Concluding our celebration of Gay History Month comes this personal essay from writer Noah Bogdonoff. It's a painfully honest examination of what it means to be gay in today's America and the individual's determination of self.
I came out at age fourteen, which astounds some people. “How brave!” they exclaim. Or, “You must have been so self-assured!” And yet I can’t really lay claim to either of these epithets even today. Ask my friends—they’ll tell you how (apart from the odd shenanigan) I jitter in the dark and refuse to walk near ledges, how I question my existence at every fork in the road, how when it all comes down to it I have many good qualities but bravery and self-assuredness might not be chief among them. And at age thirteen I certainly wasn’t any braver or more self-assured. So why did I come out? Why did I hurl myself into this cruel and carnivorous world when I could have wobbled around in the womb of straightness for a few more years with little to no outside objection? I think economists would say that the “opportunity cost” of coming out would have been much higher than staying in the closet.
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