I am a forty-four-year-old, gray-bearded bear. I have been letting the beard grow out for more than the year since my dad’s death, so it’s bushy even for me, but it’s kind of fun to let the wind blow through it. I live in a small town about thirty-five miles outside of Fargo. I moved to North Dakota in 1989. I am out, have been for a bit. I came out to myself in 1992 and then to my folks five years ago. I am out at work and anywhere else too. I am not what most folks picture when they think of a gay man. But there are a lot of us, and we are all around. A lot has changed for me over this past year. Probably the biggest thing is that I found out I have diabetes. I can’t say I was shocked to hear the doc diagnose me; anyone over 300 pounds would have to live in a fantasy world to be surprised by that. It was a wake-up call. Since then, I have lost somewhere in the neighborhood of sixty pounds and weigh a slim 284 now! Folks are just starting to notice, or at least say something. My goal is to get down to about 230. It’ll probably take another year, but doing it right is the important thing.

My partner and I have been in Alaska for ten years. We own an eighty-acre ex-dairy farm that we are trying to resurrect. Since 2006, we’ve been building a large (some would say huge) two-story house right in the middle of it. We’re finally getting siding on this month! We’ve begun collecting milk cows; two are currently being milked, and two heifers were born this year. We’re also raising hogs and one of our sows had her second litter two weeks ago. The goats kept eating my garden, so I insisted they had to go. The farm looks out on the glorious Alaska Range, as well as the White Mountains and the Granites. Living here brings us closer to our dream of self-sufficiency. I work as an environmental specialist for the Army. I am also chief of the Delta Junction Rescue Squad, an unpaid volunteer position that takes up many hours. Allen works for the state during the summer as a park ranger and is the true farmer between the two of us. We’re two Southerners who moved here for my job. We were curious how such a small town would greet us, and discovered that everyone knew pretty much everything before we even got here. Small towns have no secrets—even if you want to keep them, which we did not. There was a week of polite but curious gossip and questions, and then nothing. Our lives as gay men here have been completely uneventful. In fact, it’s more like the movie Big Eden, where good-hearted, loving people have pushed us to share our lives with them in a way that completely surprised and overwhelmed me. For this reason alone, we are home.

I had a difficult time growing up gay in New Mexico. There was a lot of bullying all through my school years. I felt really out of place and was consistently made fun of for being different. I contemplated suicide on more than one occasion. Coming out was very awkward. Even though I come from a very artistic family—my mother is an actress and a musician with many gay friends—they still had a hard time with my homosexuality initially. I kind of felt like Chaz Bono. Thankfully, today my whole family is very accepting of me and is proud that I’ve chosen to live my life exactly the way I want to—as a gay artist. Life is too short not to. I moved to New York and the opportunities started coming in. This city is where I should have been all along. The style of my art is a mixture of Golden Books meets the Dutch masters meets the abstract expressionists, with twists and turns along the way. I live every day with anxiety and try to explode it onto the canvas, out of my head and through my hands. Sometimes I have a very soft touch, and sometimes I paint very aggressively, depending on my mood. I paint in heavy, lush oil colors mixed with linseed oil and turpentine on canvas. I keep it simple. I make my art for myself. I don’t think about pushing anyone’s buttons, I think about what makes me excited and what I love and am inspired by. Sometimes I’m inspired by the sparkles in the sidewalk, by mold that grows on the walls, or by teddy bears I find on the street. Sometimes I’m inspired by the back room at a gay bar, my sexual experiences, and my sexual fantasies. If I can express this in a visually appealing, original way, and in my own language, then I am ecstatic. I work every single day, often into the early morning hours. I never take a day off. I try to exercise and do yoga every day as well. I don’t sleep that much, and I don’t eat a lot—very simple foods like black beans out of the can with tortillas, or a can of soup. I feel like putting all my energy into my artwork means having no regrets at the end of my life. I’ve had several relationships since I moved to NYC, all lasting for about a year, and all ending in disasters, but I’m learning and growing from each one and am currently in the healthiest and loving relationship I’ve been in thus far. I have a very supportive man in my life who I love very much and would do anything in the world for.

Most of my friends know that I’m gay, but I don’t exactly fit the typical stereotype. I’m fine with that. I’ve traveled to many places in the world and can tell you that a gay bar in Barcelona is no different than one in Sydney or Atlanta. So I don’t spend much time hanging out in clubs, walking in pride parades, or taking gay cruises. I find I get on better with my straight and macho gay friends.

My middle name, Q’ran, was chosen by my father. He was into black power and Malcolm X at the time I was born. I was exposed to many different religions growing up. When I was little, I was raised by my grandmother, who’s Southern Baptist, like most of my family. My father was always the outspoken atheist, and after living with him, my views moved toward agnosticism. My opinion is that since there are so many religions in existence, who’s to say which one is real or true? Why worry about it, if we’ll find it out when we die? Just live in the now. I’ve been gay for as long as I can remember. I recall pseudosexual play with other boys as early as seven years old. It’s just who I’ve always been. There wasn’t one big day where I was like, “OMG, I like boys.” Being gay is just another part of being alive for me. My homosexuality doesn’t define me, though. I’m more than just gay. I’m a son, a brother, a friend. Over time, I’ve heard a lot of really epic coming out stories. Mine was never on par. In fact, I never really came out. I just was. I think a lot of my family knew before I did. All I ended up doing was changing my MySpace orientation to “gay.” About two weeks later my mom saw it and asked me about it. When I told her, she bought me some condoms, and that was that. The rest of my extended family (uncles, aunts, cousins) know but don’t mention it. I was always the golden child who could do no wrong, and they still try to think of me in that way. I’m in the middle of getting my bachelor’s in Spanish, and I work at a gay bar here in town. When I get the chance, I like helping out Caritas House, a local charity that provides for people in northern West Virginia who are affected by HIV and AIDS. After graduation I see myself traveling abroad. I want to go to Spain, Israel, Turkey, Ireland, everywhere. I want to see the sights, eat the food, and immerse myself in other cultures and the languages. I have a feeling that once I go away, I’ll probably want to stay. I just want to get out there and have fun, no matter what I choose to do.

I live in what I would call a “retirement” town. There are lots of elderly people, everyone here is pretty conservative, and there are very few activities for people to do. When I entered high school I had just moved here from Atlanta, and it was an extreme change of pace for me. Everyone was quiet and tightly compacted into the stereotype of what was acceptable. I always knew I was gay, and in Atlanta I was slowly beginning to show it. I told my mother before we moved away and she was fine with it, but I was afraid to tell my father. He was a military man straight out of the country; I doubt he had ever come into contact with a sexual minority, let alone spend time with one. When we moved, we left my mother behind. They weren’t quite divorced and they weren’t quite together. I guess they assumed that moving away from each other would help them realize what they really wanted. When we got to Virginia I was excited about the fresh start; I could just come into school gay, no need for a back-story, no need to make friends, I could just be myself. I quickly found that being out of the closet wasn’t going to go over easy. Everyone in town was a carbon copy of each other. All the kids wore the same clothes and looked exactly the same. I forced myself to fit in, even carrying on relationships with girls from time to time. I was upset I had to act this way, to put up a front. During a visit to my mother, I told her how unhappy I was. She explained to me that if the people at my school couldn’t accept me as gay then they really weren’t my friends at all, and that I wouldn’t know those people ten years from now. She said I shouldn’t be something I’m not just to impress people. On the way back to Virginia I decided I would be an out gay male, probably the first my town had ever seen. It was a long ride back, and I told my father everything. At first he was uneasy, but he told me he was going to love me regardless. When I returned I cut my hair into a mohawk, got rid of all my masculine, loose-fitting clothes, and became more fashion-forward. I was on a high; I loved being myself. Unfortunately, other people didn’t. I was ridiculed, mocked, bullied, and harassed. People called me a faggot, wrote “fudgepacker” on my locker, and even threw things at me. Every night I would cry. I was so miserable. I got into fights and was beat up a few times. Someone vandalized my house, writing “faggot” across my front door. My father had enough. He put me in boxing classes and told me to stop being so passive. I spent the whole summer learning to defend myself. On the first day of tenth grade I got in a fight and made an example of the kid. If anyone insulted me I would curse them out so bad that they’d never want to utter another word to me. I became a bit of a bad-ass, but I was happy because people stopped bullying me and started looking up to me. More and more, boys started coming out of the closet, and became examples of how happy gay teens could be. I started a small gay student association at my school and became actively involved in a youth group for teenagers in the city. I’m not worried about fitting in anymore.

In the end, I look at my life as an open book, and I no longer care what people think of me. I am a strong, driven, independent, normal man who just happens to be gay.

