Gay People You Went To School With..

[Deleted]

Didn't know how else to phrase it to be honest. I was in an all boys catholic secondary school from 93/94 to 99/00 and effeminate boys so to speak got picked on more at the start of my time than at the end. I have a friends that are teachers in my old school and they say outside of the odd wee cunt, it's genuinely seen as a non issue. "You're gay? Cool". I remember one or two boys during my time there that got serious abuse. I mean, i don't know how they came to school every day. I know one of them was actually gay, don't know about the other. I love the way things have for the most part turned around in my old school. The principal of the school is openly gay which i didn't think I'd see so soon. Regardless if your school was religious or not like mine was, did you see the same type of attitude towards your supposed classmates as i did?

[Charlie O.]

I didn't meet an out gay person 'til I was in college (1983-86) - and then only a very few. There had been a few guys in high school that I suspected were, but I never asked them. I don't remember them ever getting bullied or anything, but then I wouldn't necessarily know if they had been.

Between the ages of 7 and 9 I had a best friend whose name I won't say out of consideration for his privacy. (We were both in military families that got moved around a bit, so those two years were the only years we knew each other.) We were real close - he could make me laugh harder than anyone I'd ever met, had pretty good taste in music (rare for someone that age), and was just a great guy in general. A few years ago I was chatting with my mom, reminiscing about that time period, and I told her I'd happened to think recently about this best friend and... I don't know, but thinking back I now strongly suspect he was gay. She immediately said she remembered him, and she thought that was pretty likely. (At that age I didn't know what homosexuality was... for that matter I didn't know what heterosexuality was, either.) I'd love to catch up with him, if he's still around; I've tried Googling his name on a number of occasions, but never find him.

[sloopjohnc]

I know of a few guys and women I went to elementary school with who were gay, but I don't remember anyone really getting picked on.

I've told this story before, but the guys two houses up from ours, Ken and Tom, were a couple. Because my dad was the neighborhood DIYer, they'd come over and talk to him about fixing up their house. I must have been nine or ten, 1970 or so, and I saw Ken and Tom walk past our house holding hands. I asked my dad, the ex-Marine, steelworker dad, why two guys were doing that and he simply said, "Because they are a couple and love each other." It wasn't at home where people said it was strange.

My favorite cousin is gay. He's two years older than me and we're close. We didn't really know "gay" back then, but he liked musicals and acting so when he came out, and he did to my mom and dad first, it wasn't unexpected.

I remember when I was teaching high school, the kids were calling each other gay and I'd finally had it. I told them it was as bad as calling someone the N word and how did they know I wasn't gay. One girl raised her hand and said, "We've seen photos of your family, Mr. Crook." That kinda killed my argument, but I told them not to say it.

There is one elementary school story about someone who was a little more refined than us knuckleheads. John Clarke, a kinda short, tubby guy wasn't into sports like us. On the last day of school, we had to bring all our crap home, including art projects. One of the projects were pinatas we'd made. I don't remember this as being a particular attack on John, but he was walking around the playground with his bird pinata and we took it from him and smashed it. The only thing left was the head and neck. When we got back from recess, the teacher asked him what had happened to his pinata. We laughed this malevolent laugh and he didn't squeal. But I think that was just a general release being the last day. I don't think it had anything to do with John Clarke being different, but I wonder.

Remember, I've grown up in the San Francisco Bay Area, which has, by and large, always had tolerance for alternative lifestyles. Maybe that has something to do with it.

[fearlessfreap]

I grew up in a blue collar prison town. There were a couple of extremely effeminate kids in my high school that were regularly harassed and beaten up by the large groups of rednecks that populated the school. Oddly, it was a pretty integrated community with no visible racial problems. I had a good friend that nobody, including me, knew was gay. After graduation, his family found out and kicked him out. He moved to Florida and eventually killed himself.

[Deleted]

Me at a comprehensive in the early 00s. I really couldn't have been 'out' at the time though.

It was a strange time. I knew I was attracted to fellas but until I was around 16/17 I was naive to what it really meant. The legacy of Section 28 meant that the only information available on it was through tabloids and media, the majority of which still painted it as pretty nasty and dirty.

