L.G.B.T.Q. in America: ‘We Are Never Going Back to the Closet Darkness’
To the Editor: Re “The Number of L.G.B.T.Q. People Is Rising. So?,” by Jane Coaston (Opinion, July 24): Ms. Coaston’s report reveals both a fearsome and an exciting new world for the L.G.B.T.
community. A world where we are seen and, mostly, accepted. This world could not be more different than most older gay Americans’ experience growing up.
I recall the very day and hour, at age 6, that I knew I was gay, although I wouldn’t know what that meant for many years. On my first day of kindergarten, at recess, as I was running around the schoolyard with all the other students in my class, I stopped suddenly and said: “Wow!
Boys are cool!” Seeing another gay person, or hearing any speck of validation for gay people, would seemingly never come to me in my more-conservative-than-Mississippi community in South Jersey.