While it's nice to finally see gay characters on TV, I worry about the message that they are sending to gay youth. As someone who grew up in a small redneck town in AZ, I've still never seen a gay character that I can even remotely relate to. I'm afraid that the message the gay characters are sending is one of aesthetic perfection, designer jeans, and designer purses. I'm not model perfect, and don't fit any stereotype that I've found so far. Kinda shy, don't consider myself to be photogenic...but am REAL, and out, and happy.

Bobby: We met at a club in D.C., where Kolajo and I both lived and worked for most of our twenties. We dated for a few months and things started to get serious, but Kolajo had already decided to leave D.C. and attend graduate school prior to us meeting.
Kolajo: As soon as I got my first acceptance letter, I began to suspect our relationship was more than just a fling. I decided on Harvard, where I am now working on my doctorate in education. After experimenting with a long-distance relationship for about a year, Bobby decided that he liked me more than he did living in D.C. He got a job as a campus planner for Brown University and moved to Providence. I similarly decided that I liked Bobby more than living in Cambridge, and I now commute to school by train, three to four times a week.
Bobby: We find Providence to be a city of glorious contradictions, as is New England in general (think pleasant summers and almost unbearable winters). It has a small-city charm, a robust art scene, great restaurants, affordable housing, generally progressive politics, and a strong local food culture. It also has all the grit and unemployment you would expect from a former industrial capital. Its gay population is large for the city’s size, the bars are plenty and varied, and the folks are friendly. Our neighborhood, the West Side, could most accurately be described as a gentrified mix of artists, hipsters, college students, families, immigrants, and long-term residents.
Kolajo: Bobby and I spend a lot of time keeping our nineteenth-century Victorian home from falling apart. We consider ourselves to be amateur cooks, and spend many nights executing recipes from all our bibles of modern cookery. We are proud members of our community garden, though Bobby is the one with the green thumb.
Bobby: Kolajo, on the other hand, spends most of his time dissertating, while I keep myself busy in my-third floor studio with canvas and oil paints. We have two dogs: Lou, a loving eight-year-old standard poodle, and Albey, an incorrigible four-year-old smooth collie.

Growing up in Oklahoma will teach a kid to be on his best behavior, respect his elders, use the words “sir” and “ma’am.” I went to church, did what I was told and had a pretty set schedule with school, sports, and family. All that has stayed with me, and now that I’m here in Alaska, it’s grand to say that Oklahoma has never left me. But man, did I sure as shit leave Oklahoma. I am twenty seven years old now. I left home when I was eighteen to see what else was out there, and I’m still looking. The world is one fascinating place, and I intend to cover as much of it as I can. I’ve lived in five different states and been to all fifty; I’ve visited ten countries and lived in three of them. I came to Alaska on a whim, and six years later, here I am. I have no home to call my own. I’m a traveler. I’ve got a place to lay my head, make food, shit, shower and shave, and hell, I even have free Internet and laundry, but its not mine. I work hard, very hard, just as everyone does up here. I live here in Seward, a town of no more than 1,700 people. No stop lights. A beautiful bay that never freezes in the winter, so the fishing’s always good. Mountains completely surround the whole town, it’s almost like they’re giving us one huge hug. It was the first real friend I made up here whom I finally came out to. Turned out she already knew, and was of course very happy for me. What really got me was when she asked me if I felt better now that I’d told someone. And you know what? I sure as hell did. I felt better than I ever had in my whole life. Up until that moment, I never realized what a heavy weight I’d been carrying. I would be lying if I said that I didn’t want to settle down somewhere in Alaska and live the rest of my life with the one I know I will find. But for right now, I am still on that mission to see all that the world has to offer. A word of advice to anyone else who is doing the same thing, gay or straight: Be careful if you come up here to Alaska, you just might never leave again.

We are products of what we call the ignorant generation, the generation that could not even talk about sex, much less sexual orientation. We are also products of rural environments; I was raised in Montana and Jim in Kansas. We both followed the dictates of societal mores and married and had children. Jim, the furry one, was married for twenty-seven years; I was married for twenty-one. We have pretty cool relationships with our respective families. We’ve been together for fourteen years, eight as registered partners in the state of California. As gay men, our philosophy is that we neither flaunt nor apologize for who we are. We have always lived as the minority gay couple in all-American communities. We proudly fly our pride colors, but at the same time we go out of our way to connect with people. Maybe we’re just lucky, but we’ve never been put down in any way. We have had neighbors flat out tell us how much they appreciate us being here. As gay men, no other joy makes our hearts leap more than that. We choose to live quiet, orderly lives, being sensitive to those beside and around us, and we feel we have earned their sincere respect and affirmation in return. We are committed to being positive role models, helping by example to bring down the myths and stereotypes. Our life’s hope is that we touch people’s lives in a way that they might reach acceptance and understanding of the reality of being a gay man, and realize that embracing diversity really is fine. We’re just pretty plain, low-key men.

I’m an Englishman living in America with my partner. In Britain I was a professional stage actor, but since moving to the States two years ago, I‘ve been training in massage therapy and holistic health. I hope to go to UCLA soon to begin a master’s in nursing. My perspective on being gay in this country is tainted by my immigration issue and wanting the right to stay with my partner—a hot green-card-holding Spaniard! Like any straight couple, we chose to live together. But unlike any straight couple, our relationship is not validated by state or federal law. This leaves me jumping through hoops to be here. But would I choose a different way of being? Hell no! Have the suits in Washington tell me how I should live my life? No way! So I will continue to work to be happy and legal, move in the direction that leads me to stay with the man and the country I love. If I step down—they win. Change is happening whether our opponents want to acknowledge it or not. Gay marriage is on the radar, and immigration will have to eventually follow suit. Spain already has it. So does England. California and being gay—I love both! And endeavor to have both!

No model material here. I am just a fifty-two-year-old single gay man living on the New Hampshire/Vermont border in the town of Colebrook. My bird’s name is Richardo and he is very spoiled. I was born and raised on a dairy farm—up early in the morning and to bed early at night. At an early age I knew who and what I was, but due to family values and my upbringing, I attempted to do what was expected of me. I got married and I am the father of two great kids. My daughter is the result of my ex-wife’s first marriage. When I first met my ex, her little girl was about three weeks old. She was thinking of giving her up for adoption but once I met the baby there was no way that was going to happen; I was hooked on her. As time went by we had a little boy who was born three months early. He never left the intensive care unit in the nine months of his life. That was the biggest loss in my life. I didn’t plan to ever have another child, but then along came my son, who is now an adult and a dad himself. He was also born three months early, weighing in at two pounds, three ounces. Today he is a sergeant in the armed forces as well as the dad of a daughter and a pair of twins—a little boy and a girl. And we have found out there is one more coming! When I finally decided to leave my wife, I told the kids my story. I didn’t want them to find out that I was gay later in life and not want to live with me. They chose to be with me. I was very proud of that. So from that time forward, I worked hard and raised my kids the best I knew how. Today they are both very close to me and totally behind the choices I make in my life. I’m still single, but that’s okay. I was too busy raising the kids to worry about my personal life back then. It must have been tough for my kids, but they never complained or mentioned anything about being harassed in school. I do believe from rumors I heard that my son did get harassed, but he never once came home and told me a thing about it. I work in the purchasing office at a furniture plant and I also bartend and wait tables. Yeah, I am lonely at times but I would not trade the kids for anything or go back and change a thing.

I work as an officer on a private yacht that calls the charming town of Sag Harbor in Long Island its home port in the summer. The family I work for is not famous or well known. They are incredible people, who are more family to me than my own. We spend our winter in Saint Martin and Saint Bart. Life is not bad. I often jokingly and affectionately refer to my boss and his wife as my Sugar Daddy and Momma. Doesn’t every gay man wish for both!

Being a gay man in Wichita isn’t a bad or good thing. It’s the largest city in Kansas, so tolerance is relatively high, and we’re evolving into an even more accepting city. We have an annual event in mid- October that is a platform for HIV/AIDS awareness. Wichitans come out in big numbers to buy art and expand their awareness of the gay community’s influence and presence. We still have a long way to go, but our path is clear. Being an openly gay black man, I have had mostly positive experiences since coming out when I was eighteen. Since then I have always been open in public, in jobs, and in social settings. I have learned that how people carry themselves dictates how other people treat you most of the time. I lead with my personality rather than my sexuality. As a result, I believe most people look at me as a black gay man with respect. I also choose to surround myself with people who are positive and don’t carry a negative energy. Within black culture, being gay still carries a large stigma, so there is great reluctance to come out. Like anything else, with more education, I know that will start to change, too.

