Recently I noted on Facebook that I came out as gay about 25 years ago and that I would have been better off staying in the closet but going to the gym. A couple of people told me privately that this was an offensive, and perhaps too private, statement, so I took it down—but I can’t say that I regret it.
“Ask your doctor if So-and-So is right for you” say the pharmaceutical ads, and I should make clear that my advice to myself is not necessarily right for gay men born in a different time or in different socioeconomic conditions. If I had been born 10 years later, or into a more privileged family, I probably would have come out in high school (certainly by college) and figured out things out with the support of peers my own age.
Instead, I came out in my late 20s, at first in a strange city, and already felt like a tired old queen. This was in Washington, D.C., where I joined a group for twentysomethings and was self-conscious that I was about to age out of it, and where I went to dance clubs (like Badlands) a few times by myself and was too intimidated to approach the mostly younger guys in T-shirts.
