Friday Staff Survey: When Did You Know?

This post was written by TNG co-founder Zack.

Though coming out to those around me was an anxious process riddled with fear and awkardness, I thank my lucky stars that I had no problems coming out to myself. An oft-forgotten step toward comfortable gay living is that a person has to know they're gay before they can tell anyone else about it. Some people know when they're 4 and others don't get their "aha" moment until they see that new cute intern at their nursing home. Whenever the rainbow lightbulb lights up above your sodomite/cunnilingual head, though, everyone's moment of awareness is unique. On that note, this week's staff survey question is as follows:

What was the exact moment you realized you might be gay?

All answers are below the fold. Feel free to leave your own recollections in the comment box.

1. Zack, Co-founder and primary contributor:

My awakening came as the result of a Sassy Magazine and a pair of cartoon testicles. My sister kept a big stack of her Sassy's on top of a wooden dog bed in our kitchen. When I was 9 I paged through them and found an article called "The Anatomy of a Boyfriend." It had the most rudimentary sketch of a naked man (think Ken doll in soft focus) with arrows pointing to different body parts explaining what they were and how they worked. I was extremely interested in the two arrows that pointed between his legs. It wasn't an earthshaking moment, but I do remember thinking "I guess I'm gay. Huh." It took me 10 years to tell the rest of the world, but I knew who I was early and never really had a problem with it.


2. Michael, Co-founder and primary contributor:

I've known I was gay for just about as long as I can remember. However, one earlier childhood moment sticks out: one of my brothers had a neighborhood kid over for a sleep-over one night when I was probably 7 or so. My mother was getting us ready for bed and suggested that we might not have enough hot water for each of us to take individual showers, and suggested maybe we paired up. My desire to see the cute neighborhood kid naked and wet overwhelmed my desire to remain secretive about my shameful backwards attractions, and I chimed in that he and I should double up. I think I might have made up some dumb excuse to justify the pairing. Upon reflecting on this incident later, I thought that maybe my mom was just trying to see whether any of her kids were gay.

3. Allison, Staff Contributor:

I used to cut the hair off my Barbie dolls and make them date each other.

4. Craig, Staff Contributor:

When I was in second grade, there was program I used to watch after school called Johnny Sokko and His Flying Robot. I watched it religiously, examining the contours and maleness of the silver giant, with his Egyptian head and smooth codpiece that hid who know what? I was jealous that Johnny got to be carried by a giant man of metal, safe and taken into the sky. Then, I fell for Ultraman. Maybe I'm not gay after all. I just have a thing for robots.

5. Matt, Staff Contributor:

I suppose I was pretty dense. The signs were there for years, but I didn't think about myself as gay until I was abroad in Germany. I was boarding the subway at the Untergrundbahnhof Sendlinger Tor in Munich like I did every morning, and pausing to look at the naughty gay magazines in a kiosk, it just clicked. Don't know why.

6. Rocky, Music Editor:

I guess I've known I was "different" since I was pretty little. I remember in first grade, when we would change for gym class, all the other boys would try to figure out a way to sneak into the girls' area but I was always content to stay on my side, surrounded by boys in tight-whities. But I didn't really realize what that difference actually was until like 6th or 7th grade. We were sitting around eating lunch at school one day and I was exhorted by another young gentleman to check out a passing young lady's brand new breasts. I sort of shrugged like, "OK. Cool. I guess," and he - totally not maliciously, rather sweetly in fact - said, "Oh, I'm sorry. Have you not started puberty yet?" And I realized that, no, it wasn't that. I was just more into dick and the strapping, 6 foot tall, Greek god that had just transferred to our school. Of course, I didn't grow up in a very gay-friendly environment so I wouldn't admit that or even really allow myself to think about it for another 7 years or so. But I think that's the moment it first dawned on me.

7. Maggie, Staff Cartoonist:

Two of my favorite sayings apply here: "Hindsight is always 20/20" and "Call a spade a spade." I can dig back through my catalog of childhood memories & tag the ones where all signs point to YES, but my true "ah-ha-I'm-gay!" moment was the summer of 2005 when I was an intern at the Feminist Majority Foundation in LA. Sammy Lyon. Now, I had my fair share of questioning prior to this moment, but when she was sitting next to me, wearing a red button-up without anything underneath, rolling her chair closer and closer until her knee just barely grazed mine... yeah, I'd say that was my exact moment.

7. Corey, Managing Editor and Staff Contributor:


I'm a revisionist historian so I like to go with the most pleasant of these moments, rather than the first or the most decisive. It was on the swing set between my house and the woods, a cool fall day in my fifth year of school. My best friend climbed onto the gymnastics bar and hung upside down, his legs twisted around it. His shirt slipped down an inch or two, revealing a strip of his stomach. For the first time I took note of the contours of his frame and felt like I wanted to stand there in the breeze soaking up that experience, refusing to let it go.

Nine years later, I came out to him; an hour after that, he came out to me.

We don't speak anymore.

8. Chris, Theatre Editor:

Remember the store Spencer's that used to be in the mall? (Are they still? You never know when you're going to need a fart machine on a key ring or a Baywatch poster). I remember spending a bit too long looking at the "funny" cards with shirtless muscle guys on the front. I'm sure I told my friends I was reading them for the jokes. I was also in Boy Scouts and on swim team so eventually, around 8th grade or so, I think I knew that I was intrigued by males, though I wasn't totally sure what that meant. A few more years spent in Speedos-ville helped me figure it out.

9. Ed, Staff Contributor:

I went to an evangelical, Southern Baptist parochial school from the time I was 4 until I was in the 7th grade. So, I had no concept of homosexuality. They didn't teach us it was a sin; they just didn't say anything about it at all. I got my first clue that I was physically attracted to guys when I started going to public school in the 8th grade and had to take showers after P. E.

Editorial Staff:

10. Margaret, Editorial Assistant and Business Development:

I had an inkling since just after my 16th birthday, when I accidentally kissed my best friend (yes, you can sort of trip into such situations). I managed to keep the suspicions at bay for five years, including through having crushes on a girl and a prof during college and not wanting to date the guys I met. I was choosing to be *really* dense.