We both come from wonderful, albeit different, families. Growing up trying to figure out being gay is never easy, but the love and support we got never made us think that we couldn’t have happy, normal lives. Always individualists, people seemed surprised that we chose to have a traditional wedding, but we never saw our commitment as different from any other, gay or straight. After years of dating and living together it was just the natural progression. We got married in July 2010 in a Connecticut park before close family and friends. Sharing that day with the people we care about the most brought us all together in ways we never anticipated. I have never felt so much love in one place. We recently relocated to Maine from New York City with our dog, two cats, and a turtle. It’s a wonderful place for our little family to begin its next phase together. Maine probably isn’t the last stop, but it’s a good place to hang out and daydream with my husband about where life will take us next.

I’m a bit of a maverick, a roamer, and a wanderer. The most stable time in my life was my childhood. Growing up in the Sierra Nevada Mountains in the small California town of Twain Harte, I spent all my time playing in the forest. We had miles and miles of woodland around us. As an adolescent I resented where I lived—it was too remote, too far from my friends. Now, as an adult, I envy those who are able to live and thrive there. I left home at eighteen and spent a few months in southern Oregon before returning to California to attend college, where I came out. After I graduated, I moved to San Diego, and learned all about computers and corporate life. I was young and eager to conquer the world, but after five years of living the gay lifestyle I longed to be back in the country. I found that just because I was gay didn’t mean that I had to conform to the city culture of gay life. San Diego had become too big for me and was not fulfilling on a spiritual level. I met a couple while on vacation who were moving to Austin and they suggested I take a look as a possible place to live. Texas was hot, but there were rolling hills and the people were friendly. I was living on four acres outside of Austin with a couple of friends, enjoying both the country and the many comforts that come with city life. Ultimately we lost the ranch to foreclosure, but I was able to turn what some saw as a tragedy into a dream come true. A few weeks before losing the house I bought a fifth wheel RV. I moved myself, my three dogs, and my cat into my escape pod. It has been two years since I made that move, and I have never been happier. I am now free to roam the country, taking my family and my home with me where ever I go. Native Americans had the right idea keeping their lives so mobile. There is nothing more liberating than coming home one day, hitching up the house, and moving on to another town miles away. The scene outside my windows changes regularly and I love the mobility. There truly is a different way of life for each of us, and I have found mine.

I’ve worked full time as an artist my entire life, struggling to keep my finances above water. When I was losing my studio to a condominium project in Newburyport, Massachusetts, I decided to make a change and move to Maine. When I first approached Peaks Island’s bay by ferry, the magic was instantaneous for me. The island was a treasure of spectacular views and light and enchanting cottages from times past.

I am a Cuban American who got to New Jersey by way of New York City. My partner, Brian, is a former Jehovah’s Witness, and was born and raised here. Coming from that background there are a lot of issues for him about being openly gay. But he does what comes naturally to him, and he is the most gentle and sincere man you will ever meet. Brian was also born deaf, and has overcome many challenges related to his hearing loss. As for me, I abandoned all ties to my family when I came out in 1971 at age seventeen. They wanted me straight and married, and I would have nothing to do with a fake heterosexual life. I’d seen what that did to my parents—my father was a closeted gay. I was molested as a child by the father of my younger brother’s friend. I was invited to the beach with his kids, but his kids never came, and I never saw the beach. When I was twelve, I was forced into incest for five years by a first cousin, right under my parents’ noses. And while visiting my aunt here in Paterson, I was raped by a group of people who were tenants in her house. They asked me to drink alcohol with them and then they overpowered me. After several failed attempts at taking my life, I gave up on that routine. It never worked for me, so I guess it’s my lot in life to live with the past and deal with my present. And the present is good. Brian and I live happily together and have been married for two years. Sometimes it is still difficult to keep from looking over my shoulder because there are pieces of my soul that will always be damaged. But I keep on trucking. I cannot change the past, so I continue to re invent the future. After twenty-seven years in the hairdressing industry and speaking with many of the men I’ve worked with, it came to my attention that early rape was part of the history of many of my gay contemporaries. It was never something they spoke of freely. I hope men who hear my story will feel safe to share their own without fear or shame. Today I concentrate on my art and host lots of dinner parties for my close friends. I also like gardening, photography, sculpture, and other things that pique my interest. I have a tendency to stay with a partner until they either toss me or they die. I think this one is for the long haul. Unlike my family, who had little ambition for bettering their lives, I have found a perfect niche.

I grew up in a Norman Rockwellian sort of town in Massachusetts, right on the ocean between Boston and Cape Cod, where my mom’s family has lived since the boat landed, with an amazing family that supported every endeavor I ever went after. My friends used to make fun of me for being a “parent’s wet dream”—I rowed crew, I was an Eagle Scout, on the advisory board for the town’s high school, active in the community and church. I was the perfect kid. So the last thing I wanted to do was ruin that—to cause what I expected would be a disappointment to my family—by coming out. I’ve known I was gay since the first day of seventh grade, but I didn’t actually come out to my friends until I was almost finished with college, and not to my family until I was twenty-four—long after I’d moved out and was on my own. I guess it’s one of my only real regrets in life, not sharing all of me with the people I was closest to earlier then I did. My fear was always that if I came out I would be defined by being gay, and not by anything else that made me who I was—my hopes, my dreams, my passions. I was afraid that label would take over the conversation, I’d get put in a box and no one would ever look at me the same way again. Growing up, the only gay role models I had were on TV— characters like Jack from Will and Grace—or what I could dig up on the Internet. They were people I had no connection with, even though at the time they more or less defined my concept of what it meant to be gay. And I didn’t really want any part of that. I was a guy. Not a fag. It was something I wrestled with all through high school and well into college in Vermont where I studied forestry. It was all chainsaws and timber, Carhartts and hard hats, grease and dirt. Tall trees. Tough men. Straight stuff. Definitely not gay. But it was what I loved. So I lived for a while stuck there between two worlds trying to reconcile how I could possibly fit into both of them. That’s when I started to realize I probably needed to change my definition of what it meant to be gay—because in the end I was really the only one it mattered to. If other people wanted to define me by something that probably means more to them then it does to me, then fuck ’em. I didn’t need to compromise who I was in order to fit a prefabricated person. There was no “if this, then that,” only whatever I wanted out of life, and whatever I was willing to go after. After college I went to work in the Adirondacks with a big timber investment company, administering logging operations and developing forest management plans, and—with a bit of hard work and a whole lot of dumb luck—I ended up where I am today, moving back to Vermont to take over a company here. So for the past three years, northern Vermont is home once again. Being outside, making a living essentially getting paid to play in the woods—it’s pretty much the best job in the world. While I’ll never get rich doing it, I can say for certain that my life is richer because of it. It’s the most beautiful place on Earth—not just physically, with the mountains and forests, but the people here. Our town is nestled up near the Canadian border with only about 900 residents so, yeah, it’s small, but the sense of community here is bigger than you’ll find in any city in the world. Next to skiing (with the best in the East right up the road), the town’s favorite past time is to party, so it’s a sort of a wonder anything ever gets done around here. It’s paradise for anyone who loves to be outside, and who doesn’t want to know the definition of a desk job. But there are days I look around and wish my pond was a little bit bigger, with a few more fish in it. Days I wonder what it would be like someplace else, with a slightly different story to tell. I still can’t say I honestly know what I want to be when I grow up, or where I may be ten years down the road, and I might never have that one figured out. Maybe that’s the fun part. The one thing I do know is that right now, I’m happier than I ever have been. And I guess that’s a start.

I was raised in the Midwest and there was no choice but to be straight and married. It was just the way things were. I married the girl of my dreams in 1970. By the time I was twenty-six I had two sons and owned my own business and a farm. Although financially successful, there was always something missing. At thirty-one, I told my wife I was gay. She didn’t believe me. So instead of rocking the boat, I stayed in a unhappy situation. As the years went on I grew to become one of the top horsemen in the country, as well as one of the most award winning hair stylists. Finally the anger and guilt took over and I knew I had to be true to myself. I gave my wife our business and our home and moved to Scottsdale, Arizona to start over. It was tough at first, but now I have many great gay friends and my straight horse show friends realize I’m still the same guy I’ve always been. My sons have accepted the fact that they have a gay father and my ex-wife is actually speaking to me again. Life is good. My dog Tater and I travel a lot and the horses are still a huge part of our lives. All in all, I’m a happy cowboy.

I was born in Mississippi, but I grew up in Southern Georgia. I always knew I was gay and I also knew I had to get out of the Bible Belt as soon as possible. I searched every college guide and periodical I could find to determine what the best school in the country was for gay students. I discovered that Yale was a really supportive place, and I was lucky enough to get in. Even so, I stayed in the closet until a month after college graduation when my bursar bill had been completely paid, as I feared my parents would pull me out of liberal Yale if they knew I was gay. I came out in July of 1998, and went on to graduate school that fall to study public policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School. I’ve lived in New Haven for ten years and I love it. In 2005 I bought a two-family house that was built in 1867, and spent a year renovating it. I like to garden, and for fun I also enjoy learning about wine. I don’t think about the fact that I’m gay so much anymore. Most people know I’m gay (since I appeared on the front page of the local newspaper’s business section wearing a “Marriage Is So Gay” t-shirt). It hasn’t changed anything. I am who I am. I’ve only had three serious boyfriends in my life—including my current boyfriend of two years. At this point in my life, getting married and having kids like my other friends (who happen to mostly be straight) are the main goals on which I’m focused.

