a virgin when I graduated from college, just from lack of opportunity with men, and no interest in women.

 

Thanks Adam for the trip down memory lane.

In junior high there was one rather effeminate boy who was bullied so much that he had to switch schools. It prompted the school to hold an assembly in an attempt to discourage that kind of behavior, which was pretty progressive for the time. (Sadly, it's still happening today. Just last week in "liberal" Northern California, a 12 year old boy who had been relentlessly bullied after joining the cheerleading squad took is own life.)

Also in junior high, I was in a class where the teacher asked for opinions on some topic that escapes my memory now. I raised my hand and gave an answer that prompted one of the school's "mean girls" to loudly proclaim, "Any guy who thinks that must be gay." I can still remember the awful feeling that I had been outed in front of the whole class.

In my high school of 2000 people, there were no openly gay students and the only time the word gay was used was as an insult. I learned to censor myself to avoid getting tagged with the gay label. Even though my best friend was a girl, I was in the A/V club and I didn't go out for sports, I managed to fit in well enough to avoid suspicion.

I do remember cringing every time someone would use the phrase "that's so gay" which was a frequent occurrence. Each time was another nail in my closet door. It's all very sad in retrospect.

It's great to see all of the progress since that time. Just wish it would have come 20 years sooner.

 

"What's homosexuality"? my 8 year-old self asked my (slightly) older friends as we walked home from my new (English) school (yes, 8 year-olds actually walked to school, alone!). They looked at each other and said something to the effect that I didn't need to know and they signaled in no uncertain terms that they were not going to discuss it any further. This was my introduction to The Taboo...

Previously, between the ages of 5 and 8 (1965-1968), I spent the first three years of primary school in a French, Catholic, all boys boarding school. I was surrounded by boys, day and night during the school year while coming home only on the weekends; the only women there being the very strict nuns to whom we had to salute, military style, every time we passed by (I kid you not!).

Even then, I remember how I felt about some of my classmates (it proves the truism that we remember feelings much more than thoughts or words), I couldn't describe it, but I knew enough not to mention it in any way, shape or form. I would befriend some of them and that was enough for me.

I guess the main part of the 60's were, for me, about growing up gay without realizing it. I had posted earlier that I would put on little shows at home, I liked to sing, there were other things I did that, in retrospect, would have set off a few gaydar units...but so much else was happening in the world then, and in my own city in particular, it was an amazing time to be living in Montreal in the sixties, a veritable renaissance after the repressive and quasi-fascist, Catholic-dominated provincial government of the fifties.

 

I was in high school and college in the 80s (I'd say I grew up in the 80s but the jury's out as to whether I actually grew up ). I only recently even accepted the fact I'm gay so any sort of coming out back wasn't an issue. It would have been difficult in those days though and added to thing to give me grief about. One interesting thing, though- though my age group grew up in that environment , I think most people my age are now pretty accepting ( outside those with certain religious beliefs). Of course um only out to myself and my therapist, so I may feel differently when I come out more fully

 

I was in a Catholic high school in the 80s. One of the teachers was rumored to be gay, but people never seemed to seriously suggest it about any students. (Though a good friend of mine came out as soon as he hit college.)

For myself all I knew was that girls seemed to think the idea of being with another girl was gross and I didn't think that, and I was a little worried about how I felt about one of my female friends, even though I liked and dated guys. But when I told one of the teachers who I was close to she strongly discouraged me from thinking about it and told me my friend would never want a gay relationship.

In college I joined the Gay and Lesbian alliance but as an ally. I'm still not sure why I didn't come out then or at least try dating a woman, but for some reason I didn't. (And to this day sometimes I just think, well, it's because you were straight, stupid!) One thing that was hard was that in those days people didn't talk much about bisexuality except to say it probably didn't exist. So I felt like either I had to be straight or gay and straight was the obvious choice. I still kind of feel that way, after all these years.

 

Tomboys in my school were mostly athletic (primarily track and field), and my perception/memory was that that was seen as "cool", rather than dykey. I was pretty anti-sport, myself, and so I was not friends with those people...but I was also *not* the type to harass *anyone*. I went to my 20th reunion several years ago, and found that one of the most androgynous tomboys had become this strikingly beautiful, quite feminine woman. I was itching to talk with her and see if I could get a clue about her sexuality...sadly, the conversation never happened.

Yes, the whole kafuffle with my first gf was definitely a dark time. It had started with a brief blissful, heady period of initial discovery and exploration...but quickly crashed and burned. To some extent, I feel I was too hesitant for her taste or what she wanted...but she was also getting a *lot* of pressure from her family to (get this) try sex with men (isn't that rich? I just don't hear that about parents of 19-year old women). I wouldn't say I felt she "joined the enemy"...I didn't consider straight people the enemy...and I was pretty sure she was more of a lesbian than I was (still pretty sure). It just sucked, was all...my first real rejection. But looking back, we were far too different. It would never have worked, and it was better for me to have had that experience and then be quickly shut of her. But at the time "without a rudder" was a pretty darned good way to describe how I felt. My (few) other dating experiences before meeting my current partner were much more positive.