When did you know you were gay
Gina Battye: How I Knew I Was Queer
By Gina Battye
It all started when I was 9 years old.
I didn’t know it at the time but the tell-tale signs were present.
Signs That I Was Gay
My main school organised one of those adventure holiday things for kids in their final year; like a summer camp. We went abseiling, horse riding, canoeing and did loads of army boot-camp type activities.
You need to know something. Back then, I was a super shy, silent kid. I know, I know – it’s difficult to believe. But it’s true.
I was anxious about two things around the trip; I had drawn-out hair and struggled to tie it into a ponytail on my have and I was worried about being away from home. It was my first time away from my mum for an extended period of hour and I was really nervous about it.
Turns out, I didn’t need to worry at all. I had a really amazing teacher and LOVED doing archery, quad biking and building rafts out of sticks and barrels. It was really good fun.
I was an avid photographer, even back then. I loved to take activity pictures of my family and fri
When Did You Comprehend You Were Gay?
I grew up in the s and s. Depictions of same-sex attracted people were not flattering. It seemed to me and from what my mother told me (She was a public health nurse.), all gay men had AIDS. The very few queer men I knew did die of AIDS, though it was rarely spoken about. Other depictions of gay men were flamboyant queens, sissy effeminate men, etc.
Early on, I had hints I was gay, but I ignored them. I remember entity enthralled by Harry Hamlin in Clash of the Titans which came out in ; It was years later, though, when I first saw it on TV. When I started middle school, there was a new guy in my class. As usual, people were picking on me, and he told them to stop. He was the kind of guy who you knew immediately was going to be the leader of the pack. He was athletic, and my classmates didn’t question him. He was blond and had beautiful sky eyes. I had a crush, and I didn’t even know it. We were friends all through the recover of school; not close friends, but enough that when someone tried to bully me, he’d scare them away. Even the older kids didn’t me
People often ask me&#;-. Have you always known you were gay? I don&#;t know? I just want to ask them, hold you always known you were straight?
I guess that sounds a little rude but I couldn’t tell you an exact age that I thought YEP I am totally lesbian – adequately maybe I can but it’s all a bit of a grey area. When I watch back now I could pin point times as a younger teen that I may hold thought something was a tiny different.
Growing up I always had ‘boyfriends’ pretty much from 11 years old I mostly had a boyfriend. Without tooting my own horn I somehow managed to get some of the ‘popular’ boys to be my boyfriend! I must not own been letting any gaydar off that young then!
I guess my first REAL boyfriend was in year 6, I moved to a country town and I am fairly sure that within my first week someone was asking ‘so who do YOU like?’ it’s funny how childish that can all start. Soon enough we were ‘going out’ ahhh young relationships are so easy, you don’t really acquire to talk to each other or do anything and then I guess after a while you break up and maneuver onto the next person. I ca
My very first women’s studies class: a clause so momentous, it requires no verb.
The course title was actually Women’s Studies I took Women’s Studies the very first semester I was in college. I arrived without the slightest clue about what to expect, which did nothing to counter my lifetime’s worth of expectations. Since my early teens, I had been getting by on a haphazard assortment of Simone de Beauvoir, Anais Nin, and Bust Magazine. I was riveted by the idea of an expertly curated reading list. While we mostly deconstructed theoretical texts, we did do a unit on Stone Butch Blues, Leslie Feinberg’s classic tale of heartbreaking masculinity. It was a thrill to witness living humans discussing all of this.
I retain walking into the classroom on the first time and sitting in the center of the front row. In high educational facility, I had been a slacker of the top order, but I was not going to fail a minute of Women’s Studies The seats began to fill up and once there weren’t more than one or two still free, our professor walked in, at which point I did a reluctant double-take: My Women’s