I am forty-two, a father, and a cancer survivor. I have lived in Minneapolis for fifteen years. My father was a United States diplomat. I grew up all over the world, exposed to the full spectrum of humanity from an early age—I learned what a drag queen was at my first Carnival while living in Brazil. Though I came out in 1984 at age eighteen, I married a woman in my mid-twenties. We had a son, Cameron, and divorced when he was three. I started dating men again soon after we separated, and had a few meaningful relationships over the years before meeting and marrying my ex-husband Scott. We were legally married in St. John, New Brunswick, Canada, where we sailed on Rosie O’Donnell’s R Family Cruise in 2008, with my son present. We had his full blessing; he even signed the marriage certificate with us, making it extra special. Cameron and I were always very close; he never had any hang-ups about my sexuality. When he was diagnosed with brain cancer, it was devastating for me. He fought it for over two years. After exhausting all conventional means of treatment, we tried Eastern medicine, traditional Chinese and Ayurveda, to help his body cure itself, but ultimately nothing could save him. A few months after Cameron’s passing, Scott left our marriage unexpectedly. I still don’t know exactly what his reasons were, but I am grateful for the time he was present, and his leaving doesn’t invalidate that. He was kind to Cameron, and I think our marriage may have helped make Cameron’s transition a bit easier, knowing that I would be cared for and loved after he was gone. It took some time, but I am okay now, and have been able to put the pain of being left behind me. The final two years of Cameron’s life were so surreal, but I am thankful that he is now cancer-free, rid of his broken body, and still inspiring so many people with his message and vision.

During my ordination in 1997, my sister Lynne proudly told a story about when I was five years old and was asked, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” I replied without hesitation, “A preacher!” But reconciling my emotional and physical feelings toward men with my calling to be a minister was not always possible. When I came out in 1988 as a gay man, then married with two children, I was emphatically told not to return to my Southern Baptist church; there was no place for my kind of Christian there. So I found a church where they would allow gays to be members, but we could only participate in pastoral worship. Gay congregants weren’t allowed to teach, pray, or preach; they could only attend, listen, sing, and of course contribute to the offering each Sunday. For a while that token involvement seemed enough, but I sensed inwardly that my calling to preach was still there—alive, vital, and insistent. I eventually discovered the Metropolitan Community Church of Detroit (MCCD), part of a worldwide denomination for LGBTQ people. I remember driving around the building several times before getting up the courage to go in. As I entered the church that memorable Sunday I heard the choir sing, “Blessed Assurance, Jesus Is Mine!” I sat there deeply moved, singing along to the words I knew so well by heart. I cried long pent-up tears of joy. I was home. In 1993 I became the church’s interim pastoral leader, and, following my ordination, its pastor. I have finally reconciled being gay with being a minister. God loves us just as we are, gay or straight. At long last the five-year-old boy was made whole. Today, as Senior Pastor of MCCD, I feel I’m one of the luckiest people in the world. I have two beautiful grown children, Brian and Amy, who accept me as I am. In fact, on a Sunday not long ago, with my son back from four years serving his country in Iraq, both my children attended the service. I am out and proud, and I know my calling is a blessing to me, my family, and my congregants.

I grew up in a very straight world. I had straight friends, played sports, had girlfriends. I was an Eagle Scout and was involved in all sorts of outdoor activities. Growing up gay in my Alabama town wasn’t an option. I moved to Spain when I was twenty-three for work with a Fortune 500 company. It was the perfect opportunity to come out and begin my life as a gay man. When I returned to the States fourteen years later, I could have reestablished myself in a larger, more cosmopolitan city like Dallas or Miami, but as a native Alabamian, I was drawn to the sugar-white sands and turquoise Gulf Coast waters of my childhood. This was where I learned to swim, fish, and crab, and spent many hot, humid days with family and friends—the loved ones I rarely saw during my years in Europe. After living in Madrid and Barcelona, I decided to trade in the fast-paced city life for the one Jimmy Buffett writes about. As one might imagine, stereotypical gay life here is limited to a few bars and clubs and an occasional pride celebration, but I was positively surprised regarding the social advancements and the acceptance of the gay community, especially here along the coast. I travel frequently for work and do enjoy my time in whichever big city I happen to find myself, but it always feels good to come home to Alabama.

From the time I was a little boy growing up in a rodeo family in south Texas I knew I was different than most kids. I always stood up for what I believed in, and I followed my heart when pursuing my dreams. If I wanted something, I went for it, even when someone said I couldn’t or shouldn’t. I grew up with all kinds of strange pets; as long as I took care of it, my parents let me have it. Today, I live on my ranch outside of Houston along with my horses, a menagerie of pets, fish, and birds, and a pair of white wolf hybrids. I was the subject of a documentary about my life as a rodeo cowboy who happened to be gay. It was a life-changing experience. Filming meant coming out and a lot of publicity, but it let me represent a segment of society that for many years has gone unnoticed. It let me represent gays and lesbians who want to be recognized for their God-given talents and not their sexual preference. And it let me represent all Americans, straight or gay, who believe in fulfilling their dreams when others say you can’t, or shouldn’t, do something. One thing I learned about being gay is that if you are always hiding with your hands over your face, then people are going to treat you as such. Since I have come out publicly, I no longer feel as if I have anything to hide. It’s like the weight of the world has been lifted off my shoulders. I love myself now like everyone should, openly and honestly.

I came out in my early twenties but went right back into the closet and married my best friend. I had no dating prospects, and neither did she. We thought we would take care of each other into our old age. I am now in the process of getting a divorce and easing myself back out of the closet. I have managed to hold it together all these years and I continue to work on becoming stronger and better. I want to believe there is someone out there for me…they just haven’t found me yet.

We didn’t really talk much about issues like homosexuality when I was growing up in the eighties and the nineties. . . except when Ellen Degeneres came out of the closet on ABC in 1997. Her show was a shared indulgence for my parents and me (which was an important niche to find in an Islamic family of more than ten kids). This media milestone inspired my polygamist father to start referring to her derisively as Ellen “Degenerate.” However, if there’s one thing I’d learned from my parents about religion and matters of identity, it was that people must have the freedom of conscience to live as they see fit with dignity and respect—so Dad’s jab really got under my skin. [My sensitivity on the matter was probably the beginning of my own gay self-recognition.] Partially for this reason, it took some work to get used to the idea that I might be gay and still remain moored in my faith. Curiously, right AFTER my father’s death in 1999, my third year in college, was when I started actively working to recognize myself as gay. Open from the start but apprehensive about being gay, I prayed. I fasted. I reread the Qur’an closely for both homophobic and queer-friendly messages. I studied the historical context of queer sexuality in Islam. I tried integrating into the local mosque and Muslim Student Association at my university. At times, this cerebral approach felt like an impossible task until I remembered that my parents, even in matters of religion, had always marched to the beat of their own drum. So, as my journey progressed, I started reflecting on a series of themes within my faith and my parents’ approach to teaching it: community, honesty, and, above all else, mercy. Ultimately, I reconciled the pieces of myself more with my parents’ teachings and with the Qur’an than in the actual community of Muslims on campus or in the trappings of religious rituals. So I gave up on trying to fit into that community (or pray the gay away for that matter). Instead, a more solitary spiritual habit became the little corner of faith I found that, to this day, has sustained me and assured me that God loves me as I am, and wants me to learn and grow from the challenge of accepting and being my whole myself. In a brisk two years, I tackled coming out pretty forcefully: sharing with close friends and family, joining a comingout support group, seeking counseling for the less-thanpositive responses I got, volunteering at the campus LGBT office, and so on. All this exposure and experience helped me integrate the multiple facets of my identity with little upset to my outlook, my life, or my relationships with others. It also helped me get outside of my head and into the real world. However, it took another two years before I went on my first date in 2001. Still, that didn’t stop me from being an activist while at school or from becoming a community organizer after I graduated. These days, I find that establishing deep and meaningful intimate relationships is the most fundamental and challenging aspect of “being” gay (considering how we, in practice, construct identity so often around action, rather than any state of being). Discussing my work as a community organizer on gay issues and volunteering on gay causes made the continued process of coming out a bit easier, especially when I was single (my “being” active on gay issues as my enactment of gay identity, rather than “being” in any intimate/ coupled relationship). Whatever the questions and issues the journey involves, it will surely require continued remembrance and reflection, self-recognition, and religious reconciliation.