Not going to type out a sob story though. Kids are just that at that age and it was a learning curve for many.

[Deleted]

Fuck, never heard of section 28 before. I just looked it up. Not that long ago when you think about it.

[Johnny Fartpants]

In my school year group when I was 16 (1982) there were no "openly" gay boys ... i.e. no boys who had come out. But clearly, statistically, there will have been several gay people in the year group, boys and girls. There was one lad who it was strongly rumoured was bi-sexual and he did nothing to downplay the rumour without actually admitting it. And there was another lad who I was pretty good friends with who as we went into 6th form, I was pretty sure was gay, just by some of the things he used to say and do.

Having said all of that, I am still in contact with quite a few old school mates and I've never heard any "stories" along the lines of "did you know xxxxx was gay?".

I have no idea whether this has added anything useful to the discussion or not really ...

[Johnny Fartpants]

Jun 22, 2020 20:47:11 GMT ~ / % ? * said:

Jun 22, 2020 17:58:54 GMT Johnny Fartpants said:

In my school year group when I was 16 (1982) there were no "openly" gay boys ... i.e. no boys who had come out. But clearly, statistically, there will have been several gay people in the year group, boys and girls. There was one lad who it was strongly rumoured was bi-sexual and he did nothing to downplay the rumour without actually admitting it. And there was another lad who I was pretty good friends with who as we went into 6th form, I was pretty sure was gay, just by some of the things he used to say and do.

Having said all of that, I am still in contact with quite a few old school mates and I've never heard any "stories" along the lines of "did you know xxxxx was gay?".

I have no idea whether this has added anything useful to the discussion or not really ...

Was anyone hurt? Or was it that the police got involved, hence charges?

Erm ... I think you replied on the wrong thread! 

[Sneelock]

I never really thought about it one way or the other until High School - that was a horse of a different color. I know several teenagers right now who are ready to change their sex before High School. does the world move faster now? If I could have looked under the hood would I have found my middle school friends already knew what they were dealing with? maybe. I mean, I knew old gay couples when I lived in Hollywood who called themselves "roomates" because there were still local ordinances about that stuff in those days.

I think everybody was gay in High School in 1973. I'm kidding but it WAS a distinct possibility. I mean, Bowie and Alice Cooper and Lou Reed were happening at the time. All of those guys ended up married to women but there was a LOT of gender confusion in the air and, to be honest, it was a whole lot of fun.

the friends I knew who ended up being gay never really talked about it very much. the only guy I knew who talked about it was a "flamer" who liked to brag about all the girls he'd had. He dressed in all the Gay Regalia the seventies had to offer but, according to him, every good looking girl at the school wanted to be the one to "turn him" so he'd let them. It's hard to believe that such a blabbermouth would get away with such a thing for long but I guess that worked for him for a while.

the only guy in High School I knew for sure was gay the first time I laid eyes on him was a teacher. I don't know why. He was very discreet but it was as plain as the nose on your face. something about his mannerisms maybe. My parents had a lot of gay friends so maybe it was little subtle things I was reacting to.

[Crunchy Col]

My best friend in primary school and for the first couple of years at secondary school was gay. I didn't know until a few years later. We became friends because we were the only two lads who didn't tear off to play football every time the bell rang for break. Instead, we'd stand together and talk rubbish in our own code language until we could go inside again - which of course is where we wanted to be. If he was ever off school sick I had to stand alone every break - it was horrible.

David was very bright and drily witty and we always got mocked because we both had our top shirt buttons done up (this of course was a serious crime). He had a girlfriend for a while! the first lad in our year to get sorted in this way. She was in the year above, she was called Rosemary and she had a moustache and she got me into the Doors. I don't know what was going on there really.

The last time I saw him was at my Mam's funeral last year. I turned around and recognised his parents immediately. His Mam was petite and fussy and kind, his Dad was an absolute tyrant. I didn't recognise David, even when he sort of smiled and moved a bit towards me - I suppose he didn't think he needed to introduce himself. It had been 30-odd years since we'd seen each other last. We made small talk - both of us smiling a lot, I have to say - and after 5 minutes I was off talking to a family member. A bit sad, in some ways. He looked well, at least.

As far as I know there were absolutely NO OTHER GAYS in Whitehaven at that time.

