He doesn't know anything about my childhood because my parents both died before I married him. I'm married now and I have kids & I've never told anyone about this before not even my husband. Note: I really am from southern Alabama but I changed all the names of people and places. So I figured I'd just share it with you guys because that's what Reddit's for right? I guess I'll find out haha. I am sharing my story because I want to tell someone. **I have lived with this for a long time.
This includes but is not limited to content we determine to be sexist, racist, homophobic, transphobic, classist, ableist, or intolerant of non-dominant religions. We do not tolerate oppressive attitudes and language. Rule 2: No oppressive attitudes and language. We do not insult, antagonize, interrogate, invalidate, or criticize the original poster (OP), even when not directly addressing OP. If you encounter someone breaking this rule, disengage and report them. We'll listen, and if you want, we'll talk. Whether it's long-standing baggage, happy thoughts, or recent trauma, posting it here may provide some relief. It’s wonderful how all our gay activists over the years have fought the good fight and won so much for all of us and future generations of gays.A mutually supportive community where deeply emotional things you can't tell people you know can be told. I knew a guy who once told me that he only could feel alive in summer on fire Islan, the rest of the year in upstate New York where he was a teacher, he had no social life, no outwardly gay experiences or appearances. So as you smugly criticize these guys in the film, I urge other viewers to try to place yourselves in their shoes, and imagine what gay life was in 1976. mere suspicion of being gay, or even unmarried beyond a certain undefined age, could be grounds for loosing government jobs, and of course, no security clearances for gays.
These Fire Island frolicers were all born during the gay bashing and gay witch hunts of the lavender scare, under Sen Joe McCarthy and NY asshole closet case lawyer Roy Cohen. The military was weeding out gays left and right.
Gay marriage was not even on the radar screen yet. If a pair did become known in the non-gay world, your partner was known as your “friend” or your “roommate”. It was the era of “couples” always having separate apartments, not talking about the other at work or school, or among straight friends. Society didn’t like it, families raised eyebrows. In those days, many guys wee gay on weekends, straight acting Monday through Friday. Society was very anti-gay, the gay community had lots of internalized homophobia, and whenever and wherever pockets of freedom existed, of course there were excesses that cover compensated for what most of their lives were previously, and for the majority, off of Fire Island. They did not get to have boy friends in junior high (now called middle school), high school, any many even in college. Aren’t you prissy and sanctimonious? In 1976, most visitors to Fire Island had never known the freedom and self-acceptance of living “openly gay”, “Out”, in their daily lives wherever they originally came from.