Gayspe #10: Growg Up Gay the 80’s and 90’s | Geekspe

Contents:

• 27 THGS YOU'LL ONLY KNOW IF YOU GREW UP GAY IN THE '90S
• TEGAN AND SARA RELL 'PROS AND CONS' OF GROWG UP GAY THE '90S: 'IT WAS EASIER SOME WAYS'
• 19 COMMON THGS EVERY GAY TEEN DID IN THE LATE '90S
• GROWG UP GAY THE 1990S: HAS THAT MUCH CHANGED FOR TODAY'S GAY YOUTH?
• YOUR PERSPECTIVE IS YOUR RELIGN: GROWG UP GAY THE 80S AND 90S
• GAYSPE #10: GROWG UP GAY THE 80’S AND 90’S
• THATCHER, AIDS AND HOPELSNS: GROWG UP GAY THE 1980S AND 90S

27 THGS YOU'LL ONLY KNOW IF YOU GREW UP GAY IN THE '90S

That cheerlears and steel l workers n be gay.

That your bt iend might not be gay, even if you really, really wish they were.

That not every gay man is like Jack om Will & Grace. So was easier some ways to be a teenager and be gay if you were fortable wh jt not talkg about . "But also, I got to have sleepovers wh my bt iend bee my mom didn't know I was gay and sleepg wh her.

TEGAN AND SARA RELL 'PROS AND CONS' OF GROWG UP GAY THE '90S: 'IT WAS EASIER SOME WAYS'

"I mean, we joked at the begng when we got the green light for the show that we were jt hopg we uld fd tws at all, " Tegan says, addg: "We really hoped that the tws would be gay.

Watched "The Puppy Episo" of Ellen and were secretly elated when Ellen DeGener proudly proclaimed to the world, "I'm Gay! Pesed the "Gay & Lbian" aisle at Barn & Noble (while pretendg to look for the latt Animorphs stallment) before headg over to the perdils sectn to see if they had the newt issue of XY stock. Got one ear pierced at the mall, but then heard nflictg reports om your classmat as to whether the left or right ear was the "gay si.

Sometim when people ask me why I wre, I tell them that 's bee I grew up gay (very gay) way out the middle of wboy untry the wdswept and dty badlands of eastern Montana. Though pickg one event as the start date for the LGBTQ rights movement is misleadg, 's worth rememberg that we're now 40-some years out (pun tend) om Stonewall, and yet today, 2012, actual ntenrs for the office of the Print of the Uned Stat still feel perfectly at ease, and, fact, the right, mpaigng on garbage-tis of homophobic hate speech. What a bunch of homophob.

19 COMMON THGS EVERY GAY TEEN DID IN THE LATE '90S

And he replied, “maybe bee I thk AIDS is a homosexual and dg addict disease. I met him at Uncle Charlie’s on Greenwich Avenue, my very first gay bar.

I remember the sh of steppg up to the ural next to another gay man there for the first time, and the sh that happens still to this day. I remember the somewhat secret si entrance of The Limelight on Wednday nights, where you got for ee if you were gay.

GROWG UP GAY THE 1990S: HAS THAT MUCH CHANGED FOR TODAY'S GAY YOUTH?

I remember havg sex twice wh the same person the same apartment on Gay Street five years apart. Beg homosexual had another filthy stigma swashbuckled onto creatg thicker layers of shame and fear and risk. How growg up gay the 90’s ma me an addict.

Ever sce I knew I was gay, at thirteen years old, I felt I had to keep hidn.

I’m 35 now, so the climate at the time of my youth was jt before beg gay was generally accepted.

YOUR PERSPECTIVE IS YOUR RELIGN: GROWG UP GAY THE 80S AND 90S

LGBT is still a popular term ed to discs genr and sexual mori, but all GSRM are wele beyond lbian, gay, bisexual, and transgenr people who nsent to participate a safe space. Growg up the 80’s and 90’s, everythg I knew about beg gay me om popular culture.

If TV shows mentned gay people at all, was almost always as the butt of a joke on a stupid s. In once scene, Jim Carrey’s buddi are tryg to check his ner thigh for be marks the high school shower, and when appears to the other showerg jocks that some gay sh is gog down, someone yells “Fags the showers! We’re homos!

” As if beg gay was somethg you uld bee if jt enough other people lled you . It was like a warng to all gay kids: better go kill yourself now, or learn to hi your sexualy as well as you n, bee life om high school on is gog to be a livg hell for the flip si of movi and televisn, though, there was the mic world of the 80’s, as fed by MTV.

GAYSPE #10: GROWG UP GAY THE 80’S AND 90’S

They uldn’t say they were gay, and tth most of them weren’t, but the implitn was there and was enough.

THATCHER, AIDS AND HOPELSNS: GROWG UP GAY THE 1980S AND 90S

Dire Stras had a huge h song wh Money For Nothg wh lyrics that epomized what regular straight-middle-Ameri thought of all the homos sellg lns of albums:See the ltle faggot wh the earrg and the makp? Yeah buddy that’s his own hairThat ltle faggot got his own jet airplaneThat ltle faggot he’s a lnaireSo I suppose as a ltle gay, the closet kid, I had a choice to make; listen to the Hollywood movie makg mache, who was tellg me I was visible or a pariah, or listen to the mic world, which told me to embrace who I was and show off and be proud. Eher bee of the sympathy created by the AIDS epimic, or simply bee more and more gay people all over were g out of the closet and beg accepted, Hollywood began to change s tune.

While we were still a long way off om lead characters beg gay (much ls showg gay timacy on screen) was no longer kosher to drop the word fag as a sual sult film.

Teen movi like Cluels had the cute guy school that all the girls wanted to date end up beg gay, as well as beg accepted as part of the group. Hip shows like Melrose Place had gay characters as regulars, and MTV’s The Real World always had an LGBT st member.