[Charlie O.]

Jun 22, 2020 22:53:53 GMT Crunchy Col said:

He had a girlfriend for a while! the first lad in our year to get sorted in this way. She was in the year above, she was called Rosemary and she had a moustache and she got me into the Doors. I don't know what was going on there really.

My possibly-gay school chum was the first of my peers to have a girlfriend, too! I don't recall her name but I remember her. She was quite exotic for that age - she dressed (or her mother dressed her) like a gypsy dancer, with bared navel, and it suited her - she was petite and really quite beautiful, with dark features and long ringlet-y hair and an adorable smile and if it sounds like I was smitten myself... no, I had a crush on another girl who I was too shy to talk to (the story of most of my life).

But my friend wasn't anything like shy, and he was flagrantly besotted with her, and she seemed to like it. In retrospect he may have just been impressed with (envious of?) her look - I don't think they ever spent any time together outside of school (though I could be wrong about that).

Another kid named John who was kind of a swaggering tough guy type - not quite a bully, as a rule, but on the borderline - was equally smitten with her and was always pathetically offering to give her things. She rejected his offerings and his advances, but he kept trying - I felt embarrassed for him. Even after he started picking on me - apparently he figured that he couldn't harass my friend without getting on the girl's bad side, so the next best thing was harassing my friend's friend - I still felt embarrassed for him. I ignored him as blithely as the object of his affections did.

[Half Machine Lipschitz]

My dad took a new job in the summer of '82 and we wound up moving to a new town, and I started highschool not knowing anyone at all. Grade 9 (first year) was spent just getting to know the people around me and trying to decide where I best fit in. I wasn't a jock, and I wasn't much of a nerd either, but I was definitely closer to the nerdier end of the spectrum. A misfit, I guess. So I gravitated toward the other misfits - a loose collection of kids who were queer, or goth, or "punk", or any other type of minority in our fairly straight, working class town. I knew a bunch of gay people and they all, for the most part, hung around together and I don't recall there being any real animosity toward them from the other kids at school. I got bullied a bit by association by this one guy, Arnold Moak, who seemed a bit dumb and liked to call me a 'fag' and liked to call my 'World Famous' canvas shoulder bag a 'purse', but he never threatened me with violence.

[tory]

There were several people in my year at school who I later found out were gay - sadly two of then killed themselves, although whether it was over their sexuality I don't know. One was in problems with drug gangs and threw himself off a carpark, which was horrific.

I didn't know anybody who was gay in any tangible way until the 2000s or so and even then, it's more acquaintances of friends more than people in my circle. I encountered a lot of latent homophobia in office jobs in the 90's, which was really sad. I remember going on a staff training day somewhere and having to defend gay people in a chat that turned quite nasty on the way home on the train - people of all creeds and colour saying things like "it's disgusting", "it's unnatural". Funnily enough I saw a statistic today that said around the turn of the century that around 15% of people in the UK were comfortable with gay marriage etc, but now that figure is around 55%.

[sloopjohnc]

Jun 22, 2020 22:35:23 GMT Sneelock said:

The only guy in High School I knew for sure was gay the first time I laid eyes on him was a teacher. I don't know why. He was very discreet but it was as plain as the nose on your face. something about his mannerisms maybe. My parents had a lot of gay friends so maybe it was little subtle things I was reacting to. 

One of my favorite high school teachers was my junior year English teacher, Mr. Flynn, who didn't hide the fact that he was gay. He was quietely flamboyant, meaning he performed in class, but didn't go as out there as he could, probably because of parents. But I don't know why. I enjoyed him and he liked me. We got along well in class and he'd always pick me to read parts for plays in class. He told me once I had a good voice and should try acting, but I got so nervous being on stage, that was never going to happen. He played a priest in a Chevy Chase movie and showed us clips.

He was distinctly out, but didn't care. It was 1978. When I applied to college, I had to get teacher's recommendations and he was one of the teachers I asked to write something. 

[The Red Heifer]

there's at least two i know in my year at school, but I didn't know at the time, it only came out via Facebook when one started posting about shit he was doing with his husband and the other was sharing posts about blokes in footy shorts and Bears spooning.