I met Paul at a Human Rights Campaign fundraiser. We had both become content with our lives as single men, but deep down the fantasy of romance had never really faded. That night was a kind of reawakening. Our love is one of mutual education. It is always a process of compromise, understanding, caring, and communication. Our cultural balance is ideal, to say the least. I’m East Indian, born in New Delhi, and always aim to strike a balance with the best of both Indian and American culture. I’m a Sikh, but more spiritual than religious. Paul is also very spiritual; we can pray to God together and remember Him without there being any conflict in our beliefs. We’ve gone to church and to Gurdwara together. We value family, food, and friends, and share a deep respect for others (especially elders). While we are an interracial couple, we share in our histories of oppression and our cultural values. We are proudly gay, but it doesn’t consume who we are, and we don’t fit the media stereotype of “gay.” We value our masculine and feminine attributes, and don’t flaunt either, and love others who choose to flaunt it at the same time. There are things we will never have in common. Paul is a software engineer, the coolest and hottest geek I’ve ever met, with a love of cars, video games, and Star Trek. I’m a project manager working in international public health, the social butterfly of the relationship, interested in travel, fashion, and shopping. Paul is practically a chef, and I am in charge of cocktails and dishwashing at dinner parties—it’s a perfect balance. We have everything we could want, especially in each other. We have ideal contrasts and perfect complements, unconditional love with a commitment to communicate with each other along this crazy path we call life. We recognize our blessings because we have both been without them. But in the end we know everything in life happens for a reason.

I’m divorced and have been out for four years. I was married for eleven years, and I have two amazing kids who are the center of my world. I was raised in rural Nebraska and have nine brothers and sisters, including one brother who is also gay. It has taken me a long time to get to where I am now, but it was so worth the journey. I grew up feeling I was different from the other boys but didn’t understand why. I was the kid who was always made fun of on the playground, chosen last for any game, called names, pushed around and beaten up by the tougher kids. I didn’t know what gay meant. I just remember feeling an attraction to the men in the JC Penny underwear catalog, and I was sure if I told anyone they’d think I was a freak. I was right. About a year later my brother, who was ten years older than me, came out as a gay man. And to put it mildly, it didn’t go over so well. Looking back, I’m sure this pushed me even further into the closet. My one job on this Earth is to be the best dad I can be, and part of that comes from being true to myself. I remember telling my kids at a very early age that no matter what, they can come to me and tell me anything, that our love is unconditional and it will never change. Then I got to thinking I better practice what I preach. I did as much research as I could on the subject of coming out to your kids. I nervously sat down with them for a family meeting in the living room on a Friday night. About halfway through my coming out speech, my son, who was ten years old at the time, came over, squeezed my shoulder and said, “Just a second here, you are still my dad, right?” I said, "Yes, of course.” He then said: “Well then, what’s the big deal?” Wow! That was all I needed to hear. Love wins! At first I found the gay world very strange. I didn’t think I really fit in anywhere. I was just a suburban dad raising two kids with a mortgage. I’m happy to say that today I’m in a happy, loving, and caring relationship. I have found the one for me. He completely gets who I am, for better or for worse. We live a very average life. The kids are with us half the time. We sit down to dinner, do homework, talk, and laugh together. Both kids adore him. They each connect with him in different ways. I have been able to “pay it forward” by helping several other dads go through the coming out process. It is rewarding to help them see that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Things do get better, and in time things can get great. Looking back at this journey I remember one of the dumbest things I had ever said. While coming out to one of my brothers I said that no one would choose to be gay, and if I could take a pill and it would make me straight I would do it. Man, was I wrong. Today I couldn’t imagine my life not being gay—it just wouldn’t be the same. Being gay has been a blessing. It has made me who I was meant to be.

I’ve lived in Ohio since I was fourteen, and have been out and proud since I was eighteen. I’m forty-four and a sober alcoholic. My partner, Jonathan, and I have been together twenty-one years. We have three boys with a lesbian couple from Columbus—six-year-old twins and a tenyear- old. Jonathan is the biological father of the twins. I work at Ohio State University. I have a passion for social justice and organize diversity workshops and presentations on sexuality and society’s perception of gender roles. Through my volunteer work with the Columbus Stonewall Union I give “Gay 101” presentations to area businesses, high schools, and colleges. My passion for social justice extends beyond equal rights for LGBTs to those across the country and the world who are economically and/or politically disenfranchised. I was in Queer Nation and Act Up and have been arrested twice for pro-peace activities. Over the past couple of years I have concentrated more on local activism. I coordinate a group of colleagues to host a lunch once a month at a family shelter, I make pancakes twice a month for a drop-in facility for LGBT youth, and I cook once a month for another youth group at a center for homeless and runaway kids. Jonathan is the more stable, secure, and responsible one in our relationship. We met in 1986 while students at Ohio State. It was a combination of love and infatuation at first sight. We’ve had to overcome quite a few obstacles to be together. It hasn’t always been easy. He’s a dedicated father and takes his commitments very seriously. He’s a great role model for our kids and for me.

I’m a twenty-eight-year-old San Francisco native who recently finished grad school—the first in my family to do so. I got my bachelor’s degree in ethnic studies and public policy, and my master’s degree in urban planning. I attribute these paths largely to the great fortune of being a San Francisco native. I love it for so many reasons: how beautiful it is, how gay it is, how diverse and Asian it is, how progressive it is. I was able to take women’s studies and ethnic studies in high school; my teachers engaged me politically in middle school; we learned about organic farming, numerology, and flower power when I was in elementary school. I don’t know where else you could grow up with all these influences. I guess it has instilled an altruistic sense in me. I now work for the city of San Francisco, allocating money to youth programs. I specifically run a fund that helps young people develop campaigns around issues they care about and create business plans to press those issues forward. It’s really incredible helping to enable youths to take an active part in all sorts of issues going on in the city. My parents emigrated here from Burma, and I grew up in one of the poorer parts of the city. I came out right after high school to one of my closest friends, and to my family after college. Everyone’s been great about it—my best friends still love me (one of them actually came out to me a few years later), my brother said he thought it was cool and that being gay made me unique, and my sister said something like, “So what?” and didn’t think it was a big deal because she’d had a good friend come out to her when she was twelve. They all have gone out with me to gay clubs and events. Unfortunately, it’s taken my parents longer to come terms with it, and it’s still a pretty unspoken thing among them. I think Asian cultures just tend to sweep it under the rug. I have a couple of queer relatives, and whenever they bring their partners to family events, we always refer to them as their “friends.” Considering all of that, I think I’m a pretty regular guy with everyday interests. It’s funny though—it wasn’t until I left San Francisco to go to college in Los Angeles and the East Coast that I realized what a bubble I live in here, and just how lucky I am!

Our story, my boyfriend Mark’s and mine, began with death and love. It was the passing of someone we both cared for deeply that brought us together. In 2008, I was forty-one years old, recently divorced, and just beginning to admit to myself that I was gay. I was a late bloomer. In fact, I had been married for fourteen years and have three children. I met a man online named Chris, and we started seeing each other fairly regularly. As we spent more and more time together, we shared our histories and stories with one another. Chris was not a very talkative person, but I learned that he had been tormented in high school and again when he was in the military; then the worst thing possible—his parents and brother were not accepting of his lifestyle, though fortunately his sister was. Chris had what I called an “old soul.” He was aged far beyond his twenty-six years by the hardships he’d experienced. I believe this is why he was attracted to older men. I was almost fifteen years his senior, and he told me his other boyfriend, Mark, was thirty-eight. I began to fall in love with Chris. He wanted a long-term relationship more than anything, but he was torn between me and Mark. I forced the issue and told Chris he had to choose, thinking he would pick Mark because they had been together longer. He chose me! I told him that I felt I had found the right man and that I was ready to come out. Soon after that he started meeting my friends, and then I introduced him to my kids. A few weeks later, Chris was spending the weekend at my house with me and the kids. He slept in the basement to try to get the kids used to the idea of him staying at the house without the additional stress of him sharing Daddy’s bedroom. While I was mowing the yard one afternoon, he went out for a motorcycle ride. Two minutes later he was dead from a crash. The week following Chris’ death was filled with deep sadness. I met Chris’ sister for the first time and we bonded instantly. She shared with me that Chris had told her he was finally happy now that he was with me. Hearing that warmed my heart. After the funeral I spent the weekend alone at home, just trying to stay busy. In the back of my mind I kept expecting a friend to call and see if I needed some distraction, but I guess they felt I wanted time alone. They were right, but eventually I decided I needed to get out of the house or I would go crazy. I went out for a few drinks. I was standing by the dance floor of this club, fairly close to a very handsome guy. We started talking and it turned into a wonderful conversation. After a while, he asked me for my name. When I replied, he asked if I knew Chris Fry. It finally dawned on me who this man was. Mark and I had never met before. We both started crying right there in the club. The odds were astronomical against us bumping into one another at random; yet we did. We decided then and there that Chris must have meant for us to meet. We took things very slowly. As we got to know each other, we spent hours talking about Chris, sharing stories, and remembering him; we still do sometimes. There may be those who think that what we are doing is wrong, or that we are on the rebound from Chris’ death or blinded by grief. I’ve thought about all of that and more. But I kept coming to the same conclusion: that I am a reasonably intelligent, emotionally stable, mature man who sees the potential for something beautiful to come out of something so tragic. I could not let it pass unexplored. Mark’s and my relationship, although young, has far exceeded any expectations I’ve ever had. And for the first time since I fell in love with Chris, I can once again see great happiness in my future. Chris had already been photographed for this project before he died. It meant so much to him; he was so proud. We just had to be part of it, too, to honor his memory and the gift that he was to both of us.

