Born This Way

A lot of people talk as if sexual orientation doesn’t take effect or isn’t completely formed until we hit puberty, but I don’t think that’s true.

I knew virtually nothing about sex before I was ten years old. I come from a prudish, fundamentalist family. Everyone stayed covered up all the time, and sex was hardly ever mentioned. But still, I realized I was gay at the age of 11. I put that label on it. I knew exactly what the term meant, and I knew I was gay.

I can remember sitting on our back deck and reasoning it out. Many guys around me had started talking about what they’d like to do with girls in graphic terms. I knew I had no interest in doing those things with girls. But I did have a strong sexual interest in boys. I knew a boy who likes other boys sexually but doesn’t like girls sexually is gay. So I was gay. That was me. I was 11. I came from a family that tried to keep me in the dark about sex. And I still figured that all on my own.

Later, I came to realize that there had been many clues that led up to my eureka moment. I had always felt different from other boys. Most boys seemed strangely aggressive to me, and I didn’t get why they were like that. I was often intimidated by them. I didn’t understand their strong interest in sports either. I felt much more comfortable with girls even though I wasn’t one. When I was very young, before I started school, I used to enjoy cross dressing. I remember wishing I had been born a girl.

Even though I didn’t have strong sexual feelings until I hit puberty, I had crushes on little boys in grade school. I remember stealing a kiss from one boy when I was in second grade. I thought he was adorable, and one day when I was coming back into our room after lunch, I found him sitting in a seat up front. He was there all by himself. There were only a couple of other people in the room. And he had his head down. So when I walked by him, I leaned over and kissed him on the forehead. He was quite surprised by that. I just went on to my seat without saying a word. I was seven and gay as a goose.

A neighbor boy and I were playing together when we were about five or six, and he decided he wanted to pretend he was a dog. He said dogs don’t wear clothes, so he took his off. I remember being strangely excited by his nudity, and I liked seeing his body in an unexpected way. You might think it’s only because he was naked, and I wasn’t used to seeing people without their clothes on. You might think that seeing anybody, male or female, would have excited me. But I don’t think that’s it because around the same time, a little girl from the church decided to take me with her to the bathroom, and she showed me what she had. I was not interested in that. In fact, I was uncomfortable and left the room.

I’m pretty sure my sexual orientation was deeply ingrained and fully functional by the time I was three or four years old. I strongly suspect it was there from the start. I think I was born this way.  ...not that my or anyone's sexual orientation needs an explanation.