I fell in love with John one holiday season when I visited his picture framing shop. He had fashioned a mantle and Christmas stockings with people’s names on them out of hand-carved wood. His creativity, imagination, and almost childlike love of the holidays were a very powerful aphrodisiac. John’s world, at that time, was based solely in the West Village, while I had been traveling all over the world and felt very attracted to a simpler, more wholesome life. It came at a time in both of our lives when we felt ready to settle down and commit ourselves—heart, mind, and body—to each other. I think that after having survived the eighties and nineties as gay men, both of us losing many friends to AIDS and other casualties of the gay experience, we were ready to create a safe haven for each other and to celebrate monogamy and sanity (well, as much as two gay men living in New York can be “sane”). We really try to keep it local in all aspects of our life. John’s shop is four doors down from our apartment, and I have a design studio two blocks away and a retail store one block away. As gay men it is important to us to have a sense of community and a neighborhood where we all know each other, say good morning to each other, and support each other’s businesses. Where else but in the West Village of New York City could you hold a “gay dog wedding” and raise $6,000 for a local animal shelter? (John and I were the proud parents of one of the grooms.) Both John and I had pretty easy coming-out experiences. I actually came out to my parents when I was a senior in high school, and although there were some growing pains, they and all of my immediate family have been open, accepting, and loving from the get-go. I feel very lucky, as I know this is not the norm. John came out after college and was also welcomed with open arms by his family and friends. We both support the Trevor Project, which provides a safety net for young teens and youth struggling with their sexual identity. We feel so very fortunate to have always been able to express who we are. Our quest is to continue to define what it means to be a man in our culture, and to keep learning from and leaning into each other.

I’ve had a very rich and full life so far. Part of that comes from authenticity and honesty, just being who I am in my day-to-day life. I’ve been a cook, a bus driver, a sex educator, a massage therapist, a barista. I’ve lived in a Radical Faerie sanctuary and a Buddhist meditation center. I am enmeshed with many different parts of humanity. I can identify with certain situations or behaviors, but the moment I identify as them, the trouble begins. My relationship to both Radical Faeries and Buddhists remains placid, but I think that’s because I’m not trying to be either. I’m a Lukumi. I’m a Santeria practitioner. My heart and soul belong to the Orishas and to my ancestors, the spiritual totem that supports and raises me up to be walking on the Earth. They are the beings who nudged me past my apprehension of both Buddhists and Radical Faeries in order to explore what each offers, and that’s been a great deal. I have made a complete metamorphosis in the last seven years of my life because of my experiences in both of those intentional, spiritual communities. I started losing my hair at twenty-one, so the shaved head is masculine by default. I can’t deny my anatomy, but gender has always been a very gray thing for me. At this point in my life, and really, toward the end of my living at the Buddhist center, I felt like living through a feminine lens. If I had to pick a gender expression that fits my entire identity, it would be a tomboy. I love Doc Marten boots and punk rock and motorcycles and camping and tattoos, but I also really love to look fierce and female and strut my stuff! Living in those communities forced me to ask important questions about myself and about what kind of world I live in, and what I can contribute to that world. The answer might not be about high heels, but it will probably be delivered in them. All things considered, that’s not so bad.

I am a visual artist, poet, and performance artist. I’d describe my work as a virulent and healing bag of memories, photographs, found objects, and luck. If I can provoke whimsy in people when they look at my art and put them in more than one place in time at once—I have done my job. I love the Southwest, but I’m not a regional artist. I respect the Hispanic and Native American traditions, but I don’t feel like I have to own them in my art. Still, you can see traces of my background in much of my work. I think that by looking at my art anyone could easily guess I’m gay. I’ve had a full life and known some very colorful people. I met photographer Joel- Peter Witkin, for instance, in 1980; we lived around the corner from each other in Albuquerque and we both drove Karmann Ghias. I modeled for him a few times, and some of those pictures became very well known. We met up once at a Halloween party where I was dressed like Charlotte Rampling in her Night Porter cabaret drag outfit crossed with black Klaus Nomi face makeup. I looked hot and dark. I was just twentythree. Joel really liked it, and that costume became the inspiration for his famous “Bee Boy” image, which made me the poster boy for his first Paris show, in 1981. I have been on this Earth for fifty years now. I’m HIV-positive and healthy. I am also a vegetarian. I enjoy working out, hiking, going to art galleries and museums, and hanging out with friends. I have a huge vinyl LP collection. I love all animals, including humans. I am a part-time caregiver for the elderly, mostly Alzheimer’s patients. I sometimes forget the simple things that make me happy. I get caught up in my own angst and feel separated from my precious life and connections. I live to be me, not to achieve a social status, not to be an angry artist, not to create bad karma or please my every little greedy desire. I love nature to the fullest; Mother Earth is precious to me.

I am an openly gay man with a pioneering spirit and I’m living the life I’ve always wanted to lead. As a young man in Michigan I dreamed of coming to Alaska. I wanted to be Jeremiah Johnson. I was just this odd gay man who felt stuck in the wrong time; I wished I were born a hundred years ago. Everything in me wanted to be a pioneer, live off the land, and find a simpler life. About twenty-five years ago I opened myself up to the Alaskan dream, and now I can say that dream has come true. I could write a book about my adventures in this great land. New to Alaska at age twenty-two, I was determined to become a wildlife photographer. I spent months in the National Parks backcountry of Katmai, Denali, Wrangle, and St. Elias photographing bears, wolves, moose, caribou, and the auroras. Two years later I homesteaded in the Wrangle Mountains seventy miles from the nearest town. At age thirty I started a tour company and discovered that sharing the love of my life—Alaska—with people was my true passion. One of my best memories in Alaska is of me and my two adopted wolf pups howling to a wild pack under a brilliant red aurora. I’m passionate about the auroras and have been photographing the amazing light shows of the northern skies since I moved here. I’ve built two homes through the years; the second, where I currently live, is the Alaskan dream: a log home built from the ground up with a draw knife, chainsaw and a chisel. Ten years ago, Hollywood came knocking. They built a set for the movie Avalanche on my property, and I appeared in a couple bit parts. Since then I’ve had the opportunity to work with three major motion pictures, four reality television shows, Discovery, Animal Planet, and National Geographic. I’ve also provided locations and scouting for many commercials and hosted the Marlboro Cowboys for two still photo shoots. A gay man’s dream come true! I couldn’t help but think, here are these men—the epitome of masculinity and ruggedness in our society—doing a photo shoot in a gay man’s camp. Go figure! I had a life-defining moment about a year ago while hosting a group from Korea at my glacier camp. Only one person in the group spoke a little English. We sat in a circle dining on awesome Korean food, taking in Alaska’s incredible scenery. Upon leaving, the guide that spoke English said the group wanted to tell me something: they pointed to the incredible landscape and said, “We think this is you!” A tear came to my eye when I realized they were right. I have made a life of loving this land, breathing it in, and living the Alaskan dream.

I live in West Palm Beach. I’m quiet, suburban, sober, and have been HIV-positive for about twenty-five years. I work for an architect and live alone, quite happily, I might add. Most of my free time is spent helping others in Alcoholics Anonymous. Life is rich but not terribly complicated. I came to West Palm Beach after spending about thirteen years in New York City. I was born in Hartford, Connecticut, and raised here in North Palm Beach. I went to college in Florida and then Columbia University for graduate study. I was out by the time I arrived in New York. I believe I became HIV-positive within the first two years of being there. Like many others, I became depressed over the years from seeing so many friends and lovers die. Unfortunately, I couldn’t seem to cope with anything except booze. Life became increasingly difficult, as my self-esteem slipped away. Totally defeated, I moved back to Florida in 1995 and got sober a couple months later. It turned out to be a good move. Through going to meetings I have met the large and varied friends that I have today. My family is all here. Life is low-key, and while I was away West Palm Beach grew into a lovely town. Today, I don’t modify my behavior to meet someone else’s expectations. This positive attitude always keeps me in good stead—I’m grateful for the life I live.

Gay life here in northern Minnesota was not good when I first came out. Due to that and my family, I didn’t come out until I was in my forties. I had married and fathered a son by that time, and it was hard living two lives. When my wife figured it out, she threw me out, but after a few weeks she asked me to come back. We talked it out and decided to stay married. My wife had two children when we married, and we sat all three kids down and told them that I was gay. At first my son had a hard time with it, but as he got older he came around. He and his girlfriend have been to gay bars with me, and he’s met all my lovers. He’s a people person like his father. I have always had long-term relationships—one-night stands are not my thing. A few of the men I’ve been with have spent time at my home, and we all get along well. My wife sleeps on the second floor and I stay on the first. We all eat together, go to shows, shop and all of that; my family stands behind me. Life is funny at times. I never thought things would work out this way, but all it takes is the truth and long talks. It was damn hard telling friends I was gay, and I did lose a few when I came out, but I guess they weren’t really friends to start with. I would not undo one thing about my life.

I am a gay Native American living out and proud on the reservation. I have lived here almost my entire life. I even went to college here. It taught me so much about my culture and history. Traveling off the reservation is always a good feeling, but I truly love it here. The Dakotah way of life is dear to me; I am who I am because of where I’m from. My people have always looked at homosexuality as a person having two souls, a male and female. Hence, gay people are considered to have the gift of seeing things from both a man’s and a woman’s perspective. My relationship with my family is awesome. My brothers and sister and I all get along very well. My mother is very supportive and loving. She has sacrificed much to give me a good education, which she fiercely believes is important to have. There are always people who hate gay men, anywhere you live. I do go through a lot of issues. It is difficult to get a job because people know I am gay. And there is so much inequality. Despite that, I still love it here. I live my life as best as I can, and try to always treat others with respect, even when I’ve been disrespected.

I’m from the Deep South. I always knew I was gay. It was never a big issue for me. It didn’t affect the way I thought about myself or make me feel like any less of a man than the other guys at my school or the friends I grew up with. It never occurred to me that I had some need or desire to come out. Over time my family and friends realized I was gay, but there was no need to talk about that, any more than who my brother was dating, or the private lives of other family members. If someone feels the need to ask me directly about my sexual preference, I have a few responses. If you’re an important person in my life, I’ll say yes of course I’m gay. If I’m asked in connection to a civil rights issue, I’m happy to stand up and be counted as gay and fight for our rights, as I do for all civil liberties. If you’re a relative stranger and are prying, I take the Southerner’s approach by politely saying that it’s my personal business and has nothing to do with you.

I was born in NYC, grew up in NYC, lost my virginity in NYC. I thought I’d never leave. But it turned out that to pursue my dream I’d have to. Since I was a little kid, all I’ve ever wanted to do was design beautiful clothes for movie stars. I remember being ten years old and watching old films from the thirties and forties, and telling my mother that I wanted to make the dress Myrna Loy was wearing. I finally got my opportunity when I moved to San Francisco to go to college and study at the Fashion Institute. I landed in Los Angeles and never looked back. I began working with costume designers and am now a successful costume designer in my own right. Los Angeles is the best possible place to do what I love. I get to work with talented
and wonderful people. I’ll always love NYC and visit there often, but LA is home now. There’s room to breathe.

I’ve always been known as the big kid, the one people befriend mostly out of pity. When I began exploring my sexuality in junior high school, kids told me they expected it of me because I was so big that I couldn’t get a girlfriend, and being gay was a last resort. I always brushed off the jokes and taunts, but I wondered if it was true. A good friend of mine convinced me to tell my mother. When I tried to explain my feelings, she reacted terribly and threatened to kick me out. She couldn’t fathom having a gay son. After not speaking for a night, I told her I was joking and just said it for attention. It hurt to lie, but I couldn’t bear the awkwardness between us. The following year I started high school. I wanted a clean slate, to just start over. But the thing about high school is, kids are vicious and persistent. They will rub you raw until they hear the information they want. For the first two years, I tried to ignore the teasing and name calling. I tried to suppress the rumors by dating girls, but I was only hurting them by pretending to be something I wasn’t. It seemed that more and more of my friends turned against me. That’s when I decided to turn to the one person people said would never help or accept me: Jesus Christ. I started to attend church regularly. I met a youth pastor who turned out to be not only my savior, but also my guiding light. She helped me feel accepted. I was shocked, because any time I thought of being gay, I thought about burning in Hell and never being accepted by Christians. I joined a program similar to Habitat for Humanity known as Impact Virginia!, spending time worshiping and building houses for the less fortunate. It was a place for Baptist teens to make friendships with the Lord and each other. I mostly went to bond with my youth group and hopefully make friends with them. One night we had a guest speaker tell us a story about how his brother was gay and how he would never stop loving him for it. He could never bash his brother for his lifestyle, even though he had seen so many other fellow Christians do the same. He went on to say that our sexuality didn’t define us in God’s eyes, it was our acceptance of Him that did. I was dumbstruck. It was as though he had read my mind. At that moment it seemed like years of doubt and denial had came flooding toward me and knocked me breathless. After the speech was over, my group sat down near our rooms and began to chat. I looked at all of them and simply said, “I love all of you and can understand if you don’t want to be my friend after this, but . . . I’m gay.” They all kind of looked at me like I’d thrown up. Then one by one they stood up and began to hug me. I couldn’t help but laugh—I was so surprised. I expected them to go running for the hills! Since then, I’ve been on two mission trips and I volunteer at Bible school. I recently came out to my mother, only to have her apologize for the way she originally reacted. Before my experiences, I never knew what the word “comfortable” meant. I thought laying in bed was being comfortable. Now I know that it means being who you are and showing your true colors. I’m not afraid to be a gay teen in America. I pride myself on the fact.

I live in Sacramento with Abi, my partner of more than thirty years. We recently married in front of twenty of our closest friends. Abi is very fond of telling me how he first observed me, long before we actually met, paddling my kayak upstream on the American River, which flows through the community where we currently reside. We have lived together since we met on the disco dance floor in 1976, where we were both inventing our own moves and steps. Abi moved to Sacramento from Detroit in 1973, and enjoys a semi-retirement as an antiques dealer. He collects antique miniatures and dollhouses and has an intense passion for finding and arranging furnishings for our home, which is dramatically filled with our shared interests. My hobby is riding and restoring antique bicycles. Using a bicycle built in 1886, I have set a two-hundred-mile distance and time record in Europe, and a one-hundred-mile distance and time record in Australia. When I can pull him away, Abi and I enjoy traveling together to warm, exotic places.

I came out when I was seventeen years old and a junior in high school. It was a bit of a shocker to family and friends because I didn’t fall in to the category of what people thought of as gay. I was popular in school, had girlfriends, played sports, and was generally a guy’s guy. My partner Roger came out at twenty and also told his parents about that time. His family is supportive of him. My brother is just a few years younger than me. When I first came out he was very upset and angry, though I didn’t know why at the time. It turned out he was gay, too. We were always close, and he really looked up to me, so he thought he’d be labeled as a copycat if he revealed he was gay after me. I didn’t know the reason for his reaction until he came out at sixteen. We finally sorted through it all and are still very close. My sister is seven years younger than me, and she came out when she was twenty. She was a tomboy growing up. She liked the guy stuff—playing sports, getting dirty; she wasn’t afraid to play with the guys. We were close as kids and still are now. She lives in Florida, and my brother lives here in Tulsa—as do our parents. We each have very unique personalities, yet we do share a very special bond that’s different than most siblings. Our parents are very supportive of all of us. It may seem unusual to have three out of three kids be gay, but for my family, it was normal.

Ten years ago I thought I was living the American dream in Spokane, Washington, with a successful business and a beautiful home. I had all of life’s accessories but I was spiritually stagnant. So I took off for the islands, camped on the beach for four months, and when I returned I realized that all I really had was just “stuff.” I put everything up for sale, and I’ve been having the time of my life ever since. I moved to Hawaii’s Big Island and lived in a geodesic dome in the rain forest for a while. I had an amazing seventy foot waterfall for my shower, a twelve-volt battery for my power, and life was great. I did some humpback whale research; there is nothing like looking at a fifty-foot gentle giant eye to eye. I made some dolphin buddies that I swam with on a regular basis. I played with octopuses and watched lava flow before my feet. I eventually got my captain’s license and have sailed most of the Big Island’s coastline. I’ve always been clear to my crew and my friends about who I am, and even though I do not wear my “gayness” on my shirtsleeve, I know it is important to be a good man and break the stereotypes that are pretty rampant here in Hawaii, especially within the boating industry. I live a very simple life. I have no debt, no credit cards, and for the most part live in my travel van and just see where the road takes me. I never get island fever, but when that wanderlust kicks in and the “travel account” is flush, I’ll take off on a new adventure. I’ve hiked the desert in Palm Springs, sailed the Sea of Cortez, and enjoyed the people of Puerto Vallarta. I can truly say that the phrase “I wish I had done that” is not part of my thoughts anymore.

I am a spirit medium living south of Boston in the suburb of Canton. I provide private readings and public demonstrations to anyone who wishes to reconnect with loved ones who passed to Spirit. My clients are gay, straight, bisexual—anyone in search of healing. I try to show them that life and love are continuous, that after we pass from this life, life and love do continue on, and the soul constantly evolves. Gay men are so often labeled as being sensitive, and as a medium, that definitely rings true for me. The only time being gay truly impacts my work is if a communicator in Spirit has issues with my sexuality, because if they did in life and still haven’t moved past it, they won’t talk to me at all. I have experienced that in readings before; it can be an obstacle, but thankfully it’s rare. I’m truly blessed with an unbelievable family. I’m the youngest of seven kids. I come from an Irish Catholic family. My father, brothers, sisters, and my mother in Spirit have been extremely supportive of my pathway. It is a great gift to me that I can still maintain a loving, ongoing relationship with my mother since she passed. I communicate with her on a regular basis; she’s always around me. I am simply a conduit, a vehicle for Spirit. I love my work. I love opening people’s minds to greater possibilities. If I can alleviate some of their fear, pain, or worry, I’ve succeeded. It’s a service I feel truly blessed to provide.

My partner Kevin and I have been together for almost seven years. We have a thirteen-year-old son who is Kevin’s biological child. Our son lives with us fulltime since his mother deserted him when he was two years old. Kevin and I own a house together, have three dogs, two cats, and about fifteen tropical fish. Our house is often a wreck, but we’d rather be doing things we care about and enjoy than spend every waking moment trying to keep fur off the floors. We love reading, traveling, cooking out, playing cards, and spending time with friends. Our biggest passion is our interest in 1960s and 1970s muscle cars. We have a 1967 Dodge Coronet that we are just beginning to restore. Another one of our more unusual hobbies is demolition derby. If you are not familiar with derby, it’s a contest where drivers in reinforced cars compete by smashing into each other. I am more of a spectator, but Kevin has driven in derbies for over ten years. Three years ago he won first place at the state fair and since then he has won second place twice. He’s very talented at it.

I have HIV; it doesn’t have me. Ironically, I owe HIV a debt of gratitude, because it could have very well saved my life—from me. As a young gay man I lived the fast life. I was always told I could go anywhere, do anything—the sky is the limit. In fact it was. I had no boundaries, no commitments, no requirements, and after coming out, no expectations. It started to seem as if I no longer existed. My quest to find acceptance brought me to havens at night that would never be associated with my life by day. Two lives, one person. By day I was an achiever, friendly, funny, entertainer, cowboy, horseman, trainer, instructor, corporate climber and, more interestingly, I worked for the medical examiner’s office on the humanities clean up crew, collecting dead bodies off the highway after accidents. Talk about coming face to face with your own mortality! But the higher I flew by day, the further I fell by night. HIV is humbling. It made me aware of who I am and how precious life, love, and longevity really are. My favorite quote and most important message is: “You can never touch someone so lightly as to not leave a mark.”

When I was a schoolboy in Pennsylvania, I never thought geometry was going to help me understand my love life at age sixty-four. The desire in any “triad” relationship is that of an equilateral triangle and not of an isosceles triangle. But, as we are human, the lines are always changing. The key in maintaining an equilateral triad is open, truthful communication on a regular basis. When that fails, tension rises and threatens the triad’s delicate balance and the entire relationship is jeopardized. Our first serious triad attempt lasted about a year and a half and ended after this photograph was taken, when Dale left for greener pastures. Much of what precipitated the breakup was Dale’s inability to openly communicate his feelings, negative and positive, for me and Robert. Once Dale did leave, it opened the floodgates of understanding, and Robert and I now have a stronger sense of what will work and what will not. On paper, the perfect man to complete our triad in the future is one who is strongly sexually compatible with me— and Robert, to a smaller extent—enjoys antiques and gardening, and works in massage therapy or hospitality. Robert has been HIV-positive since I first met him, and therefore our physical relationship is more affectionate than sexual. He has always kept me as the “china doll” on the shelf and will not do anything to put my health at risk. On top of that, he is not jealous, which is another key to a good triad relationship. Robert is happy for me to have other lovers. I am a full blown romantic. Robert is not. I would describe him as a “classicist.” He believes romantic love is bullshit and has no time for it—now that isn’t to say I can’t get him to cuddle a bit now and again. But he is not that kind masturbation life. But as I was raised a Roman Catholic, I would occasionally feel guilt, and purge my magazine collection. My guilt generally lasted less than twenty-four hours. As a young man and now, I always came across as fairly straight. When I went to an all male college in Pennsylvania in 1965 and joined the theater group, I met and got close to gay men. The problem was that they were mostly flaming queens. I wasn’t like that, but knew I liked men and the male body. If a very masculine male, such as a football or soccer player, had come on to me in college, I probably would have come out then. In my senior year I applied to ten business schools for my MBA and one master’s program in theater at Smith College. I was rejected by all the business schools and accepted to Smith. But it was 1969, and Vietnam was hot and heavy. The last thing I wanted to do was to be “cannon fodder” for our government, so my stepfather very gracefully got me into the National Guard, and I then moved to New York City and joined Morgan Guaranty Trust Company. I didn’t fully come out until I was about forty. At that point I was a respected husband, father, churchman, and businessman living in Pelham Manor, New York, trying to be a good guy. But once I came out sexually, I returned to my late teens and needed to grow up as a gay man. I took to male sex like a duck to water. I would visit the old raunchy Times Square in New York City, get all the male porn I desired, and visit the various theaters and baths. (Today Times Square is pristine and Disneylike.) I would fall for single gay men, but they would push me away because I was married. They did not want to be the cause of a family breakup. I did not deliberately come out to my former wife, Carol, but I did leave a porn magazine lying around one day, and of person. Robert was very active sexually in the pre-AIDS era of New York City when you could enjoy anonymous sex in the parks any time of the day or night. To him, sex is not emotional. Robert’s feeling is that as gay men, we are out of the box to begin with—so why do we have to pattern our gay relationships and families after the straight community, which has failed miserably? Robert is the first man I lived with as an openly gay male. We have been together for the last sixteen years. In late spring of 2003 we decided to cash out of our lives in New York City and move somewhere else. I wanted to move to a place that had palm trees and lizards. I figured we would move to Ft. Lauderdale because I wanted to work in massage and I needed a large gay community to serve. However, my mother raised me to believe that Florida was “God’s waiting room,” and Robert and I really did not wish to relocate there. Before we made any decisions, two men called Robert within ten minutes of each other and both recommended Savannah, Georgia. As a Yankee, I had no interest in moving below the Mason-Dixon Line and certainly not to Georgia—a curse worse than death. But as a spiritual man, I saw these two recommendations as the universe sending us a message. We visited Savannah for about four days and were sold. That December, we moved to Savannah lock, stock, and barrel and haven’t looked back. This city truly is a state of mind, full of beauty, elegance, and grace along with a fantastic gay community. My growing up was all about men with shirts off and muscular torsos, like Steve Reeves and Tarzan. I found bookstores in downtown Pittsburgh at an early age that sold used and new physique magazines to supply my secret the “genie was out of the bottle.” She was very calm and intelligent about it, though she wrestled with my orientation quite a bit. After my coming out, we stayed together for about six years and she permitted me my freedom. But one evening, while having dinner with my now longtime partner Robert at Café Sha Sha in Greenwich Village, he showed me three incredible co-op apartments, all next to one another in Hudson View Gardens in the Washington Heights neighborhood. He said, “Wouldn’t it be great if these three apartments were bought by gay men and we could all be neighbors?” I went home to Carol that night and thought about how I would probably never be able to participate in anything like what Robert had proposed. After I got into bed that night, Carol turned over and said, “You are itching to leave again, aren’t you?” I agreed and she said, “I think it’s time. I think it’s best for both of us if we part.” I had been released! Carol and my two wonderful children are very close to me and Robert today. Periodically, the straight world communicates that we—gay men—are too sexually focused. Well, sexuality is the best thing about being gay. To be able to make a sexual connection to another male—whether it is through a relationship, a lover, a casual encounter, or through my massage practice—is extremely powerful and fulfilling. Sexuality is something I am gifted with and one of the reasons I am here on this Earth, and I feel no shame in that. Without sex, being gay is meaningless to me. I mean, otherwise you are just a eunuch.